So this a little bit of a tribute and some girlie stuff too. So the situation is that I happen to be helping throw a baby shower for a friend the day of my favorite band playing this year 🙁 Soo sad but this baby shower was really important so I did what had to be done lol. I had a great time at the shower and it looked amazing as you will see from the pictures below, shhh I took them with my iPhone, don’t tell. Since I didn’t get to go to the concert I will do a little tribute and post all of my favorite past moments of precious times I was able to go. But first things first BABYS!!!!
This is a little collection of the pictures I took at the baby shower. I was crazy busy that day helping the hubby get lumber for the deck then setting up this whole thing so I gave my self a break and didn’t take me camera. Of course I should have though, I really do need to work on the whole take it with you where every you go thing. To make that easier I will be making hubby buy me an adorable purse/camera bag/ diaper bag all in one this year for christmas!!! Any way this was the party.
The whole party was butterfly theme of course and I have to give a huge shout out to http://www.ellinee.com who designed the watercolored butterflies, thank you tags and the flowers on the letter I that I made. The top left picture is silverware tied with butterflies then and adorable diaper cake done by one of the other awesome ladies throwing the shower. Then dollar store boxes with thank you tags. The large picture is of the baby to be’s room can you guess her name lol. The big letter I on the door I made out of card board and yarn. I got the idea off of pintrist, who says everyone just pins and never uses stuff from there. Pintrist saves my life all the time 🙂 . The bottom left picture is of her walk though to the kitchen that we hung butterflies from. The frame is in Isabella’s room, a friend of hers made this. It’s also an idea from pintrist lol. Yes I will be going on and on about pintrist! A friend of hers also made this really fun cake and it looked adorable, but the best was the bottom was a chocolate pumpkin cake and omg it was amazing. It’s also a pintrist recipe, that I stupidly did not get before the party ended 🙁
These are the rest of the decorations. The pom pom’s are from the party store and the onesies I cut out from a template I found on pintrist. The butterfly I punched a whole in and used fun straws in those Starbucks glass frappuccino bottles. The banner was a free printable from pottery barn kids
So that was the party and it was a great time with the girls. I think we all had a blast and I know the mommy to be got amazing stuff for little miss Isabella. So here’s the question will your child grow up and love rock and roll? Yes!!!!!! Ok everyone has their own form of rock and roll. Like for my parents it’s classic rock and people still love it. For me It is my favorite band Skillet and christian rock. Now don’t judge cause Skillet is amazing and very rock and roll ok.
I have been listening to them since their first album came out in 96. I have seen them in 5 different states, but only once in my home state. So here is the deal a couple years back I got to be one of the photographers for this huge two day concert called Awakening fest. I was asked to do it for either two or three of the years. I got to go back stage and on stage and it was great! The next year I was on my honeymoon and after that we had moved fairly far away, but the one year I wasn’t photographing guess who was playing SKILLET!!! So I went and saw them play of course, but wasn’t on stage or back stage. Keep in mind it poured buckets that year my friends and I where wet to the bone but loved every minute. However, I again did not bring my good camera and I’m very glad I didn’t because we where almost front row jumping in the mud and after they played we looked disgusting and I can’t imagine what my camera would have looked like. But here are some very rock and roll shots of all the other Awakening Fest’s I photographed with out my favorite band 🙁 . Click on Skillet’s picture (it will go to their page) select some great music to listen to as you look at all the awesome pics.I Guess I will be seeing Skillet in another state again this year lol great fans travel to she their bands, as skillet says so they can rock their face off!!!
This is the graffiti wall they did one year, it went around the whole top center part of the venue. The pictures in the bottom part are the bands back stage and your going to kill me cause its been so long I don’t even remember which bands these where. But feel free to tell me and that its horrible that I can’t remember. The image on the left is the band with some of the creators of Awakening Fest.
This Is Barlow Girl, or one of them lol. They are all sisters and they definitly fall into the catagory of strong woman. I love that, I think it was the first couple years their set was at sunset or around there so all their shots had great lighting!
These are the other two sisters the one on the right playing guitar and keyboard and the other on the drums. By the way the lead singer of skillet (his wife is in the band) she’s the one with the black hair. I saw her rocking keyboard and guitar pregnant and it was like the craziest thing I’ve ever seen, they are so amazing, love her! Just saying! Strong woman rock the world literally 🙂
and this (the bottom picture) was a great moment because she got up and read the Word and just gave this great speech about her personal experience in life and it was very touching. I’m sure it really reached a lot of young girls in the crowd so it was a really great moment.
These are some of the crowd shots you can really tell just how much these kids adore some of the great bands playing 🙂
I really loved playing around with these story board templates and putting things together and I really love this one, because well… drums rock and the way the light was hitting these I just love it. I always think it’s funny because at a venue that goes from night to day the crowd is great during the day but when the sun goes down they are even more pumped. Plus the lighting is way different.
This is one of the other things about an all day concert like this one, during the day there are kids every where having a blast. There are all sorts of things for kids like jousting, and bounce houses and face paint, but I really loved this shot of this little girl just quietly taking it all in. I think everyone has fun at these events because you can do what ever suites your personality.
Like this girl who obviously whooped the heck out of someone wahoo! I love to see kids doing that jousting stuff it is so funny. But It’s also crazy how some kids even really young ones want to be front row. I remember being at a Skillet concert having a mom get upset with me that her child who was like 8 couldn’t see. That was because um oh yea not everyone was 8 and was obviously taller. I very politely ( really I actually was ) told her I would be more worried about moshing and him getting hurt and asked her if she had ever been to one of these concerts. The answer was no and when the moshing started they “eventually” left. That’s also what I love about this venue because if you have kids and your not front row jumping like a crazy person and head banging and all that, which is normally my husband lol. Then you can still enjoy a great show while chilling in your camp chair, although I really believe that people need to at the very least stand and listen to rock and roll lol.
As you can tell there is a whole lot of standing near the stage happening when the sun goes down. These next couple of sets are of Toby Mac who one of my then roommates was in love with!! I am always amazed how many people are in his crew, I think there was seven over all. But this part of the show was so hard to shoot for two reasons, ok maybe three. One, strobe lights, drive me crazy. Two, they had so many color transitions and the lighting was really dark too. After this below you’ll see one shot where he’s silhouetted against the album logo on the dj booth. Third issue was, I love Toby Mac but I have never seen some one screw up their face so much while singing or just be eating a microphone, but he does. Maybe it’s a rap thing. I dunno, but I told my roomy who was in love with him that maybe the pictures of him posed in magazines she would like better then these, but she thinks he’s hot regardless lol.
This is what I’m saying about the Toby Mac crew there are a ton of them right? I just love how they all interact with each other all the time. Toby would be running to sing with every one and they are rocking out with each other. They are probably the most “social” on stage band I’ve seen. It’s really fun to watch, because they are never stationary for long. Well maybe the DJ.
More of them running around. The image on the right is one of the only girl of the group and she’s running up to take center stage and every one telling her to go, it’s so funny. The crowed loved them and all the moving around, I think if I remember correctly Toby even climbed part of the side of the stage up to almost where the lights were. Which was kind of crazy, but like I said the crowd loved it 🙂
The images of this guy I love, every one in the bad just has such heart and it really shows 🙂Look she was really rocking out. Everyone else is doing their thing and the guy in the top right was doing flips and all sorts of stuff, even with the strobe lights going at one point. They even picked them up, how that doesn’t blind you after a bunch of shows I have no idea.
Love this one too and just had to end the set of Toby Mac pictures with this one, it’s one of my favorites. Isn’t it funny when you shoot how some are just your favorites because they are and some cause the moment is great, but yea I just like this one.
This next set is of Jeremy Camp who I’m going to be honest with you is great, he falls in to christian rock, but he’s not metal. He is just the epitome of christian rock. Which is great, I like his stuff and have a ton of his music. It’s great stuff A+. The funny thing is though that the year it rained and I got to see skillet he was the headliner and Skillet “opened” for him. Which was hilarious, because they pretty much closed the concert for him. Basically what happened is that this is a two day concert and Jeremy Camp is one style and Skillet another. Skillet a little harder rock if you will. Well they should have put Jeremy on the second day with the more christian rock stuff then with all the harder bands. Because the crowd that whole day stood all day in the rain to hear skillet, went crazy, mud everywhere, and when Jeremy Camp came up for his set there was a mass exodus. You could tell who where Jeremy’s fans and who’s where Skillets, covered in mud they all booked out. Me included, like I said I like Jeremy Camp but just not enough to continue standing in the rain with wet sneakers and muddy jeans. Luckily the year I got to photograph him, no rain lol. As you can tell he puts on a good show, just no moshing.
This is Jeremy Camp 🙂
They had some fun lighting too, as you can tell mostly red and orange. Let me know what you think of some of these, I had fun and I like them but I’m always nervous about how people perceive the lens flare.
Well as you can tell I love me some good drum shots and I just love all the “fog” in this one. What’s funny is later in the night if i’m remembering correctly it did get a little foggy in parts of the venue because there is a big hill at the top and it kind of makes a little valley.
Well it’s sad but my favorite out of these is the bottom one with all the cell phones. Gone are the lighters and the risk of lighting the girl in front of you’s hair on fire. Now everyone uses cell phones and instead of a great warm glow from the lighters it’s a blue cast of start up screens lol. I also kinda dig the blue shot in the middle where his head is the lens flair, I know it’s wrong but I kinda like it lol.
His whole crew except the drummer.
Ha every time I see this pic I just wish people could have been there, because yea he’s doing the whole point to God thing but it’s always is a really powerful moment. That’s one thing that I have to give him, it’s not metal, but is very moving. And not in a it sounds like a love song kind of way, but in a this is the real life issues and things we should be focusing on kind of a thing.
Ok this is the last, last one. Even out of the Jeremy Camp stuff and I’m ending on this on because I like it and I think it rocks. Please let me know what you guys think, If you’ve ever had to miss seeing your band to go to something completely the opposite like a baby shower or a really formel wedding. The stuff we do for friends. Well I have to say I haven’t got to see a really awesome rock concert since my little one ( now a year and a half) was born. I am in serious need or rock. I mean I have to settle for cranking my music obesely loud as I roll into the church parking lot when the in-laws or hubby have the baby. I do always love the look the old people give me, they never say anything, but I alway want to be like “what it’s christian rock”. Anyone else suffering from a serious lack of rock in their life? I mean I used to crank it up while i’m in the shower and now I’m lucky if I get a shower let alone get to spend it not listening to see if the baby woke up. The things you didn’t know you’d give up for your kids lol. But he will be a metal head one day, he will lol.
