2012 | Alex Farris Photo Blog

Update 2013.01.02: When I posted this, I forgot that, a while back, I did some fancy things with the blog index page. I figure the year-in-review post is a good place to introduce this new-fangled stuff.

If you type in a URL like www.alex-farris.com/blog/2011, you'll see every blog post I put up in that year. The same principle works if you type in www.alex-farris.com/blog/2011.06, which would show you every post from June 2011. And for those of you snarky enough to try this for dates before the blog started (like, say, 2010), there's something there for you, too. (There's also snark for those of you want to travel back to the future.)

Enjoy!

For my second straight night of photo assignment (and my eighth day with an assignment in less than a month!), I went to Social, a bar on a street I never knew existed Downtown, for the last International Final Fridays gig of the year. It was snowing, adding to the seven or so inches Indy had received since Wednesday, so I didn't expect a lot of people. I was more than correct, as I had to be very patient in order to get photos of anybody dancing.

But dance they did, and included in that dancing were some Indiana Pacemates. Getting a photo of them dancing to "Gangnam Style" made the wait worth it. For pictures of the other people who eventually made it to Social, check out the Star's 15-photo gallery.

It's almost the end of the year! Tomorrow, I'll celebrate with a sum-up post looking back at the vast expanse that is 2012.

Indiana Pacemates dance to "Gangnam Style" by Psy during Social's International Final Fridays, featuring DJs Rican, Danger and Indiana Jones, Downtown, Friday, Dec. 28, 2012. (Alex Farris / For The Star)

Before I went on this assignment last night, a friend told me that the White Rabbit often is host to burlesque shows, including Burlesque Bingo. As you can see, the event did not match the expectation, but that's okay. If it were a burlesque show, I think the Star would have gladly published the photos, given that they've done it before, tastefully yet thoroughly.

Check out the full 13-photo gallery on their website, while you're at it. And watch the blog tomorrow; I'm posting this in a Starbucks before I go to yet another Star assignment tonight. Big money, big press.

Final shameless plug: I've started a three-part series over at Shorts about the insane amount of time I've spent loving The Beatles. It started at way too young an age, and the love affair has gone on for way too long. Or not. I see no sign of it stopping. See for yourself.

DJ Action Jackson spins records during the Rad Summer XXXmas Party at the White Rabbit in Fountain Square, Thursday, Dec. 27, 2012. (Alex Farris / For The Star)

Surprise!(?) We survived the apocalypse. The party to end (or restart?) all parties in celebration of this non-event was at the Vogue on Saturday, making this my second time there both in my life and in the last week. It was also my third Star assignment in five days and sixth this month. Impressive, considering I had three assignments in the first four months I was with them. Hopefully, this keeps up.

Here's the 15-photo gallery.

Pali Endi of the Mojo Spinjas performs at the Vogue during its Mayan Survival Party in Broad Ripple, Saturday, Dec. 22, 2012. (Alex Farris / For The Star)

On Tuesday, I got two Star assignments. One was the sweater party at the Vogue on Wednesday evening. The first one Mike gave me, though, was a Season for Sharing story with reporter Alex Campbell, and that one was much more meaningful.

The Heffner family (mother Levia and kids Denia, Jalen, MiShana, and Jazmine) lost their home, one they moved into just a couple of months ago, to a fire last week. They moved to an apartment on the Near Eastside, where they keep an "invisible Christmas tree" with presents underneath. They started meeting with Naeemah Jackson, a peace education facilitator at the Peace Learning Center, about a year ago, and Tuesday was going to be yet another meeting with her. The meeting started with the usual introductions, passing a stick around so each could bring their feelings into the discussion and say, "And I'm in."

The rest of the meeting was different, though. Jackson put two large sheets of paper on the wall, labeled, "Stages of Loss." As Campbell's story says, the wounds from the fire are still very raw. Jackson's goal was to keep those wounds in the open so they could heal, and not allow them to get buried and denied. Campbell tells the story better than I do, so if you can get behind the paywall I'll let you go there.

There's just one thing I have to add. The final stage of loss Jackson mentioned was forming a new identity, including making new memories. The Heffner family is far from there yet, but they're getting there, and they want to get there. They lost a lot of memories in the fire: Levia's husband's obituary, her collection of Michael Jackson memorabilia, countless photos.

When I took the family and Jackson outside to get a picture of all of them, Levia said something like, "This is gonna be our first family photo!" I didn't think much of it at the time, just smiled and made sure the camera was still enough in the setting sun. As I drove home, though, I realized that I, in a small way, was part of their process of making new memories.

This is why I do journalism.

Levia Heffner cries as her daughter Jazmine, 10, answers a question from Peace Education Facilitator Naeemah Jackson of the Peace Learning Center at the family's new home on the Near Eastside, Tuesday, Dec. 18, 2012. Their previous home had burned down last week due to faulty wiring, and they moved what belongings remained to a new apartment. (Alex Farris / For The Star)

Another party-crasher assignment for the Star, this time a party at The Vogue. Given that I was one of about 12 Indianapolis twentysomethings who had never been inside the Broad Ripple staple, this was an interesting first impression. I'm sure the next time I go, there won't be huge snowflakes hanging from the ceiling and monstrous sweaters all over the place.

Side note: Fewer than half the people wore any sort of sweater, let alone the gaudy type the party was supposedly all about. It took a while to find enough for the Star's photo gallery, but I found them.

The Vogue hosted a holiday sweater party in Broad Ripple, Wednesday, Dec. 19, 2012. The party, a special edition of Retro Rewind, included prizes for the ugliest sweater and the sexiest sweater. (Alex Farris / For The Star)

More party-crasher photos for the Star, this time at the new RA Niteclub in Broad Ripple. I'm not entirely sure how to spell it; every other reference I've seen, it's "Nightclub," but the club's own advertising (Facebook page, flyers), say "Niteclub." Either way, I know for sure that you pronounce the RA part "rah," not "R-A," like your college residence assistant. I found that out at the door.

RA Niteclub (pronounced 'rah') had its grand opening in Broad Ripple, Thursday, Oct. 13, 2012. DJs Indiana Jones, the dUb knight, Ninja Toji and Nicolas Rage and acoustic cover band Klark Trio played during opening night of the club, which took over the old Peppers location. (Alex Farris / For The Star)

Last night was my first, and apparently my last, time at the weekly Let Go! dance party at the Lockerbie Pub. Given the momentous occasion, I decided to use this Indianapolis Star assignment to one-up my previous dance-party experience.

Let Go!, a weekly dance party, had its final show at the Lockerbie Pub Downtown, Tuesday, Dec. 4, 2012. Promoters Annie and Andy Skinner have run the event for four years. (Alex Farris / For The Star)

Sometimes, your favorite photo on an assignment isn't the one you were assigned to take.

The Indianapolis Star's photo department hosted its annual Pizza Night, and after some words and pictures from Sports Illustrated's Damian Strohmeyer, I slipped out to downtown to do a freelance assignment for the Star. They wanted photos of "outrageously dressed" Nebraska and Wisconsin fans in town for tonight's Big Ten Football Championship Game.

While I do like the Hulk hands in the fourth photo of the gallery, I also found this guy. The shirt is out-of-season in more than one way, and it hardly deserves the use of an exclamation mark. But that's why I like it.

A Scotty's Brewhouse patron looks at his phone as the back of his Cubs shirt faces Pennsylvania Street in Indianapolis, Nov. 30, 2012.

I went back and forth on this one. This whole "covering Election Day Obama campaign volunteers in Columbus" idea started with talking to Harold, an Obama '08 volunteer, while covering the President's event in Columbus in October. And yet, I ended up not using his material because I got enough on that day. I thought of making the end result just audio, and then I thought of putting the photos on top to make an audio slideshow, and then I settled on keeping the audio and photos separate. Makes the navigation through all this stuff freer, I guess. Finally, the decision to follow Obama volunteers instead of Romney volunteers came from talking with Harold and wanting to finish that story. Of course, that didn't pan out, but something else did. Seriously, these people are dedicated.

So, here it is, finally. I'm sure if I didn't have a day job outside of journalism I would have finished this less than three days after the election. (By the way: Everything was recorded on my iPhone, that gorgeous piece of journalistic magic that made shelling out money for a dedicated audio recorder optional.)

As for the photos: I didn't do any coverage in 2008 (besides one Obama-with-a-baby photo that became my first work published in the IDS), so this presidential election has been an eye-opener. I carried over some lessons from covering the midterm elections in 2010 for the IDS, but of course this year everything played out on a much larger scale. I'm no Damon Winter or Charles Dharapak, but maybe I'm getting there, and I'm sure Demotix appreciates it.

Obama campaign staging location director Jay Smith makes the call to close the German Village field office at the end of Election Day, Nov. 7, 2012, in Columbus, Ohio.

If you were paying attention to popular music in the 90s, then you've heard Blessid Union of Souls, famous for "I Believe" (and for dressing like the 90s?). Their vocalist, Eliot Sloan, came to Brownsburg High School last night to perform Hear to Heal, a program he started to give high school students a voice to overcome all the mess that high school life is. In each high school, Sloan provides students some base music, and the students add onto it themselves, contributing direction, production, choreography, and some additional songs. Sloan's executive producer, Brian Halsey, told me before the show that six of the songs for the night's show were written straight from conversations Sloan had with the students.

It seems to me like a pretty cool idea, especially given what everyone knows about high school. Sloan said it's coming to Pike High School on Nov. 16 and 17, and will be at Ben Davis High School in the spring. As for now, the full gallery of photos appears at The Indianapolis Star. And enjoy some more 90s flashback.

Blessid Union of Souls vocalist Eliot Sloan sings with Brownsburg High School students during the Hear to Heal concert at the Brownsburg High School Auditorium, Friday, Nov. 2, 2012. (Alex Farris | For The Star)

I got an email from the IndyStar photo editor, Mike Fender, saying that the Halloween costume photos I took at Bella Vita Ristorante on Geist Reservoir "got tons of traffic." I asked him if they got more traffic than the Mr. Big story I shot, which got about 80,000 pageviews. He replied, "Bigger than big."

Whoa.

I don't know how, or why, but apparently people really like looking at photos of people in Halloween costumes. So, here's the monster of a gallery (39 photos) for you to look at. Add yourself to the horde, and happy Halloween!

Also something to celebrate: this is the 100th post on this blog. Boom. Here's to another 100 posts.

People wear costumes at Bella Vita Ristorante on Geist Reservoir at a party supporting the Jeff George Foundation, Saturday, Oct. 27, 2012. (Alex Farris | For The Star)

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I'm about to leave the Microtel south of Columbus, Ohio, but before I do, I wanted to post to the site a few photos from Cleveland, where Obama made a late (started at 8 p.m.) stop at Burke Lakefront Airport. He was raspy from the rest of his cross-country tour, but I've never seen him use his fists so much. This deserves a study like I did for Paul Ryan, but there isn't much time for that now. Maybe later. Maybe.

Of course, there are many more Obama photos on Demotix. What didn't make it there: At least two people had to leave the area I was in because they were close to fainting before Obama spoke, and one was near tears while he spoke. That "Fired up! Ready to go!" chant is a bit more literal than one might think.

Also, Romney and Ryan were in Ohio yesterday, too. Mitt was in Cincinnati in the morning, and Paul was in Defiance, Ohio, in the evening. I wish I could have gone to those events, as well, but there are only so many miles one can drive in a day.

President Barack Obama makes a forceful point to an estimated 12,000 people at Burke Lakefront Airport in Cleveland during the last stop on his two-day cross-country campaign swing, Thursday, October 25, 2012. Before Cleveland, Obama flew to Chicago, where he cast his early vote.

The Orionids' peak occurred between Saturday night and Sunday morning, with a projected rate of 25 meteors per hour. I've only properly watched one meteor shower before (the Perseids in 2007), so I figured Saturday was a good day to correct that. With my camera, I drove to the closest dark sky I could find: an empty gravel road off of IN-75 (location approximate). I then took successive 20-second exposures of the eastern sky with two goals: snap a picture of a meteor, and make a time-lapse animation of Orion rising up and to the south.

An hour and four minutes passes in eight seconds. Almost half of that time got increasingly foggy.

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There are three different stories told here, and one that will be told later, so let's get down to business.

A supporter holds up four fingers as U.S. President Barack Obama speaks during a presidential campaign stop at the Ohio State University in Columbus, Ohio.

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The Circle City Classic was this weekend, and with the annual football game between two historically black universities (this year, South Carolina State University and North Carolina Central University) came the Cabaret, a concert featuring Tank, SOS Band and Charlie Wilson at the Indiana Convention Center. My deadline kept me from taking any photos of Wilson, the headliner, but Tank and SOS ("Sounds of Success") were fun to shoot.

Just a quick, little assignment for the Star. Full gallery here.

SOS Band guitarist Bruno Speight performs during the Circle City Classic Cabaret at the Indiana Convention Center, Friday, Oct. 5, 2012. (Alex Farris | For The Star)

And now for something completely different.

Before I went traipsing across Ohio following the presidential candidates for two days, I was in Chicago for the weekend. My stated goal was to take some photos of the Chicago World Music Festival (and I did, though minimally), but I also had larger goals of meeting with a friend for some book editing and flying a kite in the Windy City. Both of those goals combined wonderfully.

Success!

(This probably isn't the real curvature of the Earth. In fact, I'd almost guarantee it, partly because of the fisheye nature of the GoPro and partly because of very prevalent warping.)

On Monday, I got another email from Demotix asking if I could take some campaign photos in Ohio. I obliged, especially since it turned out that, not only would I take pictures of Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan in Dayton, but I'd also go to Toledo and Bowling Green to take photos at both a Romney rally AND a Barack Obama rally. Score.

U.S. President Barack Obama shakes hands with a supporter during a presidential campaign stop Sept. 26 at Bowling Green State University's Stroh Center in Bowling Green, Ohio. Former Mass. Governor Mitt Romney also campaigned in Ohio on Sept. 26, at the Sea Gate Convention Center in Toledo, Ohio.

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It's always a pleasure when I can find an excuse to go to Bloomington, my favorite big small town. Kristina Hunter (now Kristina Mullis) provided me a very good reason to go back when she asked me to take her wedding photos. Kristina is a fellow IDS alum, so I was thrilled; and she celebrated her wedding to U.S. Navy seaman Patrick Mullis at Woolery Stone Mill, which made me even more thrilled. To top it all off, the groomsmen climbed up the rusty stairs and a dilapidated firetruck for their group pictures, and there were at least two babies in the bridesmaids' RV. (Oh, and there was an RV.) This was definitely the most unique wedding I've shot, and I'm glad I was a part of it.

Awesomely enough, the wedding gave me a second reason to visit Bloomington, as yesterday I delivered the photos to Kristina in the Indiana Memorial Union. Bonus.

Kristina Hunter and Patrick Mullis got married on Sept. 8 at Woolery Stone Mill in Bloomington, Ind.

Maybe I should apologize for not providing any verbal substance or analysis of Congressman Paul Ryan's stump speech at the Clermont County Fairgrounds in Owensville, Ohio. (I did record a bit of it on my iPhone, near the beginning when he addressed the U.S. Embassy attacks in Libya and Egypt that resulted in the death of four diplomats in Benghazi, including U.S. Ambassador to Libya Chris Stevens. Specifically, he defended the guy at the top of his ticket, Mitt Romney, in his critique of the Obama Administration's early responses to the events. Audio here.) Like I usually am at these sorts of things, I'm too immersed in the visuals to pay attention to the words.

But maybe I can provide some substance. Along with the photos on Demotix, I have a set of images that analyzes (somewhat) Ryan's non-verbal methods of delivery. I've been fascinated by politicians and other speech-givers talking with their hands ever since I noticed Bill Clinton's "pointing without pointing" (also known at the Clinton thumb) when I was a kid. There's so much that politicians can say without saying a word, and it would do everybody some good to separate, every once in a while, the words and the gestures (and the faces) of a speech.

Update: Corbis picked up five of my photos! Screen shot of proof and current live search results page. With all the Super Bowl stuff, I now have a respectable photographer page on Corbis. w00t.

Paul Ryan lets a point sink in with the crowd's applause.

I'll get this out of the way: I don't really listen to country music. I like Johnny Cash, and I like old, gritty country that mingled with everything else to create rock 'n' roll. But current pop country? Nah. I err on the side of bluegrass and folk, not that.

Rascal Flatts, though, wasn't so bad. I won't go out and buy their latest album, but I could more than tolerate three of their songs. They were fun to shoot, too, with the combination of interaction with the crowd, interaction among the group, and the extended stage. All in all, not bad.

Again, these photos were for The Indianapolis Star. Enjoy!

Rascal Flatts guitarist Joe Don Rooney performs during the trio's performance on Friday, Aug. 31, at Klipsch Music Center in Noblesville.

This month has been a bit busy. It didn't start off well, as I attended funeral and memorial services for two friends, Bryan Kolski and Jessica Adkins, at the end of July. Things have picked up since then, though, and among research work, a wedding and starting some volunteer reading for IRIS, I got two photo assignments from The Indianapolis Star. The first, taken on the 3rd and published on the 9th, was of a Greenwood man returning to the pool in Plainfield where he almost drowned in June, just to thank the lifeguards who saved him, especially Shelby Partin, who saw him first. The second, taken the 13th and published on the front of the West Local Living section today, was of a local YMCA that's gotten very popular and expanded a lot of its services, including the Zumba classes.

Sadly, the month ended with another death: that of Neil Armstrong, the first human to set foot on the Moon. He, Buzz Aldrin and Michael Collins traveled more than 230,000 miles just so Armstrong and Aldrin could walk on the Moon for a little over two hours. I've always been a fan of NASA, ever since I watched Apollo 13 for the 10th time at age 8, so while I wasn't alive on July 20, 1969, I still feel great awe that we did it and some sadness that Neil is gone. So, at the end of this entry is a set of pictures that should give a bit of perspective. It's my own way of doing what the Armstrong family asked people to do: "Honor his example of service, accomplishment and modesty, and the next time you walk outside on a clear night and see the moon smiling down at you, think of Neil Armstrong and give him a wink."

I took two photos of the Moon, one at 8:53 p.m. EDT last night (left) and the other at 3:33 a.m. EDT this morning. They show the satellite in ever-so-slightly different phases, but because they were taken 6 hours and 40 minutes apart, and because the Moon seems to librate, each photo sees at a slightly different angle. The angles are just different enough, and your brain is just powerful enough, that if you cross your eyes and put one image on top of another, you can convince yourself that it's a 3D image. Try it!

I've been a secondary photographer at a wedding a few times before (e.g. my cousins' weddings, one time with Jeff Dillow, another time with Jeff coming up Sept. 1), but I hadn't been a wedding co-photographer before. That's where I found myself, though, on August 11, at a ceremony near Anderson. Along with Arec's father, Steve Ligon, I worked with Rosi Jane's Photography, and our tandem effort meant that I didn't have to do everything. It allowed me to focus more on each shot and situation, as well as enjoy the first perfect day in a long time (75-80 degrees, slight wind, slight cloud cover, beautiful sunlight). The only thing that could make the day better for a photographer was an epic cake-smash, and I was so glad when it happened!

I don't know how it happened, but this concert ran very smoothly. There was no misunderstanding from a pit bouncer like there was during the Drake concert, and contrary to everything you would believe at a hip-hop show (or any concert, for that matter), Wiz Khalifa got on stage 20 minutes ahead of schedule. As for the performance, local DJ Nicholas Rage (@BenBrightLights) didn't go but said that others thought the show was "so so." The three songs (actually four or five; bonus!) I took photos of sounded good, but then again, I hadn't listened to any of Wiz's work before. I did, however, get a distinct Jimi Hendrix vibe from him, so that's a plus.

Once again, these photos were for The Indianapolis Star, just like the Drake and Chris Brown concerts before them. You can find more photos in a gallery on the IndyStar website, nestled in between the photos of Tim McGraw, Kenny Chesney and the Brickyard 400 events.

Update: These photos have gotten some pretty significant pingbacks. First, Nick Rage's buddy Brandon saw the photos and put a link to this entry on the Complex sneakers website; I got onto the site because Wiz was wearing some new Jordan VIs that had been released in June. (The photos also got onto the site Jordan Depot.) Second, the Lafayette Journal and Courier reposted the photos from the Star, as did the Mansfield (Ohio) News Journal. (They can do that because both papers, like the Star, are owned by Gannett.)

Wiz Khalifa points to the crowd as lifts the microphone stand during his concert with Mac Miller and Kendrick Lamar on Jul. 28, 2012, at Klipsch Music Center near Indianapolis.

Randall Munroe's photos over Boston rekindled in me something that has long been a dream of mine: to take photos from extremely high places.

Here comes the sun, with distortion as its +1. Taken with an iPhone 4S on a 10-second interval from the Camera Awesome! app from SmugMug, wrapped by a kite string and flown over St. Malachy Catholic Church in Brownsburg, Ind.

I drove the SAG vehicle yesterday for my dad and a family friend, Ron Erdely, on their yearly trek across U.S. 40 in the 160-mile Ride Across INdiana. I also helped on last year's ride (where my dad played the role of Lazarus), but as their main/only SAG driver this year, I was much more focused on making sure the riders were okay than I was on taking pictures. I did have time for some photos, though, and I do think it is high time that a photo-based infographic graced the pages of this blog.

For you desktop or laptop users, hover your cursor over the photo for some neat rollover action. (Full entry contains complete list of items and a bonus photo.)

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On Friday afternoon, I heard the doorbell ring, and I knew the rest of the weekend from that point on would be awesome. At the door were Amanda and Jake, two friends from IU with whom I studied in Madrid for six months in 2010. They picked me up, I guided them through the winding forested roads of the northwest corner of Indianapolis, and we drove up I-65 and a hellishly crowded Dan Ryan Expressway to a hostel in Chicago for a long-overdue Spain reunion.

Artur throws a Frisbee on the shores of Lake Michigan in front of the Chicago skyline.

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Last night, I delivered the photos and video of last weekend's wedding to the Cariaso household. Sophia, the mother of two friends in my high-school class and the bride in that wedding, thanked me and invited me in so we could watch the video and flip through the photos together with the rest of the family. I stayed there for four hours because, well, we're all good friends.

Despite that friendship, I never really knew the story of their family while I was in high school with J.D. and Denice. Denice, their eldest daughter, set me straight during the reception on Saturday. J.D., Denice, and their father, Edgar, moved to the U.S. from the Philippines in 1997, and the rest of the family (Sophia and kids Daniel, David, and Angel) was assembled in the next five years. By the time I started high school in 2003, all of them were here, so I thought they were just a family made here that maintained its strong Filipino roots (and cooked great Filipino food!). Hearing their story during the wedding Mass's homily, how they met in their childhood neighborhood and fulfilled their Catholic marriage obligations (especially the children part) even before they were officially married in the Church, provided an even more awesome story than the one I already knew.

As grandmother and granddaughter, husband and wife, watched the video and laughed at dance photos, I couldn't help but smile. I've known this family for a long time, but I was thankful to be a major part of the culmination of a long and happy life together, one that promises to be even longer and happier now. All weekend, and last night, every time Sophia and Edgar said, "Thank you," I made sure to say it back to them.

Edgar and Sophia Cariaso dance to Soulja Boy's "Crank That" during a medley of choreographed songs at their wedding reception July 7, 2012, at St. Gabriel Catholic Church in Indianapolis.

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It was hard to ignore the 100-degree heat on Saturday, but the bride, groom, and their party in the wedding I shot that day made it a lot easier. Katie Peck, a former teacher at my old high school, married Matt Hilton, a teacher at another Indianapolis high school, at St. Joan of Arc Church this weekend on a day filled with controlled chaos and, as it is with any good reception, a lot of dancing. While making sure I called my old teachers by their first names (it's hard to break that habit!), I took over 1,900 pictures, averaging about 150 frames an hour. Big shout-outs go to the Athenaeum downtown for the sweet digs at the reception, and to the people who filled that hall with good dance music, JK Mobile DJs. You should check them out if you're contemplating a reception, company shindig, or other rambunctious get-together.

I hope every wedding I shoot is this fun. :D

Katie and Matt Hilton kiss as their wedding party looks at them before the wedding reception June 30, 2012, outside the Athenaeum in Indianapolis.

I've known Arec since fifth grade, and it's hard to imagine anyone more perfect for him than Kelsey.

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The first try at a six-month pinhole camera got moved, so this time it's sturdier.

This camera is attached to a block of wood that is nailed to two other blocks of wood on top of a playground, and it's placed at least 10 feet off the ground. It should stay put this time.

Getting new camera flash equipment makes any day feel like Christmas.

Craig Adams balances a bowling ball on his head for a quick second for a senior picture June 14, 2012, at Holcomb Gardens at Butler University in Indianapolis.

Of course, NASA beats me, but I think I did pretty well with my limited resources.

Venus makes a transit across the sun as seen from the east side of Hendricks County, Indiana, on June 5, 2012. The last transit occurred in 2004. Transits occur in eight-year pairs separated by more than 100 years, so the next transit won't occur until 2117.

It can't have been a year since Lauren Spierer went missing. Can it?

I am forever grateful to event staff who like photographers. Without Kimmy, I would have been walking halfway up the crowd during the first of my three allotted songs.

Drake walks across the stage during his Club Paradise show Friday, June 1, 2012, at Klipsch Music Center north of Indianapolis.

"The biggest problem with NATO is its existence and the idea that it's built on," Anna Sanne Göransson said. With the existence of such a large military alliance, "you have a hammer, [and] you see every problem as a nail."

An anti-capitalism protester passes out leaflets before the NATO protest march from Grant Park to McCormick Place, the meeting place for NATO leaders during the summit, on Sunday, May 20, 2012. The march of an estimated 5,000 people was led by Veterans for Peace and Afghans for Peace but encompassed anarchists, socialists, communists, Occupiers and environmentalists.

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I had no idea.

I got called April 12 to take photos of a run-down house on the Northside for an IndyStar story. Writer Will Higgins had talked to Dan Kirklin, a neighbor across a pond from the house, and he'd organized a visit where I would talk to Dan, take a photo of him looking over to the house, and work my way into the house for some more photos. All I knew about the house was that it belonged to a Jerry Hostetler, a guy who was a bit rich and had put a lot of gaudy additions onto his home before his death in 2006, and that it was going to auction soon because it had been abandoned since then.

When the story got published online last night, I was treated to the real Jerry Hostetler. From Will:

For most of his adult life, Hostetler was a minor celebrity around Indianapolis. Celebrity is not the right word. But he made the papers, first back in 1964 when, as "Mr. Big," he pleaded guilty to two charges of pandering, running prostitutes. // A report filed by a probation officer back in the day said: "When asked how he became involved in the business, (Hostetler) said it was difficult to pass up that easy money."

You can find the full story and all the photos of the house and Hostetler here. Enjoy, and if you're game enough, you should go to the auction June 4. You might be able to reverse what Kirklin told me: "The whole was far, far less than the sum of its parts."

Resident Dan Kirklin looks from his backyard to Jerry Hostetler's house, abandoned since his death six years ago, in the Windcombe neighborhood on the Northside of Indianapolis, Thursday, Apr. 12, 2012. Kirklin said of the house's disparate features, "The whole was far, far less than the sum of its parts." (Alex Farris / For The Star)

I haven't been a part of any political coverage for an outlet this year. (There is an entry, though, featuring Rick Perry.) It's much different than 2010, when I was at Todd Young's headquarters for the IDS when the GOP candidate won the 9th district U.S. House seat from Democrat Baron Hill. As such, I have no photos of this year's Republican senatorial battle between six-term Richard Lugar and Tea Party-backed state treasurer Richard Mourdock. I certainly couldn't do any political coverage during my day job.

I do, however, have photos of Mourdock from an IU College Republicans event last January. He was the third invited speaker in the Indiana Memorial Union's Frangipani Room that night, and he introduced himself as the primary challenger that he turned out to be. I don't remember much about what Mourdock said that night, but I do remember being much more impressed with Tony Bennett, Indiana's superindendent of public instruction, who talked about working across the aisle on bipartisan education reform. I also remember, generally, that Mourdock's partisanship made me a bit chagrined. I guess I'm not alone.

Indiana state treasurer Richard Mourdock talks with IU College Republican's Justin Kingsolver before a College Republicans event Jan. 24, 2011, in the Indiana Memorial Union. Mourdock beat six-term Senator Richard Lugar in the GOP primary election May 8, 2012.

For how much I love Little 500, I've gone to its parent event, the Indy 500, about as often. From 2006 to 2008 I joined my dad and family friends at seats in Turn 1 at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. In that first year, I saw Sam Hornish Jr. beat Marco Andretti (just barely) to the finish line, a finish almost as thrilling as last year's when Dan Wheldon (God rest his soul) passed rookie J.R. Hildebrand after Hildebrand hit the wall in the final turn. I was hooked on the race before then, though; my parents threw a 500 party with 60-odd people the day before the race, and in high school we got Carburetion Day off every year because it was so close to the track. Every month of May, we knew school was almost out by the sound of the roaring engines at 4790 West 16th Street.

The Indianapolis Star gave me another photo assignment this weekend, this time of the 1st Rev Your Engines Concert on Monument Circle. It's the first event this year of the long build-up to The Greatest Spectacle in Racing. The announcer before the show said May is getting so big that they had to push it into April, and I'm okay with that.

Check out more photos of Plain White T's and The Romantics in the Star's gallery. And if you're in the area, you should find a copy of today's paper. Three of the photos made the front of the Metro & State section.

Tom Higgenson of Plain White T's sings into a megaphone during the 500 Festival Rev Your Engines Concert on Monument Circle, Saturday, Apr. 28, 2012. (Alex Farris / For The Star)

Little 500 is my favorite event of the year, as it is for a lot of people. Some of my best IDS memories are of taking or editing photos of the men's and women's races, the rush to make the best photo of the eight-person team and telling a full story of the event in an award-winning photo gallery. There's so much pageantry around the event, and it produces many of my favorite photos.

This year, I shot for The Indianapolis Star instead of the IDS, and even though I was shooting on my own, I still think I got a complete picture of the event. Check it out below.

Note The Star put up a gallery of the 20-odd photos I sent them yesterday, but this is a looser/more expansive edit of about 40 photos. Y'know, more bang for your click. Also, the IDS did a great job this year at both the women's and men's races.

Delta Gamma's Kayce Doogs beats Kappa Alpha Theta's Kathleen Chelminiak to the finish line to win the women's Little 500 bicycle race at Bill Armstrong Stadium in Bloomington, Friday, Apr. 20, 2012. The win was DG's second in the 25-year history of the women's race. (Alex Farris / For The Star)

The photos here show two days of bull clones, rosin on ropes, a true rodeo clown, brave bullfighters assisting the rider, falling, flying, cowboy hats and dirt. You have been warned.

Chad Besplug holds onto Panhandle Slim clone Another One as the bull leaves the chute during the first section of championship day at Professional Bull Riders' Built Ford Tough Invitational on Apr. 15, 2012, at Bankers Life Fieldhouse in Indianapolis. Fabiano Vieira of Perola, Brazil, won the invite atop Who Dat in the championship round, earning $37,885.

A memory changes each time it is recalled; in the same way, my reason for keeping each thing now is different than the reason I kept it in the first place.

I got these shoes during my sophomore year to replace my previous pair. They weren't special; they were comfortable, and I had good experiences with New Balance previously. I've never been attached to a pair of shoes, as most follow the normal cycle of 1) wear all the time, 2) wear sparingly when they start to fade, 3) use for outside chores. These shoes, however, were different. They're my traveling shoes, the only articles of clothing that made every trip during my 15-month Binge of Travel: St. Pete, Fla., North Carolina, London, Dublin, Paris, Madrid, Barcelona, Sevilla (twice), the Canary Islands, Girona, Athens, Santorini, Milan, Liverpool and Marrakech, Morocco. I traveled in them so much that the soles wore thin and rainwater could seep in. I wore grocery bags around them for a week until I got new shoes. When I see them now, I see how much I improved during my travel and how much I want to do it again.

The Notre Dame women's basketball team plays tonight in their second straight Final Four. I shot for the IU Student News Bureau last year, so I had the opportunity to sit on the baseline at Conseco Fieldhouse (now Bankers Life Fieldhouse) as they played to a home crowd against Texas A&M for the national championship. They lost, but meeting Elsa Garrison from Getty was cool. What wasn't cool was my hard drive dying the next day, so I was too preoccupied with regaining a working computer to post these photos to the blog. Until now. Yay, news peg!

Also, go here if you haven't gotten enough of today's action.

Texas A&M guard Tyra White drives through traffic near the basket during the second half of Texas A&M's 76-70 victory against Notre Dame in the NCAA women's basketball national championship game on Tuesday, Apr. 5, 2011, at Conseco Fieldhouse in Indianapolis. (Alex Farris | IU Student News Bureau)

My cousin married Steve last May before he deployed to Afghanistan, but they made plans for a "proper" wedding at the Marine Corps chapel at Quantico once he came back.

Steve and Amy Adair kiss in front of a tunnel of Marine Corps members and swords after their wedding Mar. 24 at the Marine Corps base in Quantico, Va.

As Marty McFly said, "If you put your mind to it, you can accomplish anything."

I can argue that I'm doing more web coding than most photographers would do. That counts for something.

We can pretend this is a picture of me coding, but really it's of me checking into Facebook on my friend's computer at our hostel in Athens. Photo by that friend, Seth Davis, in June 2010.

The camera already provides a rigid frame, and often it's a pretty constraining one. Human sight is so panoramic, and so narrowing that range to a 3:2 box already takes some of the majesty and breadth out of a landscape or a piece of action. Why, you might ask, would you limit a photo even further? Three reasons: More story, more depth, and more focus.

The Plaza de España in Seville, Spain (regrettably dredged for renovations for this photo on Mar. 27, 2010) was a filming site for the Naboo sequences in Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones, as well as a site for Lawrence of Arabia.

Since 1901, the IU-Purdue men's basketball rivalry has shaped what it means to be a college basketball fan in Indiana. You can try to be neutral and say, "I root for every college team from Indiana," but chances are you're talking to another Indiana basketball fan, and they'll know you're lying. With symbols as iconic as Gene Keady's painted-on hair and Bob Knight throwing a chair, you can't help but favor one over the other. The only difference is the zealotry with which you cheer and/or jeer.

From the IU-Purdue basketball game on Feb. 23, 2011 in Bloomington. I never went to an IU-Purdue basketball game when I was younger, but if I had, I probably would have been this kid.

Intrigued by the footage of the planets' movements on NBC Nightly News (but knowing about it beforehand), I decided to record this Moon-Venus-Jupiter proximity for myself. I set up the camera on a tripod and took photos every minute between 8 and 9 p.m., and then I put it all into a .gif file for easy consumption.

From top: The Moon, Jupiter and Venus travel northwest toward the horizon. GIF of 61 images taken a minute apart over one hour. Bonus: my dad's hand appears on the left at 8:23 as he points to the International Space Station, which made a two-minute transit north of the moondance.

The downtown cathedral provided ashes for people too busy for a full service.

The Revs. Jean Denton (back) and Andy Shamel (foreground) trace crosses with ashes on people's foreheads during Ashes on the Go on Wednesday, Feb. 22, 2012, outside Christ Church Cathedral in Indianapolis. The Rev. Denton, from St. Paul's Episcopal Church at 62nd and Meridian streets, and The Rev. Shamel, from CCC, were part of the third shift of ministers (with The Rev. Grace Burton Edwards of Trinity Episcopal Church, below) offering ashes to passersby on Ash Wednesday, the beginning of the Christian season of Lent.

Capturing the blur of the preceding milliseconds helps tell the story in more dimensions.

(130mm, f/2.8, 1/160s) The Cutters' Eric Young crosses the finish line during a victory lap after winning the Little 500 bicycle race Apr. 25, 2009, at Indiana University in Bloomington, Ind. The Cutters won the event for the third year in a row, overcoming a crash and a late penalty. (Alex Farris | Arbutus)

As a nerd of many things (photography, science, math, etc.), I'm a big fan of looking at original historical artifacts and holding them in my hands. As an IU student, I had the wonderful opportunity to do a lot of that at the Lilly Library, home to an Oscar, medieval calendars, Ernie Pyle's letters and an original Gutenberg New Testament. The library also prides itself on its large collection of Abraham Lincoln documents, and by large I mean 490 items by and about Honest Abe.

In honor of Lincoln's birthday (side note: it's also my dad's birthday), I decided to stop by the library this weekend. I was in Bloomington already for Indiana News Photographers Association photo contest judging, so it wasn't much effort to walk over there and look at documents I never saw when I was a student. I held in my own two hands a letter he wrote to a distant family member from Kentucky, a directive to Secretary of State William H. Seward, and the preliminary Emancipation Proclamation. That broke my nerd quota for the day, even if some of them were facsimiles.

Preliminary Emancipation Proclamation. Notice some scratching out and, "shall be then, thenceforward, and forever free..."

I'm sure that somewhere down the road, I'll put together a strictly-stills photo story on the Super Bowl in Indianapolis for my portfolio. For now, though, I've decided to put the audio and video I gathered in the last week and a half (which started out as just snippets to remember the experience by) to good use in the multimedia story below. This week has been wonderful for my city, and I hope this gives you a good idea of how much went on downtown, both in the Village and elsewhere on game day.

(If the file below is too big for you, you can watch it on YouTube.)

Be careful. This is new HTML5 territory, so depending on your browser, the controls that the video serves you might not work. If that's the case, click directly on the video to play and pause it. Oddly enough, though, the scrubber will still work.

Unless you tried really, really hard to not be a part of American culture last night and this morning, you already know that the New York Giants beat the New England Patriots 21-17 in Super Bowl XLVI in my home town of Indianapolis. I'll be working on a multimedia project in short order, but for now here are some more photos from this week, all of which also appear on Demotix here, here, here, here and here.

New York Giants fans with balloons outside the Indiana Convention Center

As a native of Indianapolis, I both never thought this could happen and knew deep down that we could do it.

Roman numerals in front of the Soldiers and Sailors Monument

I don't know what I'm doing right, but I must be doing it somehow.

This time, it worked out.

I tried doing some street photography with Chicago Tribune photog Scott Strazzante in October, but an assignment took him out of downtown Chicago during our scheduled time. Today, while on a trip to celebrate a friend's birthday, we got in a proper walk up and down Michigan Avenue, this time with a journalism student doing a story on Scott.

Ingredients: 30-second exposure, Nikon D300, tripod, a laser level taped over to create a point, a hand-held SB-600 Speedlight popped after writing, a DVD case of The Beatles: Anthology 5 & 6.