Games were running about an hour behind at the regional Babe Ruth baseball tournament tonight. 
I was upset and knew I was going to lose all the light by the time the game I needed began. At least I was rewarded with a killer sunset during pregame warm ups.
Some stuff from the ropes course yesterday. I've felt very much like this guy all week, trying to get my balance and desperately clinging to any support I can find. But I'm starting to see the light.
By the way, I so totally mastered the course yesterday. I have been up on the tower before, but always cheated and took the little ladder in the back. This time they made me do the log climb and the wire walk, and I rode the little zip line down. The wire walk was tricky because I had all my camera gear hanging from my neck. It was scary, but what I was mostly afraid that some photographer from one of the other newspapers would roll up while I was dangling up in the air.
I don't know why, but sometime yesterday afternoon I caught Harry Potter fever. To clarify, I did not sport a cape and I have no interest in reading the books. After all the hype and the build up, though, I started to get excited about the event. 
So when I saw I had to shoot a Harry Potter parade at the library today, I decided to take full advantage. I shot a series of portraits of kids dressed as Harry Potter characters, asked them a few questions and bang, I had a slideshow. Actually it took longer to put together than I thought, but I think it was worth it.
This little guy was my favorite. He was this stout little Romanian kid, proudly wearing a garbage-bag cape while clutching a copy of his favorite Harry Potter book. I didn't get good audio from him since he didn't speak English very well, but I stuck him in the slideshow anyway. Check it out below.
So there's a quasi company softball team, made up of mainly sports reporters and their drinking buddies. I heard they were bad. Actually, terrible.
So when a couple of them asked me to come shoot their game, I wasn't quick to agree. I ended up doing it anyway, mostly because I figured it would be a great opportunity to get some embarrassing photos of some of my colleagues. 
They actually played better than advertised, so to balance it out I shot worse than expected. The full take is up in a gallery here.
The Drum Corps International show comes to town today, and I spent the morning shooting The Cadets marching rehearsal. It was way hot, but it was good times. I've always thought these drum and bugle corps groups were just the coolest. I actually tried out for one when I was in college (It ended pretty badly...don't ask). While I can still find musical outlets and play for community bands and such, there really is no way to repeat the marching experience once you leave school. So today, I live vicariously through the people in these photos.
The first was from a local flower shop. I saw them unloading a truck full of flowers as I was driving by, and figured it would make a nice photo. But when I approached the workers, one of which was the owner, I got derailed. The business had just moved into a new building, and the owner was all excited to tell me about it. 'You got to see this,' 'look what we're gonna do here,' 'just wait til we finish the upstairs' and so on. By the time he calmed down the unloading had finished and my photo was gone. But I had to feed the beast, so I hung around a bit and got them working in their new space.
Here I am tilt framing my ass off. I didn't end up filing it, but I do like the composition. Photo purists be damned. 
I did find it humorous that the podium was placed right next to the strip mall bathroom sign. Poor Dick Trammel. Is there any event he won't be a part of?
And apparently you don't have to be a competing photographer to have Bob Coleman shoot over your shoulder.
This is my favorite photo of the day. In fact, it may be my favorite in several weeks. Here a performer takes a text message on his phone while he goes over the song book backstage before the performance. I'm standing on a chair beside him trying not to drop my camera as it dangles over his head.
And I thought this was cool. A big red barn, a cello player and a little fill flash equals photo gold.
An outtake from yesterday's pre Fourth of July fireworks display. I like it. I didn't realize I had this until I looked back over my film today.
I freelanced another Roller Derby event over the weekend. It was the Arkansas Killbillies vs Dallas' Assassination City. So of course there was a little Texas hating in the stands.
It was good times, at least once I got past some lighting issues. I had just spent a few hours trying to run lights at an outdoor rodeo arena, so I was not enthusiastic about setting up more lights for the roller derby. When one of my sync cords didn't work, I had to get creative.
I did have a chord to connect my pocket wizard to my camera flash, so I clamped my small camera flash behind one of the white lightnings. That way when I fired my little flash, the slave on the White lightening would make the big light fire. I didn't think it was actually going to work and sync correctly, but it did. After modifying the slave sensor so only my close up flash would set it off, I was back in business
"Blackzilla" throws down in an arm wrestling match
Clearly a good time had by all.
When the Austin City Limits lineup came out, my sister delighted in telling me Icelandic icon Bjork would be among the headliners. I think she was expecting a big reaction from the name, but I never really considered myself to be a Bjork fan. I know why she would assume as much. Several years ago I wouldn't stop talking about "Dancer In The Dark," the Lars von Trier movie staring Bjork and a whole soundtrack of her music. I was obsessed with the CD, Selmasongs, for a while. It was so inventive and exciting and depressing. Very depressing (I've seen the movie dozens of times, but I've only watched the ending three times because it makes me start bawling). When her next CD came out and it wasn't another album full of Selmasongs, Bjork and I parted ways.
