previous / next

Last Friday was the Northern New Jersey Youth Orchestra's (NNJYO) Winter Concert. I work for the orchestra as administrative manager and perform various duties, one of which includes designing and printing the programs for each concert.

This years winter concert was dedicated to the memory of the young man who was tragically killed a few weeks ago. I made a post about it several weeks ago. He had been a wonderful Violist with the youth orchestra 5 years ago when my kids first joined.

The winter concert was early this year and it just snuck up on me after the busy holidays. I had less than 5 days to come up with something for the cover after the holidays, so I had to do this one a little quicker than usual.

I laid my son Jon's sheet music on the floor by the sliding doors in my great room and laid his viola and bow on top of the music. I shot straight down on it. I was originally going to use my studio lights to do the shot, but the light from the windows with a little fill from one SB 800 and my LumiQuest Softbox II on camera seemed to work out well enough for this. I was fairly satisfied with the results, and the conductor approved the design and was very happy with it.

The quality doesn't have to be fantastic for the programs since these are printed on pretty generic card stock weight Program paper, and mass printed on my little canon Pixma ip4200 printer which isn't going to give photo quality prints on this kind of card stock anyway.

The concert was wonderful and very emotional. There was a great turnout. Alumni were invited to play with the orchestra for this concert, many of whom had been in the youth orchestra with John. A scholarship fund has been established in his name which is such a wonderful way to honor him and one of the chairs will be named in his honor.