Let's not get too excited.
2011.12.28
It's not meant to depress you, but rather to remind you not to expect too much.
IU head basketball coach Tom Crean complains about a call during his team's 93-81 loss to Northwestern on Jan. 9, 2011, at Assembly Hall in Bloomington, Ind. The loss was IU's fourth straight in Big Ten play before getting its first conference win six days later against Michigan.
The sun also rises (on camera, in a six-month project)
2011.12.24
If everything works out, I'll have a present to open at the summer solstice, even though I've never celebrated it before.
Will the whole be greater than the sum of its parts? (Successful six-month photo comes from here.)
IU fans describe The Moment at Nick's English Hut
2011.12.13
One more story about Saturday's celebration before Hoosier Nation moves on to this weekend's game against Notre Dame. It involves the three people involved in the moment shown here in the first photo.
IU basketball beats Kentucky 73-72, all hell breaks loose in Bloomington
2011.12.11
Once again (but for the opposite reason) I have to claim some emotional interest in journalistic sports photos I've taken. I was at Nick's English Hut with friends watching the IU men's basketball team play No. 1-ranked Kentucky last night. I had my camera with me, so I was able to capture the greatest moment in Indiana Universy basketball in about a decade. I regret that in the pandemonium I didn't get any names, especially of the fans in the first picture who all acknowledged me in between photos, but in the grand scheme of things, the documentation of such a euphoric event was enough. (If, though, you know who they are, please let me know. Their anticipation and emotion should be bottled.)
If this isn't enough, check out the photos from the Indiana Daily Student and Peter Stevenson, and the video from Rabi Abonour.
Hawaii, Part 2
2011.12.06
Tomorrow is the 70th anniversary of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. As commemorations occur, they provide a news peg for two things that I have been late in posting. The first is my finished written story about the Pearl Harbor Visitor's Center, which has been published, not only on the IU School of Journalism class website, but also this Sunday in The Indianapolis Star. The second is a followup post of Hawaii photos that is seven months overdue. The published story provides evidence that the trip was not a vacation; the photos, maybe not.
We went to a luau, a very vacation-like activity.
This kid's photogenic when he's fast.
2011.11.19
My first photo published to wide circulation was of President (then-candidate) Barack Obama holding a baby in 2008 before the Women's Little 500 at IU. You could argue, though, that my photo career started with this guy.
Let me play among the stars
2011.11.12
This fills me with awe and fear all at the same time:
That dotted line to the right is the 25-second path of an airplane.
P.U.M.P. for Lauren Spierer
2011.11.07
It's been five months since a missing IU student spawned national coverage, community action and my most difficult assignment. Since that time, I've ended my time with the IDS, I moved back to Indianapolis, I became a substitute teacher, and I returned to my old job as an orthopedic research assistant at St. Francis Hospital in Mooresville. I come back to visit Bloomington sometimes, though, largely because my awesome girlfriend lives there. A visit with her brought me back to the story of Lauren Spierer.
Mary Ann Ryan, Christina Goveia, Lisa Sipes and Donna M. Gigli-Quick put posters inside sleeves to protect them from the weather during P.U.M.P. for Lauren Spierer on Saturday outside Smallwood Plaza in Bloomington, Ind. The event organizers cleared the poster push with Lauren's parents, Robert and Charlene, but the group said it was an independent effort.
The falling colors of the rainbow
2011.11.02
It's forecasted to rain tomorrow, so when I got home today from my job as an orthopedic research assistant I did something I don't do often enough anymore: take photos for the hell of it. No assignment, no blog post planned, just me, the shutter and the beautiful colors of fall.
I'm an ant!
It's not my award, but...
2011.10.31
Another round of awards came in over the weekend, and Larry Buchanan's winning front page features one of my photos. Woo hoo!
From Associated Collegiate Press:
The two other fortunate photographers with work on the page are Courtney Deckard (DJ Pretty Lights) and Steph Langan (runners).
Rick Perry at the Columbia Club
2011.10.12
Rick Perry spoke at the top floor of the prestigious Columbia Club in Indianapolis today, the fourth G.O.P. candidate to visit here this year at the invitation of the Indiana Republican Party. I wasn't with any media outlet today, but I RSVP'd for the event because I figured it would be a good opportunity for some photos. Since I don't really mingle with political people, I knew hardly anyone in the crowd. I wasn't lonely, though, since AP photographer Michael Conroy and IDS reporter Charlie Scudder were there with their respective outlets.
As a side note, while trying to set up my camera on a remote, a woman asked me what media outlet I'm with. When I said I was just there for my photo blog, she asked if I was keeping a conservative blog. "No," I said, "it's decidedly apolitical." She didn't talk to me much after that. I wish I had a better way to say what this good photographer said.
Rick Perry speaks to Indiana Republican Party supporters Oct. 12, 2011, at the Columbia Club in Indianapolis.
A Benefit for Brad
2011.10.08
I received my second stringing assignment for The Indianapolis Star on Friday, this time more journalistic and more touching. It was a benefit for Brad Humphrey, who was in the first row of the Sugarland concert at the Indiana State Fair that ended before it began when the stage collapsed. Concertgoers helped him get out, but he ended up paralyzed from the middle of his chest on down. People gathered together in the aftermath to support the victims and their families, as Midwesterners are wont to do in most community tragedies. In Brad's case, a doctor, a kids' performer, children with artistic ability & a giving spirit, and others built a network that resulted in over $5,000 collected to benefit Brad and his family. Despite the circumstances, I was glad to see the show of support; just like the response from Bloomington residents to the disappearance of Lauren Spierer, the feeling of community built from tragedy made me feel good about people.
For the full gallery of photos on the IndyStar website, follow the link here.
Brad Humphrey (front) talks with event organizers while surrounded by his mother, Sue (left), his cousin Lindsay Reynolds and organizer Cari Hahn during the Benefit for Brad fundraiser at the Carmel Civic Square, Saturday, Oct. 8, 2011. Organizers put on the event, which featured a concert, art sale, games, prizes and a silent auction, to raise money for Brad, who was paralyzed in the Indiana State Fair stage collapse. Alex Farris | For The Star
Boredom + corn = rural photo shoot
2011.10.05
I don't have a paid photo internship or a job with a newspaper, so I find myself with a lot of spare time. In between being a substitute teacher at my old elementary and high schools, an annual eye appointment today and a possible stringing assignment from The Indianapolis Star, I find things to take photos of, because otherwise I feel like I'll lose some of what I learned at IU and the IDS. I haven't done a photo-a-day project like people do with Instagram (largely because I only have a dumbphone), but I look for opportunities wherever I go.
Sometimes, though, you can't just look. You have to see the row of corn in the daytime, stay up until 1 a.m., grab a Maglite out of the cabinet and hook up the new remote trigger you bought the previous week. Put all of those together, and you get this:
Click on the image for the full-size version.
Chris Brown at Verizon Wireless
2011.09.28
On Friday, I got a call from Mike Fender, the director of photography at The Indianapolis Star. I had sent him a portfolio over the summer and asked if there were any opportunities to string for The Star while I was in Bloomington or Indianapolis. He said he would keep me in mind, and this past weekend showed that he did. He needed somebody to shoot the Chris Brown concert at Verizon Wireless Music Center on Sunday (because, I assume, everyone else was focused on the Colts primetime game against the Steelers). I was more than happy to take the opportunity.
For more of the photos I took, follow the link to the gallery posted that night.
Chris Brown points toward the audience during his F.A.M.E. Tour show at Verizon Wireless Music Center, Sunday, Sept. 25, 2011. T-Pain and Kelly Rowland also performed during the show.
9/11/11 in South Bend
2011.09.12
My dad and I were in South Bend, Ind., for Sept. 11 weekend. Dad was in a bike ride to support hospice care in the area (from which my grandmother benefited before she died 2.5 years ago), so I decided to go on assignment, if only for myself. I found a listing of 9/11 events on the South Bend Tribune, and I went to three of those events: a dedication ceremony in a downtown park, a blood drive at a fire station and a memorial Mass at Notre Dame. For the Mass, a Notre Dame photographer allowed me to take photos from the top of the stadium, where I could see Touchdown Jesus and all the students assembled in front of it. The view provided a poignant ending to a day that, ten years on, still pulls me back to that day in seventh grade when my science homework suddenly didn't seem that important.
Lit candles accompany the singing of the Notre Dame alma mater at the end of Mass. During the homily, students read the names of every Notre Dame graduate who died at the World Trade Center, the Pentagon and in Shanksville, Pa., as well as those of the founding order, the Congregation of the Holy Cross.
Keystone Towers implosion
2011.08.28
This might be the coolest five seconds my eyes have seen:
Advanced Explosives Demolition implodes the Keystone Towers apartment complex at 8 a.m. Aug. 28 on the Eastside of Indianapolis. A Flash movie of the implosion is on the main entry page.
Help for Haiti bike ride photos (donation)
2011.08.23
On Saturday, before a second large bird came into my life, I was awake at 4:30 a.m. to help my dad with a bike ride. It was St. Malachy's first Help for Haiti bike ride to raise money for my childhood church's medical mission to Ste. Marguerite parish in Port Margot, Haiti. We've had a medical mission in Haiti since long before it was cool, and the Haitian-staffed medical center there has helped countless people over the years, especially during the recent cholera outbreak.
As part of the ride, I took photos of people who participated, as well as the set-up and other general shots. Participants could buy their own photos in a private SmugMug gallery, with 70% of the net proceeds going to the mission. To get more donations, I set up a public gallery on my SmugMug page, so now people like you can buy a photo or two to support the mission. If buying photos isn't your thing, you can always make a donation to the mission through any of the methods listed at the bottom of this page.
A rider's bicycle leans against a tractor at a sag (support and gear) stop on a Help for Haiti route near I-74 in Hendricks County. You can buy this and other photos of the ride to support the St. Malachy medical mission in Haiti here.
Bird photography makes a comeback
2011.08.21
I'm not one to look for patterns in truly random events, but I wouldn't mind if this is a hint of more things to come.
Erdely/Hayes Wedding
2011.08.07
On Saturday, I had the honor of being a groomsman at the wedding of my good friend David Erdely and his wife, Vicki Hayes. I've known Dave since first grade, and after going through elementary school, getting our Eagle Scout badges and surviving college, this seemed like the next logical, beautiful step. I was thrilled to be such a large part of his best day ever.
Of course, being a groomsman meant that I couldn't spend my time taking photos. Believe me, it was more than a fair trade-off; however, I still wanted to capture some images, the best of which appear below. Main photo duties that day belonged to local (and awesome) event photographer Lerin Morkal.
David, Vicki, the bridal party and Methodist pastor Todd Outcalt at Calvary United Methodist Church in Brownsburg, Ind. (Photo by Jon Myers, Alex Farris and Mark Herris)
Movin' out
(with apologies to Billy Joel)
2011.08.02
With a heavy heart, I gave my house keys to my landlord at 4:15 p.m. yesterday. After two weeks of packing and cleaning (which explains the lack of posts recently), I'm ready to leave.
Not really. I've learned so much about photography and life in Bloomington, and I've had so much fun doing it, so it's a little hard to leave. I move on, though, in the hope that even better things will come. After finishing my stint as IDS web editor managing the Facebook page and Twitter account in less than two weeks, and after sending resumes to newspapers across the state, I will be ready for... well, for whatever comes and whatever I decide to shoot for.
Click on full entry for image slider
2011 Ride Across INdiana
2011.07.20
In what has become a yearly tradition, I drove the support vehicle for my dad in the Ride Across INdiana on Saturday. The ride follows U.S. 40 for more than 160 miles from the Illinois border to the Ohio border. My dad, at 51 years old, is rockin' the bicycle like he did over 20 years ago, and I couldn't be more proud of him. The best part of his ride was shared in an email exchange between him and the other two riders, Lige and Ron (Ron writing):
Tom finally arrived [in Dunreith, 30 miles from the finish, and] looked pretty bad. We all thought he should stop, concerned about his safety. Lige and I continued on, thinking Tom would drive with the sag [support and gear vehicle]. ... We talked with Dave and Alex and they informed us that Tom a.k.a. Lazarus, was riding. ... He finally got in with about 10 minutes to spare. He said he felt great after the rest and was riding the best he had all day. There must be magic dust at Dunreith.
Cyclers ride past a farmhouse near the end of the Ride Across INdiana on July 16 west of Richmond, Ind. The ride, in its 25th year and organized by the Bloomington Bicycle Club, stretched more than 160 miles west to east across U.S. 40 in Indiana.
Ants!
2011.07.14
Note: This has nothing to do with news. At all.
As I was walking back home today, I looked down and saw some ants crawling on the sidewalk. One ant was carrying another, which was limp and seemed dead. It was a simple, everyday occurrence. The thought of ants lifting things much heavier than themselves, though, got me more interested, so I put down my bag, pulled out my camera, laid down on the sidwalk and snapped a little sequence.
An ant carries a larger ant up a sidewalk July 14 near Willkie Quad at Indiana University.
Five weeks without Lauren Spierer
2011.07.10
I've taken other photos this summer, but most of the month of June was consumed by the story of missing IU student Lauren Spierer. Sadly, the search continues, despite all the people trying to get more information. In continuation of the last entry, here are a few more photos of a case that regrettably seems to have slowed down.
(I was at a high school friend's wedding in Indianapolis yesterday, so I wasn't able to cover Laps for Lauren in Bloomington. Sam Park took my place.)
Lauren Spierer's father, Robert, pauses while his wife, Charlene, rests her head on his shoulders during a statement to the media July 1 at Bloomington Police Department headquarters. "It's our worst nightmare," Robert said. "It's an experience that you don't want anyone to ever have to go through."
Monks & monks
2011.07.07
I've been taking more than just photos of the Lauren Spierer story in the past month. J. Edward Calabro (known to coworkers as Jimmy) worked on two stories about different monastic traditions: the Benedictine at St. Meinrad Archabbey in southern Indiana, and the Buddhist at the Tibetan Mongolian Buddhist Cultural Center in Bloomington. I was lucky enough to be the photographer on the story. Although the St. Meinrad trip meant that I missed a BPD briefing on Lauren Spierer, the mini-series resulted in the kinds of photos I rarely get: those of timeless religious traditions.
(Plus, I got to flex some headline-writing muscle. I reached back into my Catholic upbringing (and into Wikipedia) to think of the print headline for the St. Meinrad story: Regula Benedicti.)
Geshe-la Lobsang Dhandup and Father Simeon Daly
Fourth of July +2
2011.07.06
Before going to a friend's place to celebrate the birth of our nation (not The Birth of a Nation, because that's nothing to celebrate), I stopped by the Monroe County Fairgrounds. Amvets Post 2000 was host to a Fourth of July event, complete with live music, fireworks and the parents of Lauren Spierer. I didn't stay long enough for the fireworks; instead, my main focus was taking photos of Charlene and Robert, who were handing out fliers with their daughter's information to people entering the fairgrounds. In the meantime, I snapped some shots of Larry Morley and Friends and stayed for the 21-gun salute.
An updated Lauren Spierer post is far past due. That will come soon, hopefully within the week.
Larry Morley of Larry Morley and Friends sings a Marshall Tucker song during Fourth of July festivities at the Monroe County Fairgrounds. Amvets Post 2000 organized the event, which included free music and fireworks.
Two weeks without Lauren Spierer
2011.06.20
IDS reporter CJ Lotz and I, as well as freelancer Peter Stevenson, went on the first public search for Lauren Spierer on June 5. There, at the front door of Smallwood Plaza, we met her parents, Robert and Charlene, who had flown from New York to Indianapolis over the weekend. The parents, about 15 volunteers, and we members of the media (including a Fox 59 cameraman) drove to Hoosier National Forest to search.
Robert and Charlene Spierer listen as a public search is organized for their daughter Lauren Spierer. Lauren was reportedly last seen at 4:30 a.m. the morning of June 3 walking south from 11th Street and College Avenue in Bloomington.
Hinz/Osborne Wedding
2011.06.02
Over Memorial Day weekend, my family went to Wilmington, N.C., for my cousin Adam Hinz's wedding. He's the third of five siblings to get married, but by no means was it routine. Three days of extended family, card games, the Atlantic Ocean at night and perfect sunlight during the day doesn't happen all the time. (Neither does the end of the 100th anniversary of the Indy 500.)
Adam and Amanda had already hired a wedding photographer (he had taken photos at other family weddings). Being the nice guy he was, George was cool with letting me tag along. Because I didn't have the flashes or the long lens that he did, I was largely an assistant. I still took some of my own photos, 14 of which appear here in the style of a photo story. (The rest will be on Facebook soon.)
Bride-to-be Amanda Osborne rides with Amy Hinz and other bridesmaids toward the ceremony.
Bloomington Storms, 5/25-26/11
2011.05.26
I was working on the final draft and multimedia element of my Hawaii story in the Herman B Wells Library on Wednesday evening. I knew storms were a'brewin', so I brought my camera with me.
Sure enough, at about 10:15 p.m. the auditor at the library, Matt Duff, tells everybody that they should go down to the basement. Five minutes later, the lobby doors shook and wind beat against the westside windows. There were frantic saves of projects, ejections of hard drives, some stalling and a stupid question with a blunt response, but we eventually left the window-filled Information Commons and headed to the basement.
For the next four hours, I felt journalism in me. I interviewed people in the basement, I heard where damage had been reported and I went to take photos of that damage. Fortunately, after I walked a ways down Seventh Street, a car pulled up and were willing to drive me home. After that, I drove my own car to other damage sites and got home at about 2:15 a.m., thanking the cleaning crews wherever I went. The result appears below.
(My former IDS colleague, Peter Stevenson, had a wholly different, and scarier, experience with the evening's storm. Check it out.)
A tree lays across Hunter Avenue near Fess Street. Because the tree did not break through the home or any power lines, the city workers decided to wait until morning to move it so they could take care of other damage.
Hawaii, Part 1
2011.05.12
As has been pointed out by my father, my last blog entry is already out-of-date. For the sake of keeping people informed, here is a link to the developing Facebook album of photos of our reporting trip to Hawaii. There are further updates from the class on the J460 blog page. Enjoy!
The USS Arizona memorial stands over the remains of the battleship and its men, all lost in the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941. (Alex Farris)
A few photos went up on the way to Hawaii
2011.05.10
As I make this entry, I'm on a Delta Airlines flight to Hawaii. I'll be reporting with J360 International Reporting as replacement for our cancelled trip to Japan. Before I start putting photos from Honolulu on the blog, I thought I would post something about what I've done between Victor Oladipo's performance and graduation this Saturday. Here's a mini-tour.
(click on full entry for image slider, i.e. all the interactivity.)
Every Tuesday at 11 a.m. (or sometimes Wednesday at 10:30, if it rained on Tuesday), I went to the roof of the West Tower of the Wells Library to take a photo at the same spot on the wall. I was hoping to make a time lapse of photos as the Indiana University Arboretum transitioned from winter to spring to near-summer, but as previously mentioned, I lost a lot of those photos. Fortunately, I didn't lose the wintry ones, so I combined the first photo with the last one, taken May 4, and made a JavaScript slider out of it. Enjoy the interactivity. (Alex Farris | Indiana Daily Student)
Victor Oladipo sings "U Got It Bad"
2011.04.25
I don't like covering non-game athletic events. Nearly every banquet, media challenge and discussion the IU athletic department puts on doesn't seem real to me at all. (The media challenge, to be fair, was fun to cover, especially since I could watch other reporters work themselves to exhaustion.) I know it's the department's goal to be more visible and get people to look at their programs, but I get irked about the thought of doing some p.r. for them by giving them coverage. I don't want to be their publicist. (At least not while working with a newspaper. If I worked for them, that'd be just fine.)
I'll let this event slip by, though. The Spirit of Indiana Showcase ended with freshman basketball player Victor Oladipo singing Usher's "U Got It Bad." It's hard to beat a singing basketball player, even if he was singing with the recording in the background. (He was good, but I could tell he was no Usher.) Plus, with all the awards the department gave out and how well dressed all the athletes were, I thought back to those banquets in high school, and I felt better about everything.
Freshman Indiana University guard Victor Oladipo sings "U Got It Bad" by Usher at the end of the Spirit of Indiana Showcase on Apr. 25, 2011, at the IU Auditorium in Bloomington, Ind. The banquet, which honored academic and athletic achievement, was interspersed with poetry, stand-up comedy and singing by the athletes. (Alex Farris | Indiana Daily Student)
2011 Little 500 Team Pursuit
or Clearing Traffic, Part 2
2011.04.22
I know some people don't like shooting Team Pursuit, the last Spring Series event before the main Little 500 race. But, because I've never shot what most photographers consider a more exciting event (Miss-N-Out) and because this one has at least more interaction during the contest than that between riders exchanging bikes (Quals), I'm okay with shooting it.
To be honest, I like it a lot. Like what a rider said, the event shows how a team works together. (Or, as some of the following photos show, how one moment can wreck that work.)
Graduate student and former Kappa Alpha Theta rider Kristen Metherd yells times at her team during Little 500 Team Pursuit on Saturday at Bill Armstrong Stadium. (Alex Farris | Indiana Daily Student)
2011 Little 500
or Clearing the Traffic Jam
2011.04.21
Two weeks ago, my nearly four-year-old computer's hard drive flopped its last operation and left this world, taking a third of this semester's data with it. While getting a new hard drive and resetting my digital life, a lot of things happened. Assignments were taken, photo stories were scrapped and, in something that is so much more tragic than my petty problems, two photojournalists died in Libya.
In the interests of keeping the blog consistent, opening up more photos to public scrutiny and (let's be honest) show people my Little 500 photos like everyone else, I'll be using the next few entries to catch up, in slight reverse chronological order. We'll start with everyone's favorite event (no, seriously, it's awesome), the Little 500. I was posted outside the track for the women's race, and I followed Sigma Chi from the infield for the men's race. (Technically, I was the floater, but I put a transmitting mic on the coach, Tom Schwoegler, so I stayed around the team for a while so I could get enough material for a 17-minute podcast of the race.)
Ride On coach Isaac Simonelli takes the tarp off of his team’s bikes before the women’s Little 500 on Friday at Bill Armstrong Stadium. The IU Student Foundation put out the bikes early in the morning, but because of the pre-race rain, tarps were put out later. (Alex Farris | Indiana Daily Student)
2011 Little 500 Individual Time Trials
2011.03.30
Apparently, I matched form with content by accident today. ITTs are very solitary events (the clock cannot reasonably be called company), and my favorite photos from today have a lot of dead space that isolates the subjects. M'kay. (By the way, Ryan Dorgan does some good work with Little 5. You should check out the photos he takes for Blueline, and if you're willing to go through 19 photos, his post on Holi is quite colorful.)
Also, for an explanation of why there wasn't much activity here last week, read this, this, this and this. Hopefully, I did her justice in that last article.
Junior IU Student Foundation gunner Megan Rippey fires the gun to start heat 27 during Little 500 Individual Time Trials on Wednesday at Bill Armstrong Stadium at Indiana University in Bloomington, Ind. (Alex Farris | Indiana Daily Student)
2011 Little 500 Qualifications
2011.03.27
I was studying in Madrid last spring, so I missed my favorite time of year: Little 500. The annual bike race and all its trappings bring out the best in college sports drama (and, in the week of the races, the best/worst of college partying). The season kicks off during Rookie Week in early March, but the real feeling starts the weekend of Quals, which happened Saturday. I was scheduled for the first session, starting at 8 a.m., so I got as many photos as I could without breaking off my fingers in the near-freezing weather.
Members and coaches for the Sigma Phi Epsilon team huddle before their 8 a.m. run in the first session of Little 500 qualifications Saturday, Mar. 27, 2011, at Indiana University's Bill Armstrong Stadium in Bloomington, Ind. The team's four-lap time of 2:36.36 qualified for the 25th of 33 spots in the men's Little 500 race on Apr. 16. (Alex Farris | Indiana Daily Student)
Waterfall with Bailey and Jake
2011.03.18
In the week that I haven't been spending in Japan, I've done small retweekings of the website, started compiling the data on a campus accidents project, done Internet research for a photo story, baked a pie for Pi Day and read all the strips of my girlfriend's favorite web comic, Questionable Content. (She insists there are parallels with her life and with mine. ...There are some.) None of this required much in the way of getting out of the house, so over the last six days I've seen very little of the Great Outdoors that I can't see from my window.
That changed today. Two journalist friends (Bailey Loosemore and Jake New) and I drove to a small waterfall near Harrodsburg, about 15 minutes outside of Bloomington. On the way, we skipped rocks, walked across logs, did some climbing and found an old haunted house.
Bailey has been here before, and she even talked with the owner. We're cool, especially since we aren't hunting.
We aren't going to Hiroshima. Yet.
2011.03.12
For the past semester I've been more than excited to go to Japan for my International Reporting class. My classmates and I were organizing interviews in Hiroshima, in the southwest region of the largest Japanese island, Honshu, to examine the issues surrounding the atomic bombs dropped in that city and in Nagasaki. We had appointments set up with bomb survivors, chemical scientists and the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum, and we were set to leave for the Asian country by planes to Chicago and to Narita airport in Tokyo on Friday.
Before we could leave Friday for our trip, however, another disaster, this time natural, hit the island. As I'm sure you know about already, hundreds of people have died in an earthquake and its effects off the coast of Sendai, in the norteast region of Honshu. Tsunamis, aftershocks (really earthquakes in themselves) and nuclear emergencies have plagued the nation, and the U.S. State Department put up a travel alert effective until April 1.
So, there won't be any spring break travel experience to Japan. Had we been there already, Tokyo and Hiroshima were far enough from the worst to be relatively safe; but I don't think our parents and close friends would think the same way. And in a good case of keeping things in perspective, the IU School of Journalism said, "Any change in our Japanese program going forward pales in comparison to this tragedy, which is the largest earthquake in Japan in a century." That said, the school is working on going to Japan after graduation to maintain the travel component of the course.
Given everything that happened, I don't have any photos from Japan. I do have this one from yesterday morning, when the bus trip back to Bloomington. Later that day, the class met to decide what to do to replace the trip.
The sun rises over southern Indiana as students from Indiana University return from the Indianapolis International Airport after their class trip to Japan was postponed on Friday, March 11, 2011, on Indiana State Road 39. Earthquakes, aftershocks, tsunamis and nuclear emergencies rocked Japan early Friday morning, causing hundreds of deaths and canceled flights.
Men's basketball at Illinois
2011.03.06
This weekend was the end of the Big Ten men's basketball regular season. While elsewhere in the conference Iowa surprised Purdue with a strong victory, IU lost to Illinois, which was completely expected. The latter brought to a close my IU basketball photo career, as I will be on the way to Japan during IU's game in the Big Ten tournament. (Courtney Deckard will be covering the game instead.)
Watch the blog next week, as well as the IU School of Journalism website, for updates on my trip to Tokyo and Hiroshima with my International Reporting class.
University of Illinois forward Mike Davis grabs a rebound over other Illinois and Indiana University players during IU's 72-48 loss to the Fighting Illini on Mar. 5, 2011, at Assembly Hall in Champaign, Ill. (Alex Farris | Indiana Daily Student)
Big Ten ticket wins IUSA election (redux)
2011.03.04
After I cobbled together the previous entry, I showed it to former IDS photographer and current Washington Post photo editor Michel du Cille during a critique yesterday morning. I went into the critique thinking that I had made something really good that sold my skills well and could set me on my way to a job in the very near future. After his critique, I learned that I had made something passable. Every bit of advice he gave me was pricelessly useful, so I went back and edited the series based on his advice and my own fresh eye. (Mainly his advice, admittedly.)
The seven photos in they story appear below. Hopefully they are less repetitious and they more faithfully follow du Cille's oft-said outline for a photo story: wide, medium, tight, panoramic, detail.
Junior adviser for the Big Ten ticket Dan Haddad (center) and others talk in the "situation room" before election results are announced. Haddad wore a Smurf costume to attract voters in the IU Student Association campaign pitting Big Ten against reviveIU and BtownUnited. (Alex Farris | Indiana Daily Student)
Big Ten ticket wins IUSA election
2011.03.03
This was a busy night. After having dinner with my girlfriend to celebrate six months together, and after bringing her to the Will Counts Memorial Lecture on Photojournalism at the Buskirk-Chumley Theater, I reported on the Big Ten ticket's results party for the IU Student Association election, held at Sigma Phi Epsilon. Far into the future, I hope to do the same (or better) coverage of a larger election celebration (like, say, for U.S. President), but for now, I'm satisfied.
Junior Indiana University Student Association vice presidential candidate Stephanie Kohls reacts as she overhears a call to junior presidential candidate Justin Kingsolver from current IUSA members announcing the results of their election Mar. 2, 2011, in Sigma Phi Epsilon fraternity in Bloomington, Ind. The call came shortly before 10:40, nearly 40 minutes after the polls had closed, and announced Kingsolver and Kohls' Big Ten ticket as the winners, earning more than half of the votes cast. (Alex Farris | Indiana Daily Student)
Men's basketball at Ohio State
2011.03.02
IU's men's basketball team still isn't looking very good, and even if they did start a winning streak, it's a little late, now that there are only two games left in the season. The photos from this Sunday's game are full of disappointment and, in my age group's vocabulary, FAIL.
Indiana University forward Will Sheehey and guard Jeremiah Rivers watch the end of their team's 82-61 loss to The Ohio State University on Feb. 27, 2011, at Value City Arena in Columbus, Ohio. The Buckeyes would reach the No. 1 spot in the Associated Press college basketball poll after the game. (Alex Farris | Indiana Daily Student)
Men's basketball vs. Purdue
2011.02.24
As a son of two Purdue University graduates, every IU game against the Boilermakers poses some internal problems. I went to my first Old Oaken Bucket football game during freshman year with people on my dorm floor, and I left early because the game got too close. I've gotten better at keeping those mental qualms at bay, though, so I had no worries during IU's home basketball game last night. My parents, however, will probably like the depression shown in the last photo.
Indiana University students heckle a Purdue University fan before the Hoosiers' 72-61 loss to the Boilermakers on Feb. 23, 2011, at Assembly Hall in Bloomington, Ind. (Alex Farris | Indiana Daily Student)
Buses bump at Seventh Street and Woodlawn Avenue
2011.02.22
I was in the Arbutus yearbook office last night working on photos for the next deadline on the assignments ladder when someone walked in and said something about two buses hitting each other at the corner right outside the newsroom. I ran out with my camera and covered the first "breaking news" thing I had covered in more than a week. It wasn't that big of a deal (the bodies of the buses didn't even hit; it was more of a light bump), but the buses were blocking traffic, so I thought it would be a good idea to get the photo on Twitter and the IDS home page. It cleared up quickly.
An Indiana University B bus and a Bloomington Transit 6 bus are stopped after bumping into each other at 7:30 p.m. Feb. 21, 2011, at Seventh Street and Woodlawn Avenue. Campus Bus student superviser Skylar Earley advised all other campus buses besides the X bus to continue driving up Indiana Avenue and turning right on Tenth Street, skipping the stop at the Indiana Memorial Union. The B bus was able to turn and clear the intersection by 8 p.m. (Alex Farris | Indiana Daily Student)
A busy weekend
2011.02.21
My memory might be failing me, but this might be the first time I have taken photos on assignment for six of seven days. There was the Brittney Hamm story (← over there) on Monday and Against Me! (←← over there) on Sunday, but over the last few days I shot the women's swim team victory in the Big Ten Championships, went into the trapeze stage with Bernadette Pace, walked though Bradford Woods for an environmental portrait of Erik Ludwig (while Kayleen Cohen interviewed him) and watched a 70-64 IU loss to Northwestern. Gallery of all that action up ↑ there →.
(Now that I think about it, this happened a few times when I was photo editor last semester. I just didn't have a blog then to record it.)
Indiana University senior Brittney Feldman performs her fifth dive in the three-meter springboard finals on the second day of the Big Ten Women's Swimming and Diving Championships on Feb. 18, 2011, at the Counsilman Billingsley Aquatic Center in Bloomington, Ind. Feldman finished fifth with a six-dive score of 391.20. The Hoosiers led the team standings at the end of competition Friday with 531 points, 136 points ahead of second-place Minnesota. (Alex Farris | Indiana Daily Student)
Monroe County jail on Valentine's Day with Brittney Hamm
2011.02.16
After the IDS' weekly Slash meeting (where we discuss what went and didn't go well in the past week's papers) on Friday, I was approached by features editor Elvia Malagon and writer Caitlin Keating for a photo assignment. Keating wanted me to go with her to the Monroe County jail on Monday, where she would meet with Brittney Hamm. Hamm and her five-year-old daughter, Gracie, would visit Brittney's fiance of six months, Jere Brant Crouch, who has been in jail for seven months. (Yes, they first met when he was in jail.) Ideally, I would be able to take photos of the three talking to each other through the glass window of the booth. That didn't happen, though, as a change in the visitation system kept even Keating out of the conversation. We were still able to piece something together for Tuesday's paper, and it made for a nice post-Valentine's Day package.
Brittney Hamm closes the Front 1 door before talking to her fiance, Jere, on Feb. 14, 2011, in the Monroe County (Indiana) Correctional Facility. Jere was arrested seven months ago and charged with theft on the Indiana University-Bloomington campus. (Alex Farris | Indiana Daily Student)
Against Me! at Rhino's
or Punk Rock is the Hardest Rock (to Shoot)
2011.02.14
I'll admit, I've never been to a punk rock concert. I knew the stereotype going in, but I thought I'd survive well enough while still protecting my two cameras and three lenses. Because I was shooting for the yearbook, an IDS photographer was at the concert at Rhino's All-Ages Club, too. Ten minutes before the start of the show, as the chants started, she texted me, "farris, get ready to protect your camera. the crowd's probably gonna get pretty rowdy".
Two sore thighs, an achy back and a sweaty hoodie later, this is what I got.
Against Me! frontman Tom Gabel yells into the microphone during his band's show at Rhino's All-Ages Club on Feb. 13, 2011, in Bloomington, Ind. (Alex Farris | Arbutus)
Egypt: Not far from home
2011.02.10
Between the third and the sixth of February I interviewed five Egyptians about what was happening in their country and took portraits of them posed loosely like officeholders. Now that Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak has said he will not step down, the hopes of the people of Egypt to rule their own country look slightly perilous; however, the good nature and optimism of those I talked to make me think the movement will succeed, eventually.
The photos and brief story appeared in today's paper, and an audio slideshow was uploaded to the website.
Design by Kyle Kujawski
IU men's basketball vs. Iowa
2011.02.07
I know I'm supposed to keep a journalistic distance, even during sports, so it's almost uncouth to say something about how I felt at the end of IU's 64-63 loss to the University of Iowa on Saturday. Still, speaking as a student, I was devastated. Fortunately, that devastation only set in after I was done with the journalistic part of the job.
Indiana University forward Christian Watford looks at IU guard Verdell Jones as Jones hides his head under his jersey at the end of IU's 64-63 loss to the University of Iowa on Feb. 5, 2011, at Assembly Hall. Two of Iowa's three Big Ten Conference victories have come against IU this season. (Alex Farris | Indiana Daily Student)
IU men's basketball vs. Minnesota
2011.02.03
I get bored of doing the same thing the same way, as I'm sure everyone does. That, coupled with a faulty 70-200 lens and a new Nikon D300 body, got me to move to a different place for this game. I stayed courtside for the first half, but during the second half I wandered to a few places in the seats near the section gates. I hadn't seen a game TV-style in a long time, and it was refreshing.
(Lots of credit go to James Brosher, who both sold me the D300 and has written about this previously.)
Indiana University forward Bobby Capobianco passes around University of Minnesota guard Austin Hollins. (Alex Farris | Indiana Daily Student)
Pro-life march to Planned Parenthood
or Thank God for payslips
2011.02.01
I was out of Bloomington the weekend of Jan. 21 because I took photos of the Wisconsin basketball game and stayed with friends I met while studying in Madrid. Since that Friday was the end of the pay period, I had to wait to fill out my payslip until the following Monday.
On the drive there, I found a group of pro-lifers marching two days after the 38th anniversary of the Roe v. Wade decision. (I'm guessing they waited until the next weekday in order to maximize eyeballs and rubberneckers. But that's only a guess.) Once I filled out my payslip, I parked along Third Street and joined them on their march of prayer toward the Planned Parenthood office. Photos of their rosaries (and of their noise complaint) appear up ↑ there →, as do the four lines of copy I wrote for the paper.
(P.S.: Read some tweets here and here for answers to the question, "Is Alex Farris a real journalist?" Trust me, it's relevant.)
Pro-life marchers walk down Third Street toward the Planned Parenthood office Jan. 24, 2011, in Bloomington, Ind. (Alex Farris | Indiana Daily Student)
IU men's basketball vs. Illinois
2011.01.30
Mixed among the first entries of the new blog (or the AFPB, if I feel pretentious) are a few catch-up things from the week before the founding. This is one of those entries.
In the thrill of rushing the court with camera in hand after the IU men's basketball team beat No. 20 Illinois, and in the frantic submission of photos after the game, I missed something. I was so focused on the frame that said it all (below) that the story of the first victory over a ranked team by Tom Crean was lost, and indeed the story of the game itself. I had interviews at the Associated Press job fair in Indianapolis on the following Saturday, so on Friday I looked through my pictures again and found a cohesive plot. The “plot” appears in the gallery button up ↑ there →.
Sophomore forward Derek Elston (32) and other Indiana University players celebrate after their 52-49 victory over Illinois on Jan. 27, 2011, at Assembly Hall in Bloomington, Ind. (Alex Farris | Indiana Daily Student)
You've come to the right place?
2011.01.29
If you've come here to read a blog on the very best of photojournalism, go here, here and here. If you've come here to find international work that pushes the limits of danger in order to expose injustice and (in)humanity, go here. If you've come here to be inspired by the work that your fellow (wo)man can do, both in front of and behind the camera, go here. If you've come here to follow the work of the best young photographers on the planet, go here. (And here.)
Seriously, you won't find the best of anything on here. Anything universal and quintessentially human can best be captured currently by someone else, and in the wide spaces of the internet there is no shortage of that work on other websites. This blog can provide none of that for you.
If, however, you've come here to watch someone try to get to here, here, here, here, here and here but who is clearly not there yet, then you, my friend, have come to the right place. I do not claim to be worthy of the work on those sites, but I do claim that I am trying my damnedest to reach the top without sacrificing the promises of elegantly simple photojournalism. I want to go to there, and this blog will document my path to there.
If you would like to stay, save the blog page in your favorites and peruse the forthcoming photos and galleries (which will appear up ↑ there →). If you'd like to go to the other pages linked above, please do so. Hopefully, when you come back, the photos here will be worthy of the sites there.
Thanks for reading.
Taken during an IU football game. Courtney and I took photos of each other to mark places on the card where one photog's photos stopped and the other's began. We switched equipment after each half for this game.
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