Tuba Concert

I shot a Tuba-Euphonium concert last night. The musicians were no doubt very talented, but I honestly did not care for the sound that 25 tubas and euphoniums created. The sound seemed to mesh completely together. But, I did get one photo that I was fairly happy with.

A long overdue update

It's been a while, but here are some of the stories I've shot over the last month.

First off here two photos I shot for a Veteran's Day story for the Pal-Item.



Next are two photos I shot of a car race at local church -- also for the Pal-Item.



Here are two photos from an Earlham football game that were also shot for the Pal-Item.



Now back to stuff that I've shot for the school. Here's a photo that I shot at the Democratic HQ when the Democratics swept the election in Deleware County. I took about 400 photos, but this was my favorite. It's of State Representative elect Dennis Tyler getting hugged by his wife and daughter. It didn't run in the paper, but I liked it.


Next are a couple of photos from a really interesting interactive art exhibit that was at the Ball State Art Museum.



Up next are two images from a story the paper did on a loacl belly dancing school. This was a lot fun too.



Last but not least are a few photos from a girls basketball game I shot yesterday at Butler University. My favorite one is of the coach just pointing at the ref after making what she thought was bad call.




Hope you have enjoyed! Now listening: My own mix of Christmas soundtrack music.

The Organ

The Sursa Performance Hall had a new organ installed recently, and tonight was the dedication and first concert to feature the instrument. Although I didn't do anything special to take this photo, it's probably one of my favorites so far this year.

Homecoming... glad it's over!

I shot my ass off this week. I'm not entirely sure how I ended up shooting so much, but I did. It was lots of fun, but at the same time, extremely tiring. I shouldn't really complain though as my editor probably worked twice as hard since he was given so much to do as well.

Monday I shot Homecoming Kickoff, Tuesday it was the Talent Search program, Wednesday I actually had off, Thursday was Air Jam, Friday was Bed Races and the Alumni Homecoming dinner, and Saturday was the parade (9:30 am!!) and the football game. So, yeah, I stayed busy. Here are some of my favorite shots from the week. I didn't do as well at some of the events as I had hoped, so not every event made the cut.

Homecoming Kickoff




Talent Search

I felt pretty sorry for my editor this day. He had an awesome shot, but it didn't run because the designers felt it would print too dark. It's not that he underexposed the shot, it's just what made it up was determined to be too dark to run in the paper. So they ran some of my rather mediocre shots instead. There were two that I like however. The first one is of the two performers that won the competition. The second is one that only I liked. My editor didn't like it and neither did anyone else. But this isn't the paper, this is my blog, so I'm running it here. Chances are you won't like it either. :)




Bed Races

This was actually a lot of fun. I also came away with three photos that I'm fairly happy with (a rarity to be sure), so I guess this event was the highlight of Homecoming.

Well kids, that's it for Homecoming week. Nothing else worth noting from the other events. Maybe next year...

The Symphony

I was able to make it over to Sursa the other night and hear the Ball State Symphony Orchestra play. They were actually very good, much better than I had expected. I snapped about 20 photos. I always feel strange taking photos during orchestra concerts. The music is so delicate and the CLANK of the shutter can be very distracting. I always try to be respectful and shoot only during the louder moments, but at the same time I have a job to do and when an image strikes me, sometimes I just have to push that shutter...

A New Sport!

It's always fun to cover a new sport for the first time. You never quite know what to expect or how to shoot it. Well, today my new sport turned out to be field hockey. The one thing that I was continually troubled with was whether to shoot vertically or horizontally. Most sports are either predominantly vertical (soccer) or horizontal (swimming). Of course each has exceptions. With field hockey though, I kept switching between the two, it felt rather odd to tell the truth.

But enough with that, here are my two best shots.

Yay!

So, after being in school for over 7 weeks and taking over 6000 shots, I'm finally genuinely happy with a photo. Maybe I'm harder on myself than I should be, but the only way I'm going to improve is if I and my editors are hard on me and continue to push me to shoot better and think more about what I'm doing. I think I accomplished that in this shot.

This is a Cynda Williams getting her makeup put on by Allison Hamilton prior to the final performance of the play "Twilight Los Angeles, 1992".

Do You Like Watermelon?

Today was the annual Watermelon Bust. Here are a few photos. Although I like these shots, cosidering what was there, I could have done so much better. And as you can see, I overexposed two of the shots below. I really liked the content of them, and since they aren't completely blown out I went ahead and posted them. Hopefully I'll do better next year.

Arts Walk

A few photos from the Muncie Art Walk. I particularly like the one of the little kids covering their ears as they listen to the Ball State Jazz Band. Tehe.

Everything and the Kitchen Sink

Well, it's been a while since I've updated, so here's just some of what I shot this past week. It's quite a variety. War protesting clowns, a play, swimming, you name it and I probably shot it last week.

Oh, How I've Missed Soccer

Soccer is by far my favorite sport to watch, which explains why it's also my favorite to shoot. I was finally able to make it to a game yesterday. I didn't get anything spectacular, unforturnately, but I did OK. Here are three shots.

Currently listening to "Star Wars Episode V The Empire Strikes Back" by John Williams.

Ahoy' there matey

So I saw the parrot guy again today and had my camera! Actually, he told me it's not a parrot but a Blue and Gold McCaw named Polly.

Currently listening to James Horner's score to "Mighty Joe Young".

The Power of Sunlight

So I also shot some photos of architecture students Chelsea Wait and Austin Durban. They were building some models of classrooms. Once they were finsihed building them, they were going to take them down to a big machine called a heliodon which recreates sunlight. They use this so they can understand the effects of sunlight when designing buildings. Pretty neat. Too bad I didn't get to see the heliodon.

Strike a Pose

Went to a model/dance tryout at the very last minute today. Left at around 9:00 and got back around 10:00. I have two photos that are "OK". I could have made some really nice photos, but I just didn't nail like I should have. There were opportunities for some great shots, but I just didn't work it well enough. Better luck next time right?