The Best Day Ever

Today I have been made a contributor to The Red Dolphin. My charge is to document that antics of MATTIE! I thought this day would never come.

My First Gig... Drum Corps in Annapolis

So I shot my first paid photography gig last weekend. A Drum Corps International competition in Annapolis, MD. Getting on the field was a long time in the making, but very rewarding. Jolesch Photography owns all the shots, so I can't post them here, but you can view them on their site here:

Jolesch DCI Action Photos - Annapolis MD - June 16 2007

I gotta say...it was memorable. I'm as passionate a fan of Drum Corps as most dudes are about Football or other sports. So, being on the field with some of my favorite Corps, including the 2006 World Champion Cavaliers was a thrill, to say the least. I thought it was loud from the stands! It was an outstanding experience.

I thought they would be a bit more discriminating on which shots they put up on their site, and which they left out, but no...they put them all up. So, even though there are some poor shots there, I'm generally happy with how they came out.

I have two more DCI shows to shoot this month. One of them is at the NY Giants football stadium in New Jersey. That should be exciting.

Don't break the law...

I had an interesting experience today. I went to District Court to be a character witness for a friend in a messy divorce/custody dispute. While we waited for everyone to arrive etc, we sat in the courtroom and watched many other cases as they were heard by the judge. It's those cases that I wanted to comment about.

Watching the people come up and plead guilty or not guilty and have their lawyers help them, it struck me how easy it was to break the law. Most of the people were there for driving with a suspended license, driving without insurance, driving with an unregistered vehicle and in a few cases, driving under the influence of drugs/alcohol.

In every case, the driver was pulled over for something other than they thing they were in court for. Anything from following too close to having a tag light burned out. The officer would soon find out that the drivers license was suspended etc. All of these were jail-able offenses! The judge was kind, and most of the time the people were sincere. In one case, a woman was accused of driving while drunk, and of following too closely. She is 23, has recently finished her teaching degree and was entertaining offers from several public elementary schools in the area. She almost threw it all away by getting drunk and trying to drive! Seems to silly. (I'm sure she'd agree.)

What's my point? Going there and watching the cases was an eye-opening experience. It made me examine parts of my life that I wouldn't have thought about. In this case, about driving. "I DO have a license plate light that is burned out. I am missing a front plate on one of my cars." If I was pulled over for those things, I'm fairly certain that I would not have to appear in court about something else they discovered...but still. Disobedience starts with the small things that you let slide.

Watch "To Catch a Predator" on Dateline NBC. I bet most of those guys can not believe that they were about to do what they were planning. They were tricked step by step...thinking that this little act of disobedience was ok, or that little rule breaking was justifiable. A few too many of those, and they're in prison!

I think I'll go watch a few cases every few months. Not to lift myself up above the accused, but to try and humble myself, and open my eyes to other areas of my life that might need attention. Seeing the wages of sin is a sobering thing.