Ethnic Festival 2010

Not sure how this post is going to turn out because I'm having trouble arranging my pictures, so please bear with me.  I was the band photog this weekend while the guys played on Saturday.  We had a great time and so did the kids, even coming home at 2am did not seem to get them too off track.  I'm just thankful I thought ahead and packed pjs for all of them.  During the evening show I made the back of the suburban into a bed and I sat outside with my mother-in-law while they slept with the back window open.  It was a perfect evening and the kids enjoyed "camping" so much Ella keeps asking to sleep in the car.  The only thing they didn't like was being woken up to get back in their carseats for the drive home.

The kids had a blast with their cousins, jumping on the blow up jumpers, doing the chicken dance and playing with their door prizes!  I completely skipped out on taking pictures of Gwen and Macy.  I did however manage to take 401 pictures of everything else.  Go figure.

Mark has now developed a new music talent playing the steel guitar.  Self taught I must add.  He's so incredibly talented, I have no idea how you teach yourself how to play an instrument!  By the way, I must put in this disclaimer.  The rest of the pictures were from the evening dance that was held in a completely dark gym.  I am already struggling to learn to improve my photography skills and then they throw me into a dark room.  I did not use a flash in any of these and tried to just work with the band's stage lights.  It proved to be extremely difficult because I also did not want to turn my ISO to the highest setting and get grainy images.  Plus, if I put my shutter speed to slow I would get a lot of blur.  So, photog friends, ADVICE please on how to figure this out.  I haven't edited these at all, but I think I could brighten and fix my color balance in LR to solve some of my problems.

This is the guitar/mandolin that Mark and his friend Ben made.  Isn't beautiful.  Mark just recently gave it this new paint job and replaced the hardware with some flashy stars inlaid into the fret board and colorful pick guard.  I love it!  I use to think he was pretty cool to play two instruments during the show, but now three while singing......crazy.  I told him he needs to attach a harmonica to his face and he would be a one man show.

The new drum head they just had made really stands out!  If you want a bumper sticker for your car we have them now that looks just like this!