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The Format - "Interventions and Lullabyes" (2003- Elektra Records)...good, all-American pop-rock My Photographs You like photos? I love taking them. Click here, if you wanna see some of my work
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Monday, Nov. 01, 2004 - 8:38 p.m. Like what? How about an isolated (severe) thunderstorm roaring through around 3 am the day of the wedding, ripping the reception tent and its stakes completely out of the ground, plastering it against Rube and Sam�s big pole barn:
If you look at the bottom of this photo, you can see what was left of the decorated tables that Lease and her sisters had spent all evening Friday decorating. The tent also had tons of orange and purple lights strung inside, along with many other decorations. All thrown around by the high winds of this tiny cell (we had almost no rain here at Casa Roadiepig, less than 7 miles away). The tent was so badly damaged, they just called up the tent company and had them come out and take it down. Several people worked on salvaging what was left of the decorations, and others moved the tables into the small, unfinished pole barn behind this larger one. Sam had hastily put the smaller one together in time for the wedding, so he would have a place to put all of his mechanical tools and equipment (usually stored in the big barn) for the wedding. By the time we made it to the house Saturday morning (around 9 am), Rube had already drug all of Sam�s stuff out of the small barn, leaving everything outside for the day. Now, the unfinished pole barn had to be the food serving area, dirt floor or not. That meant we also had to get the overhead door installed (Sam hadn�t plan on doing that until after the wedding), an entry set/lock had to be installed on the entry door (I accomplished that task), and all of the tables and decorations needed to be set up. In less than 4 hours�. With plenty of people short of temper, nerves frazzled to the quick, this monumental task was completed with only minutes to spare.
Oh yeah- one more bit of bad luck� The hog roaster managed to run all night, even through the high winds and torrential downpour. That�s the good news. The bad news? Well� The butcher who sold Sam the hog told him to figure on 1 hour for every 10 pounds of processed weight. The original plan was to buy a 130 to 140 pound hog. That way, Sam could set the alarm for 3 am to start the cooking process. The hog should have been ready to take off of the fire at around 6 pm, leaving an hour to cool down and carve the beast. Instead� The butcher gave them a bargain on a bigger hog. I think he charged them the same price, but the new hog weighed in at 190 pounds. Yes, that meant we needed 19 hours to cook the pig. Which meant we had to get him into the roaster by 11 pm, just to leave enough time to complete the job. Since none of us had ever done this job before, we were all going at it blind. We mounted the carcass onto the rotating spit thing (whatever it is called), wrapped the entire mess with chicken wire (so nothing would fall off of the bone near the end of the cooking process), and then tried to put the spit-thing onto the motor. One problem? We had it sticking out too far on one end. This meant we had to try to pry the pig away from the wall (slowly accomplished), remove several bolts holding vents on the side (the chicken wire kept getting caught in them), and then crossed all of our fingers that the motor (Sam salvaged it from a very old air compressor) would hold out long enough to complete the job. Amazingly, it did make it through the night, working just the way it should. But� After the thunderstorm moved through, a very strong low-pressure system roared in behind it. This kept the winds blowing all day. How strong were the winds? Try a constant 25-30 mph, with gusts reaching 45 mph! What did that do to the cooking of the hog? Try this experiment at home sometime- get a fire going in your backyard charcoal grill. Use a bunch of charcoal, so you have nice, glowing briquettes going. Then, take a large, industrial grade fan, set it up next to the grill, and turn it on. Make sure you set it to �high�. You will be amazed how quickly everything burns, given all of that extra oxygen. So, because of all of that wind, when I opened the lid on the roaster at 9 am, I saw this:
Just a little too much heat� The pig was done by 3 pm. We had to dump water on the charcoal all day, just to keep it from being too overdone. Did it turn out edible? Nobody complained to us about it. I ended up carving the large chunks Sam and Ty removed from the cooker. People kept coming back for seconds, telling me how good it was. By the time the eating was done, there was only a small amount of left-over pork remaining in the disposable metal roasting pans. I would consider that a success� The ceremony? My digital locked up on me a couple of important times, and the flash just isn�t powerful enough to be of much good if I stand more than 12 feet from the subject. I ran out of film right after the bride and father made it to the stage, forcing me to use the digital for a few frames until the new film was ready to use. I didn�t have my assistant (Codeman) because he ended up running the music and lighting instead of helping me. So thing could have run smother. That said, I still have an unbelievable amount of photos to edit (I shot over 450 frames, and I fell that at least 300 of them should be �usable�), so I haven�t decided what photo I like the best at this time. I will say I am very glad I used the old Canon Rebel for the actual ceremony. Without it, I wouldn�t have had many good shots from where I was standing off to the side. The photographer from the Mohall newspaper didn�t mind sticking his lens right into the actual vows (something I would never do, but I think he had the bride and grooms blessing, so�):
And this isn�t the closest he put his lens: in another shot, you can see his hands and his camera, towering above my niece�s left shoulder. He couldn�t have been more than 2 feet from bumping into her (I think that shot ended up in the Sunday paper, so I guess he knew what he was going for) I do have to share this photo with you, though:
All I can say is I am very glad the camera didn�t jam up on me on this most pivotal of shots for any wedding ceremony�.
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