Jack just finished a busy marching band season helping to lead his section and band into the finals of the national competition. His musical journey is just beginning, however, as he is planning to pursue musical education as a career.
Despite his general reputation of being reliable and trustworthy, when I asked him if he was a blinker in pictures, he said no in front of witnesses. I later found his blink rate was around 50% without the flash on an overcast day. Other than this failure to disclose, Jack was a cooperative and engaging subject who followed directions with the precision expected of a marching band section leader.
Because of the overcast sky and Jack’s thick crop of hair, I broke out the flash and softbox pretty early in the session to get some light into his blue grey eyes. Surprisingly, his blink rate was relatively low with the flash, considering how challenging it was to keep his eyes open at the start of the session. We couldn’t use the flash in every setting, even with his superhero mom, Emmy, holding the light on a pole, but it made a big difference when we could turn Jack’s face into the light to get the sparkle in his eyes.
A euphonium is a challenging instrument to play in itself. At my request, Jack played it standing at the edge of a hill with a softbox bobbing around and occasionally flying overhead to to light his face without throwing a euphonium-shaped shadow on his face (and that’s a big shadow). But he pressed on, despite the distraction, because that’s what band kids do.
I’m glad to see him going on to pass his enthusiasm and love of music to new generations of kids!
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