Playing

I woke up at 6:45 this morning, only to find ceilings of 800' overcast, canceling both my students.  At 12:15 we took Kaylee to the play and dropped her off, and the first performance was at 2 p.m.  We had seats up front, and we watched the play for a second time. Afterwards the kids signed autographs again, and a group of them/us went to Fazoli's for a very late lunch, still in their play make-up.  They had enough time to eat and get back to the auditorium, get dressed again, fix any hair/make-up that needed fixed, and the next performance started at 7 p.m.  In between, Steve and I ran out to the airport for awhile, and then came home so I could pick up my good camera.

See, they had a rule they told us at the beginning of every performance.  NO photography, no video.  They have a professional photographer who takes candid shots during the performances and then sells them back to the parents for $2 a pop.  After the first performance there were a few photos of Kaylee cut in half, the bottom half of Kaylee's dress, the back of Kaylee's head, or Kaylee hidden by other kids, but that was about it.  After the second performance there was one close-up of Kaylee on the stage, looking grim.  There were tons of pictures of a lot of the kids, but even the pictures that had the fairies in them more focused on the big Banshee Queen and the little fairies.  So I decided that was enough, and that this was my daughter's first play, and that if they weren't going to take good photos of her, *I* was.  I'm okay with following the rules, but not if they're dumb and affect me having photos of my daughter's first play. ;) So for the third performance, Steve and I came late.  Kaylee's not in it until after the intermission, which is about an hour into it.  When intermission came, we went on in, and sat in the back on the side where Kaylee stands.  I promptly dropped my lens cap down into a grate that was on the floor right by my seat.  I'm not sure who puts grates in an auditorium or what they were for, but it ate my lens cap.  Anyway.  Since photography is not allowed, I half hid my camera under my coat, but I had on my big lens on my big Canon camera, so it wasn't exactly incognito.  When the director came in and sat too close to me, I moved back several rows and more directly behind him so he wouldn't see me lifting my camera.  Flash off, zoom in, and I snapped about 35 photos of her up on stage.  Steve stayed in a different seat, and kept telling me not to get HIM in trouble.  :)

Several of the photos are blurry. I was in the back of the room, using a zoom lens, no flash, and the kids were moving, so there wasn't a whole lot I could do about that with my existing equipment, but I did get some decent ones where she'd hold still for a bit too.  One of my favorite photos of her is a blurry one, which is a bummer, but her character is not a happy flighty fairy, it's a serious, grim fairy, so most of the time her facial expressions are grim.  I got her smiling, and I thought she looked lovely, even if it was blurry.

 

After the second play, the cast members went out to Steak-n-Shake as a tradition.  Kaylee went with a couple of her friends, and they dropped her off at the house after they were all done--at 10:45 p.m.  Long day for the actors and the parents both.  We figured she'd be exhausted afterwards, but she came in the door ramped up, wired up, and talking a mile a minute.  She's still in her room at 11:45 p.m. playing a cups game over and over and over.  She will crash sooner or later here.  ;)  Here are a few of the photos. More on her site later.  :)