August 2011 | Alex Farris Photo Blog

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.

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.

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.

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)

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.

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