2015 | Alex Farris Photo Blog

Medical school classes start this week, so before all that madness, I took a smaller, but still adventurous and slightly myopic, trip. On July 17, I set out for Chicago on a road trip through Omaha and Casper, Wyoming, to take a hike in Shoshone National Forest.

This is as high as I hiked. The view felt so surreal (and I was so tired from the walk up to it) that this was a good place for a break.

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In a flashback to an entry from four years ago, I took photos of an insect. This time, it was a bee, and because bees buzz, I was only able to get one relatively okay photo that wasn't too motion-blurry. So, there's that.

Tonight (just like the previous entry, this one is really posted on May 5, but I can change dates because I built this website and can control things like that), I'm covering the Republican primary for mayor of Carmel for the Star. It's my first assignment for the paper since March, and it's rather exciting.

More referred business! Andrew Lyon (right) conducted the Columbus (Ind.) Symphony Orchestra on April 26, and the night before, he called me saying his original photographer was unable to cover his concert. I obliged, and thus covered my first orchestra concert since my IDS days.

Despite what the timestamp above says, this post was really written and uploaded on May 5. I've gotten a bit behind, but no worries. At least these photos got uploaded eventually.

Not shown in these photos: my ecstatic reaction when I got a letter in the mail on March 16 accepting me into the IU School of Medicine. Believe me, I was pleased!

Brownsburg High School players huddle before the Richmond boys' basketball team's 71-65 victory over Brownsburg for the Southport Regional title at Southport High School, Saturday, March 14, 2015.

On Monday, I was accepted into the IU School of Medicine. Today, I was paid to fly a kite. Truly, we live in interesting times.

While I was in Guatemala, I got an email from an intern at the Indianapolis Museum of Art. The museum was planning its annual spring equinox event, with this year's event themed, "Go Fly a Kite." The intern went looking for kite aerial photographers in the area to take pictures of the event from above, and the intern found my site. I agreed to take the photos (because, a la Ghostbuster Winston Zeddemore, when someone wants to pay you to fly a kite, you say YES!), and I also agreed to be the interesting person that other organizations, like Sky Blue Window, could talk to before the event.

...If you haven't clicked through to the Sky Blue Window story, please do so, if only to learn how happy I, as a Beatles fan, became when I read it.

I took more than 2000 photos using the IMA's GoPro, which was much better than mine and also could send photos to a display screen on the ground. It was a fun day, and I would love to do it again.

Before going to Guatemala for the second time in the last week of February (photos by former IU journalism dean Jim Brown on the trip website), the Star sent me on four photo assignments. The first two, on the first Saturday of the month, could not be more different: a regional high school wrestling tournament in the early afternoon, and, stretching into the wee hours of Sunday morning, Nelly's concert at The Vogue. The latter photos, for some reason, never made it to the website, but they most certainly happened.

The following weekend, I covered a child's birthday party put on by a kids' spa treatment company. I never before had taken a photo of seven-year-olds with cucumbers and masks on their faces, so cross that off the bucket list. And the day after Guatemala, I was thrown back into the mix of American culture with the most Hoosier thing imaginable: a high school basketball game played in an overflowing gym. Southport played Evansville Reitz, previously undefeated, and pulled away in the final minute for an 88-80 victory. These are probably my best basketball photos since my time at the IDS, not least because of the enthusiasm of the players and fans (but also because I wasn't afraid to use 3200 ISO).

Also, photos I took in December were finally published. Local DJ Oreo Jones has a cooking show with all the trappings of a public access show a la "Wayne's World." It's called Let's Do Lunch, and it features local chefs and music acts. I covered the filming of an episode the night before my biochemistry final (don't worry, I got an A in the class), and the photos and story finally ran online on Feb. 4, and seven color photos made it into the next day's local section (four on the front!).

There. Now I'm all caught up.

Rosie Lockwood relaxes under a face mask and cucumbers during her friend Kate Hollingsworth's birthday party and spa treatment provided by Pretty and Posh Parties in Fishers, Sunday, Feb. 15, 2015.

Yes, yes, yes, I'm posting January photos in March. Life (e.g. two medical school interviews, work in Seymour), got in the way of posting, but not in the way of taking pictures. I was assigned three events for the Star: A high school wrestling meet featuring the indomitable Carmel High School girls' swim team, a sandwich cook-off during a Colts playoff game, and a little thing they like to call Bacon Fest. Also, my college housemate Steph, featured here, got engaged to her British boyfriend, so I made the trek to Chicago for the party. It almost goes without saying, but I will be taking her wedding photos.

Next post will be up within the hour!

Ally Benedyk of Love Handle doles out a sandwich containing Ovaltine brioche, hickory bacon, blackberry-miso jam and koshered carrots, during the Taste of the NFL Sandwich Cook-off at Recess on North College Avenue, Sunday, Jan. 4, 2015.