Bookish

I am a big fan of http://mypublisher.com/ and have made several books there.

This morning I did a book for the Stations of the Cross performance that my daughter has been participating in this Lent. (click here if you don't know what the Stations are ... Sometimes they are simply read aloud at a short prayer service during Lent; you will see scuptures of the stations on the walls of many Catholic churches)

What she is participating in is something of a mime performance, only with no invisible boxes. They are all in black clothing with white faces and stand nearly motionless until it is their turn to make a "freeze" type pose showing of one of the stations. It is organized by a teacher at a Catholic school over the river with only male students; she invites ladies from other schools, to play the role of the weeping women, Veronica, and Mary.

The overall effect of seing young people do this performance is very moving... you would be surprised at how reverent these 8th graders are. This is a committment that began with rehearsals in January and is multiple nights per week as we get closer to Easter. There is narration and singing and it is wonderful.

(I was NOT into the idea and avoided going to the first few shows - they perform at a different church service each week - until my kid called me out for not going at all... um, sorry... that's when I started posting statues and windows here.)

Last week I was able to go again and sit right near the front and photograph the entire performance. The gym was VERY bright and I could shoot without flash. (It's kind of a thing for me, to be annoyed by conspicuous photography of an event.)

So I put together a book and will be getting one for each of the 3 girls from our school, as well as the teacher who directs the whole production. I'm pretty happy with how it came out.

Long way to tell you, the photo above is the cover... I edited the tonal curve again, only not in such a ::::cough::: crazy way this time. It's cropped a bit more than I did here, using the mypublisher software. I wanted it to be a bit more like a graphic print than a straight photo, and I'm pretty happy with this version (I edited a few times, in many the cross got too dark).

Which is another way of saying, NO, I still don't have the yearbook done yet. How is everyone coming along with doing their taxes, by the way?