Gnumoon's Stuff

Happy Monday: Appalachian football and new music

It finally stopped raining. Woohoo! But not until we all got to get waterlogged at football on Saturday, oh well. As you can see from the photos, it was a lovely day for football in the high country.

Not much else of note happened this weekend. I think I finally changed out of my pajamas to go to the grocery store around 5 pm yesterday. I did rock out a spectacular made-up meal in the crock pot, though, so that's good.

BlueRidgeBlog turned me on to a new, hip, hot way to post my halloween playlists...let's see if it works, eh? I'm 6 songs behind, so here we go:

Hell Bells - AC/DC. No explanation needed, except that I'm conditioned to cheer for a 3rd down stand when I hear the actual bells. Other AC/DC songs that deserve inclusion are Who Made Who (From the spectacular Maximum Overdrive) and Highway to Hell. 

Boris the Spider - Who. Perhaps it's a bit of childish presaging for Roger Daltrey's turn as "Argon the Bus-driving Dragon" in the Wheels on the Bus series.

Spellbound - Lacuna Coil

Tombstone Shadow - Creedence Clearwater Revival. I like this one, but I really do not like Bad Moon Rising, which everyone seems to include as a great Halloween song. Since it's my list, the one gets da boot.

Ghost Town - The Specials. Too much fighting on the dancefloor ...

Psycho Killer - Talking Heads. Fa fa fa fa fa fa fa fa fa fa.

BONUS SONG! This is not technically a Halloween song, but Goonies was on last night, and I think Chunk, Sloth, the Fratellis, Data, Rand (with awesome shorts over pants costuming) or Cyndi Lauper would be perfectly acceptable costumes. {For bonus points, you could go as Data 2.0, and combine this Data and the one from TNG.}

Goonies R Good Enough - Cyndi Lauper

Run Devon Run!

I finally got around to editing my football stuff from last weekend. Yay me.

More youth sports photography

So I didn't really follow up on shooting the high school basketball deal. I got some orders, but nothing of the "I should quit my job and give this a go!" variety. That's the kind of clarity I need in decision-making.

But then more youth sports stuff started popping up on my radar screen, and I've been doing some and putting off some. Last weekend I spent an abysmal 7 hours shooting teams of screaming spoiled brats while their annoying-ass mothers whined at me over one damn thing or another. It was decidedly not worth the payout at the end of the shoot. Luckily, I was assisting someone else, so when the last shutter clicked, I took my money (again, not enough to justify the time or effort), trudged to my car, and drove away. If I never see that park or any of those kids again it will be okey-dokey fine with me.

But that's good, right? It's important to know what you DON'T want to do. And I DON'T want to take individual and team photos of little leaguers. Photos that are then inserted into godawful templates and sold at an astounding markup. See, that's the thing ... these shots aren't hard to light, hard to shoot, or hard to produce in any way, yet they make the most cash. It's like with every *click* you can feel a part of your cred as a photographer take a hit, like Link losing life points in Legend of Zelda. I'm afraid if I shot this type of thing too often, I'd go onto autopilot and eventually the red screen would flash and signal the RETURN OF GANON. (Too nerdy a comparison? Sorry, it's really late.)

But my husband is coaching a team of tee-ballers, and damn if they aren't the cutest kids. They are 4-5 years old, and they play ball by swarm, meaning that if the ball gets smacked toward second base, well, 12 kids truck over toward second base. It's hilarious. I've been shooting some action stuff of them, mostly just sitting in the grass with Pookie in my lap and the big lens on the camera. Here's one game, and here's another.
So ... I'm giving the team/individual photos thing another shot, hoping that my own cataloging system will make more sense to me than the ones I've seen, and that my templates won't assault the senses the way most I've looked at do.

Also, I've gotten some nasty looks from other photographers on the sideline, like "How DARE you shoot on my field?". You know what, though? I'm very used to being marginalized in industry, so bring it on. Don't think I didn't notice the little "So, photography is a GREAT hobby for a mother! I bet you take nice shots of your baby" jab. I kinda wish I'd had the stones to retort, "Gee, I know! I sure do hope this Mark II is up to the challenges of princess parties and playdates!"
But, no.  I will smile sweetly and be nice when you come up to me at a game with half the equipment and a quarter of the experience and try to strongarm me into leaving your perceived turf.
Turf? Shit, these are LITTLE KIDS, not MLB stars. Leave the attitude to the big boys. You know, the ones on the college and professional sidelines.  

Bling bling and skinny genes

gI thought this was funny ... my photo of Tyler Hansbrough (last post) and the AP's photo. I think I might have been sitting near them, whatcha think? It did my ego some good to look through the wire photos and see that mine were on that level. I'm not generally impressed with myself, but it was nice to know that my work is basically industry-standard.

We had the National Championship banquet this weekend, where all the guys received their rings and we ate and drank and listened to speakers talk about stuff. (I was paying lots of attention, can you tell?) I was feeling pretty in a nice White House/Black Market dress that ended up being practically the same thing that everyone else was sporting - Black cocktail-length dress? Check! National Championship pendant? Check! Black heels? Check! We are GO for banquet!

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This weekend I noticed 2 things that made me sad for this country. The first was this article. Seriously. Whaaaa? The second was this ad for "skinny jeans for baby" from Old Navy. Huh? Skinny jeans for your BABY?  Let me tell you something, Old Navy. My baby inherited the thigh genes from me, and I don't want her cursing me for it until she's at least 13. "Skinny jeans" in a size 6-12 months won't even fit on her chunky little arm.
The more I think about it the more it pisses me off.
Babies are supposed to have some meat on them 1.so they won't get dangerously underweight should they get sick 2. So that they have room to grow vertically and 3. So they have energy reserves for when they start walking and running around.
I'm adding this to all the other levels that skinny jeans offend me on.

Tarheels and Cougars

Last night's trip down to Charlotte turned out to be a lot of fun in an "I'm an observer of the human condition" kind of way. Washington State was happy to be there; their players and fans were polite and excited. UNC expected to be there; their players and  fans were kind of looking past this game to the next.

The bigtime AP photogs were mostly male and mostly jackholes, as usual. There were (I counted) 5 women on the 2 combined baselines, but with 36 photo spots, that still isn't a large percentage at all. Alas, sports photography remains a boys' club.

Of the 5 women, one of them had most of the AP shots this morning, and also had the experience of getting absolutely creamed by a player last night who couldn't seem to stay on the court. I think her ankle may have gotten broken, and I snagged a couple of her cameras before the guy could fall all over them. It was a nasty collision, and it could have been any of us.

Other observations:
-Tyler Hansbrough seems to be physically incapable of shutting his mouth. He has a dazed, slack-jawed expression in all of my shots. I'm not a follower of UNC, but a quick Google search tells me this is his default. Good thing he's such a badass on the floor.

- The Media Hospitality room is where reporters, SIDS, photographers, and the like go to 1. Impress and bigtime each other and 2. Shovel as much free food into their gaping maws as is humanly possible. This phenomenon is no different if you are at a D-II wrestling match or the Sweet Sixteen. {Gossipy bit: A certain major North Carolina school's radio guy was pretty much holding court over the BBQ while letting his media minions come over and pay homage to him and kiss his ass. *eye roll*}

- I pumped in the parking lot. I have now pumped at 2 major NCAA sporting events and about 6 regular-season games. I think I deserve a cookie (but not one with milk).

- Tennessee played after UNC/WSU. Being a native of that state, I was powerless to stop the appropriately-placed "Whoo!" that escaped my lips as the band struck up "Rocky Top." I know all the verses of that song, which is, I believe, one of the finest ever written about moonshine.

I'm sure there are more things to be told about my evening, but honestly I am too exhausted right now to remember them all.

My super-sweet 16 and internet idiocy

I thought my basketball shooting season had ended with the 'Neers' loss in the 'les, but apparently not. I'm heading down tomorrow to shoot a little-known tournament game that is too insignificant to even
really mention. I'm sure none of you will be tuned in (if you are, look for me on Washington State's side ... I'm there to shoot the UPSET, BABY!) I asked for a shot list and was told "The big white guy." Easy peasy lemon squeezy.

I am mostly hoping that someone takes out Hansbrough again and I am the only shooter on that side and that my shots of the kerfuffle end up in all the major news outlets. Probably won't happen, but I'll be there just in case.

This next bit is completely un-basketball-related. Consider this photo of Pooks in the bath your segue. I love this shot - it's good from a photography standpoint AND a mommy standpoint. (I'll discuss my weekend with the FONG diffuser later.)

Since I was first pregnant oh so long ago, I have frequented an online message board for mothers, expectant mothers, women who are hoping to be mothers, and all other interested parties.

I was able to overlook the proliferation of ridiculous acronyms (TTC = trying to conceive, DH = Dear Husband, LO = Little one, AF = Aunt Flo (that's yer period)) and I've been fairly successful at keeping my cynical nature hidden, since most of the women are fairly nice and going through the same things that I am. (The groups are arranged by your child's birth date, so you are in a group with women whose pregnancies progress at the same time as yours. Rocket science, yes?)

In the past months I've become less active in the group and have morphed into more of an observer. The women who I consider to be like me are more "lurkers" due to time constraints, while the ones who seem to have nothing better to do than bitch about things on a message board (and make blinking scrolling shiny signatures that seem to belong more on MySpace) are the big posters. They have a million bits of badly-worded and horribly-spelled advice about parenting and about why their way is much much better than yours, but I don't see how they have time to DO any actual parenting, since they are constantly posting shit on the internet.

I think it's time to leave the group, and I've been feeling this coming on for some time now. One girl (woman, technically, although I think she's 18ish and her maturity level is even lower than that) called me negligent for putting my baby in daycare "where everyone knows that babies are rutinely (sic) hurt".
I held my tongue about the reason she is afforded the luxury of being a SAHM (stay-at-home-mom), which is that my tax dollars pay for her to sit on her lazy ass and play on the internet all day. (This same girl once made the brilliant statement that formula feeding was better because hers was WIC so it was free and she wouldn't have to mess up her "perfect tits".)

Tonight's example of "reasons I should leave before I go up to the virtual belltower" was during an innocent conversation about how it seemed that the breastfed babies in the group seem to be hitting some developmental milestones a little bit slower (crawling, walking, etc.) and some faster (talking). It was benign enough until someone freaked out because we were "obviously" insinuating that she had stuck a bottle in her baby's mouth at 2 days old and plopped the kid on the ground to fend for herself. I didn't point out how paranoid and guilty her knee-jerk reaction of a post sounded. The fact is that this group of women are more interested in tearing each other down than sharing tips and stories, and I don't have time or energy for that.

I wish there was a more targeted mommy group for people like me. I'm not interested in blinking "siggies" or fighting about elective C-sections or posting "piccies" of who has the hottest DH (or SO). I want a PBS mommy board to float on in the neverending seas of Fox. Not because I'm a snob, but because I have a brain that I prefer to use, and I would love to find like-minded mothers. They MUST exist somewhere.

Headspin!

Here's a strange photo I took over the weekend. happy monday.

Youth sports photography

For years I've said, "You know where I bet there's some money to be made? In youth sports! I bet parents would pay a bunch for action shots of their precious snowflakes inbounding a ball!" Well, it turns out that my cousin, whose daughter is a basketball phenom, completely agrees with me. (Yes, she's related to me, and yes, we're pretty sure that she somehow inherited all the athletic genes that were allocated for our entire family)

I shot her playing some ball a week or so ago (I was just there and happened to have my cameras), and
gave some prints to her parents. Based on those prints alone, both the teams that were playing want me to come and shoot for them. So tomorrow I am making the trek to a no-doubt terribly lit high school gym to see how far I can push my cameras and equipment. (ISO 3200? Sure! That grain makes it seem more "Hoosiers", you know. Authentic!)

In preparation for the onslaught of parents waving money at me (in my mind, they're all pushing each other out of the way like the townspeople trying to buy Wonka bars from the candyman) I signed up for an internet-based service that collect orders, handles payments, and prints and ships the photos. I just don't have time to do all the processing. I'll be doing well to get the shots edited and turned around in a decent amount of time. Here's the site, if you want to critique...most of the work has been done after 1am the past two nights, so be gentle.
At this point, the photos are placeholders. The Merlefest ones are live, but it was only to test uploading time- I don't plan to actually sell any of those (maybe there's a Bela Fleck stalker out there who will prove me wrong).

In other news, my baby loves to take baths more than she loves to harass the dog. And that is saying something.

In other other news, this news makes me sad to hear. Back in '90 or so, I was in love with him, although I admit to being wooed also by the siren song of Kurt Browning and his quadruple lutz.
Later, skater. I'll think of you fondly whenever I see your half-second stunt double spot in The Lost Boys.

Gameday at the Rock (City)

DJ and Pooks taking in the Chattanooga morning sunlight through the hotel window; a fleeting eddy of tranquility in a roaring river of a day.

Just a few hours to go until kickoff. Honestly, I welcome it...this has been a long trip (perhaps traveling with a six month old is a long trip no matter what), and I'm ready to get this party started. We've seen some real media coverage here- Fox Sports radio in L.A. even picked up the feed for the game. Makes me REALLY hope we don't go out there and screw it all up. Come on guys, focus focus focus.

A good time was had by all last night at the annual brouhaha at Big River- Pooks was a real trooper and we managed to stay out much later than I'd anticipated. She was enthralled by the people, the lights, and the noise. She's a party animal.

In non-game-hoopla news, one of my cousins had her baby (we're still waiting on the other one), and he was a big ol 9 pounder named Sam. I'm still waiting for photos, but I've been assured by my aunt (and a proud new grandma) that he is "fat and beautiful".

ps- I just saw on Rush.com that the Snakes and Arrows tour will continue into next summer, with another scheduled stop in Charlotte. I'll have to try to snag some photo passes to that, esp. since i won't be 4 days postpartum!

Time to hit the championship road

Almost time to go.