This week Tim and I stayed close to home and attended the Evansville Central and Mt. Vernon Invitationals.

As many of you know, the selection of the music for the trip to the show is very important. Not only does the music mentally prepare us to spend the day shooting photos of marching bands, it also purges our minds of all of the stresses that we faced during the week leading up to the show. During breakfast Tim and I discussed which album in our extensive collection we should listen to on the way to the Central Stadium. Soon it became apparent that only one album had the power to get our blood pumping and heads hyped up to shoot:

While widely considered a punk band, The Ex also developed their own style of music, which they called "sonic lobotomy." This music was not only painfully dissonant, but long term exposure to it would render the listener unable speak or maintain bladder control. THIS is what we need, we thought, so we popped the CD in the player and headed to the show!

Click here and check out "Invitation to the Dance" from the album Joggers & Smoggers

Due to an increase in the number of shows in the area and fewer bands available to perform, the Evansville Central show was smaller than in previous years. Fortunately the folks at Evansville Central had a contingency plan in place. They provided a series of carnival sideshow-like vignettes between performances that lengthened the show and entertained the audience.

One of the crowd favorites was Cowboy Leroy and The Fabulous Chris’ Wild West Lasso and Double Dutch Jump Rope Spectacular.

During an extended break in the action, a vibe that can be described only as abject ennui swept over the crowd. As a way to boost the spirit of the audience, drum major judge Art Adye walked out onto the track and engaged the crowd in a question and answer session.

Art Adye: DM judge and closet talk show host.

Since Art is a good friend of ours, Tim and I decided to join him and make it a panel discussion. The topics: marching band - covered by Art; the internets - covered by Tim; pictures and stuff - covered by me.

Following are some highlights of the nearly hour-long discussion.

This lady had a very good question for Art about the way marching band contests are judged: "If two bands get the same score at an ISSMA marching band contest, how is a winner determined?"

Art’s answer had two parts -
According to ISSMA policy, performing units do not "get points," they actually "earn educational credits" based on the complexity and execution of their performance. ISSMA likes to downplay the competitive aspect of marching band contests in favor of an environment that awards high levels of "learningness." Various levels of learningness are represented by numbers, or scores if you want to call them that; however, the numbers themselves are not important as they are only a means to an ends. Therefore ISSMA does not allow so called scores to be published. The important thing is the volume of learningness each band produces. The band that generates the most learningness in their class at an ISSMA show is deemed the most educational.

In the event that two or more bands earn the same number of educational credits at a show, "the most educational performance" is settled by a best two out of three rock-paper-scissors tournament between the directors of the bands.

This gentleman had a question about the World Wide Web site for Tim:
"w00t! heyyyy Tim, w.u.? teh 1n73rn37 iz teh r0x0r!!11111 wot iz ur f4v0r173 fps $173 2 pwn noobz?"

Tim: "Oh, I don’t know. Probably any site where there are lots of AOL users."

This Proud Princeton Parent had the following question about photography that was directed to me: "I like to take pictures of my family and friends, but I am always unsure about how much light I need. Is there a general rule about using the flash that you can tell me?"

I replied that many professional photographers use the flash quite often, even when there is adequate light. The extra light provided the flash often adds subtle, yet desirable details to photographs. To illustrate my point, check out these photos I shot at state finals last year.

Photo taken without the flash

Photo taken with The Flash

Clearly the photo taken with The Flash provides a whole new dimension not visible in the other photo.

As I have mentioned in other contest journals, it is always a treat to get together with old friends at band contests. Such was the case at the Mt. Vernon show. We ran into band mom, Mt. Vernon booster club president, and our old friend Pam Davis. Pam marched with Tim and me in high school and we have been friends ever since.

In this photo, Pam and I reminisce about the time I used her saxophone as a gravy ladle at the band mashed potato and biscuit extravaganza.

For some reason, I don't remember much after that, but according to Tim we had a good show.

What a great day! We got to spend several hours in the sun, reconnect with some old friends, and even learned that roshambo always settles the question who is the most educational.