STHS Performing Arts

Photos from this past weekend’s performance for Holtzman Elementary, the football game at Mechanicsburg and the Red Land show were posted earlier in the week.  From a photographer’s perspective, West Shore Stadium is pretty dark around the center of the field and the light post on the 50 in front of the stands makes my job hard.  But this past weekend was somewhat of a twilight show with a 7pm-ish performance time so I decided to break out the monster lens (“bigma” as it’s called) that I used at J. Birney Crum last season and do some features.

I know that quite a few of the photos from my sites make their way around to Facebook, MySpace and other places and I’m generally ok with that if you credit where they are from or at least leave the watermarks intact as the copyright/terms of use/creative commons license say.  The site is targeted to parents and alumni as much as they are current students as well.  Given that there was a reasonable amount of light and I was using I was able to target individuals for features.  Some of these may be submitted for the high school yearbook later on, some of these will be posted on Facebook by myself or others, but hopefully you just enjoy being featured.  There’s no real reason as to who get’s featured, even though I did favor the guard more during this show as it is harder to capture the work in darker stadiums.  Being closer to the 50 and the fact that I am generally outside the 40s aiming in might have something to do with what sets are in there, but it’s whatever looks good at the moment.  I am not always able to judge or screen for technical accuracy, but I do try to make an effort when it’s only one person, so if there is something that’s really off and noticeable I’ll take it down.

For those who are willing to sign a model release and allow me to use the featured photos in my portfolio as I try to book more projects or enter them into contests, I’ll give you a free copy of the print.  For those who don’t want to be photographed individually, I can’t make any promises for formation, section or group photos but I’ll keep you out of anything on an individual level.  Just let me know.

If you have any comments on the photos, drop me a note, I’m always interested in feedback.  I accept requests throughout the season for band, indoor guard, musical, art/scenery/landscapes/places for my personal galleries so tell me what you are interested in seeing.  While you’re at it, take a minute to become a fan of Susquehanna Township Performing Arts on Facebook.  The address is http://www.facebook.com/STPerformingArts/.

While I’ve fallen behind on design work and filling in the old updates, I’m getting things ready for this year.  I’m working on adding 2009 to all the marching band menus and updating the pricing.  I’ve added the option to frame everything using some standard frames that I’ve found.  I’ve been checking out labs, stores, and attending seminars througout the past couple months and I will try to add more items of interest to the photo ordering soon.  I’ve been wanting to edit that for quite a while and only recently updated the photo info and pricing.  This is based on a new lab and what off the shelf frames I can get my hands on rather than the expensive pricing for custom framing at the lab.  11×14″ seems to be the standard print that you’ll get from the event (at least what I saw in Wildwood) and I am doing my best to offer a better product in terms of variety of individuals and sections, scene and set staging from someone that knows the group and the show, and still offer something for less than the cost at the event.  On top of that, I guarantee that everything will ship flat whether it’s framed or not because I don’t want to damage the photos and I’ve just started trying to frame my stuff that’s been curled in a box for over 10 years and it’s not fun.

Some of the other additions this weekend: I finally went through and processed all of the 2008 season videos that were given to me many months ago by Dave Miller along with the 2008 video from the top of Chambersburg’s stadium.  The quality may not be the best because I propped the camera on something instead of shooting with a tripod.

I’ve released the Susquehanna Township Performing Arts page on Facebook, so check it out and let me know what you would like posted and what you would like to see from me this year.  I encourage everyone to invite and tag your friends, and I will do my best to upload and tag something for all of the students and alumni if I have something in my collection.

Here’s my announcement for 2007, offer expires March 31.

What I Want: I’m looking for any photos, videos, recordings, programs, other items related to STSD music. This could be from a personal collection, family, friends, and there’s the possibility that archives exist at the schools but nobody really knows. There are also teachers who assign reviews as projects or extra credit and require tickets or programs as proof. Whatever it is, find it & get it to me, and whatever it is, I will return it after I duplicate it and will post it on one of my various sites with the appropriate credits. Submissions will not be resold.

The Reward: Anyone who submits something will be credited on the appropriate site. I will offer several $25 gift cards drawn every month as a reward to all who participate. If you locate something prior to 1998 it’s worth $50, and something extremely rare/unique could be worth more. You don’t have to be an STSD student, employee or alumni, you just have to get the goods.

Disclaimer: This is my offer and my money. I’m doing this because I’m a nice person and I think that there are people out there that have things saved and have forgotten about them or just don’t realize they had it. You can’t submit something each month to get another entry. Just please give me everything up front and I will see that you at least get something for your trouble. If this causes problems or I get complaints, the offer ends. When the offer ends, don’t let that discourage you from sending stuff to me.

That is all.

I just uploaded my latest photo project a couple days ago and it’s on my personal site. It’s possible that you’ve seen articles in the paper around Christmas about General George Washington’s invasion of Trenton on Christmas Day. Well, they reenact his crossing of the Delaware River on Christmas day, and I’ve photographed it for the last two years.

This year I was given a press pass so I could get up close, and having the new Canon Digital Rebel XT was helpful as well. Some of my photos from last year are already on their website at http://www.ushistory.org/washingtoncrossing/. Since they crossed this year, they will be using more of my photos on the website and for PR purposes.

Photos are at http://www.nrs2.org/gallery/view_album.php?set_albumName=album202

For the 3rd year in a row, I will also be putting together a selection of marching band pictures for the yearbook. I’m sure that after they see my musical photos they’ll want to use some of those shots as well. It happens. Musical photos will be posted at www.sthsmusical.org. Buy your tickets now, and buy photos of your friends, buy the “formal” cast photo if you’re in the cast, stage crew photos if you’re in crew. I’m finalizing the pricing and details now. Money from the photo sales go to cover my expenses in operating the sites, and a portion of the profits will be donated to the music boosters. Buy a band photo and money goes to the band. Buy musical photos and money goes for improvements to the stage.

I’ll be posting some stage crew photos as it comes closer to tech rehearsal time, and I will probably post at least one set of dress rehearsal photos too. It’s a dress rehearsal for me too so I can become familar with the show, figure out the key shots for different scenes and the special effects, as well as making sure I get all the equipment setup properly. Photo requests are being accepted now.

It’s also very likely that I will need a few people at the musical to handle order processing and help people navigate the collections and keep an eye on things while I am setting up before the show, and during intermission and after the show until I am able to stow the hardware and get back to the table. Cast and crew members won’t be able to do this, but anyone else would be appreciated. The pay is a free ticket for the show, maybe more if sales are good.

Oh, if you’re feeling generous and want to Paypal me a couple bucks, that would be appreciated too.

Work is progressing slowly. So far, I’ve made the changes to all of the main pages, boosters, concert band, jazz band, and 1997-98, 1998-99 marching band pages, including the thumbnail galleries. Although there are some shortcuts with FrontPage that will allow me to speed up the process, this site contains several thousand pages when you include the photo galleries, so please be patient while I am working on this. I hope to have everything finished and tested by the end of July.

Due to the responsibilities and requirements of the Resident Assistant position at Penn State, my time to attend shows this fall will be limited, as I am only permitted a certain number of weekends off. Once the full schedule is available, I will make a decision on when I will be able to leave, and if there are other shows that are within a reasonable distance from Reading, I may be able to leave for a few hours in order to see the performance and leave immediately afterwards. I would greatly appreciate it if there were any individuals out there that might be able to photograph or video tape some of the shows for me. Digital photos are preferred, but videos I can at least screen capture if it comes down to it.

As usual, please contact me with any questions, problems, errors, or content contributions.

Imaging work is complete and I am working on my laptop so everything will be ready for the next show. Check back tomorrow for the site updates. However, it will be a little longer until you will be able to download full resolution photos. As a full time student and with setup on the new equipment, I am extremely busy and I am doing the best I can to get things updated here. Partial updates are available, I figured it was better to post them than have nothing up at all. I originally expected to have them done within a day or two, but I am not sure about that. My timeline now seems to be Friday at the latest.
Email is now available, if you are interested, complete the form and I will get you setup within 48 hours. This is the only way I can process requests because you must agree to the policies. If you have any questions, let me know.

Site updates will take place as time allows over the next few days. I will be at the Lancaster Catholic show on Saturday, and will have photos from this show and prior performances online by Wednesday. Following the latest round of updates, free email will be available to any and all current/former band members, staff members, band parents, supporters who are interested. You can pick whatever address you want @sthsband.org and have it as a regular email account, web based email, or have it forward to your address of choice. Details after this weekend.