2013 | Alex Farris Photo Blog

How do I define a year with so many distinct parts? This year contained one week of Spanish translating work in Guatemala with Operation Walk, six weeks of daily photojournaism at the Journal & Courier in Lafayette, eight weeks of learning how to do school again in that wonderful place called Bloomington, two weeks of frantically mapping out and registering for the start a wholly new career, a semester full of science classes at IUPUI, and the filling of every spare weekend possible with assignments from The Indianapolis Star. Not to mention hours of website coding, a weekend of best-manning a friend's wedding, one late night spent at a bar in Lafayette talking with a Purdue professor about the merits of getting a Ph.D. in evolutionary biology, two days of agonizing waiting before I found out I got straight A's, and five seconds of my brain processing the translation of a patient in Guatemala telling me she would name her next son after me.

Purdue senior Aaron Knott whispers to senior Kayla McCurdy before the Nearly Naked Mile on Thursday, March 21, 2013, on the Purdue campus. The event, run by Purdue Alumni Student Experience, supported Lafayette Transitional Housing.

Soon after my biology test on Friday, Mike Fender texted me wondering if I was up for shooting an IU men's basketball game for the Star.

I replied, "AM I? Of course!"

For a while, the primary content on this blog was IU men's basketball. I was one of the beat photographers for the Indiana Daily Student, and during that time, I had grown quite accustomed to Tom Crean's pacing, Martha the Cleaning Lady, and the dedication of student fans, even though the team was not yet good. I also grew accustomed to the fellow photographers on the baseline: Chris Howell of the Bloomington Herald-Times, the Associated Press guys, Mike Dickbernd of IU Athletics and his intern (Peter Stevenson at the time), and whoever came down that night from The Indianapolis Star (usually Matt Kryger, source of endless jokes and well-placed distractions). I was a little sad when the season ended, but as I was used to endings in my senior year, I didn't make a big thing of it when I shot my last game at Assembly Hall. It helped that IU finished last in the conference that season.

I've been back to Bloomington multiple times since then, and once I was even on the floor of Assembly Hall, but when I got that text, I was so excited to go back. I stepped onto the floor, all the memories came rushing back, and I HAD to share it on Instagram. It just felt right. The Martha the Cleaning Lady video played, Tom Crean paced down the sideline, hiking his pants up all the time, and even some of the same photographers were there.

The only big differences were these: IU was a good team again, the IDS photographer (Caitlin O'Hara) and IU athletics intern (Steph Langan) were younger than me, and I had grown up to be, effectively, Matt Kryger, the guy the Star sent down for the night. All of that made the experience even better, and I hope I get another chance to go back home.

The full 19-photo gallery appears here, but fair warning: The crops are weird. The Star just moved to a new website layout, and I think they have a bit of work still to do with their photo galleries. I definitely did not crop photo 5 that way, and it showed up full-frame in the paper this morning.

Hoosier players watch the pre-game highlight reel before their game against the University of North Florida at Assembly Hall in Bloomington, Saturday, Dec. 7, 2013.

It's after Thanksgiving, so now is the time for Christmas photo assignments. Two days after my slow wisdom tooth was taken out (and seven and a half years after my three normal wisdom teeth were taken out), I drove to Danville for Christmas on the Square. You can't help but get good photos of kids reacting to everything Christmas, and it was pretty easy for my slightly-squirrel-cheeked face to find good moments. The pivotal moment, though, was when an 8-year-old kid flipped a large switch and all the lights on the courthouse square turned on.

Ava Fleehearty, 8, flips the switch to turn on the lights around the Hendricks County courthouse during Christmas on the Square in Danville, Friday, Nov. 29, 2013.

Leica Microsystems, the brand behind the first practical 35mm camera, makes microscopes that take pictures. I had to try one out, and a post-doc in Dr. James Marrs' lab happily indulged me.

These are 3-day-old zebrafish embryos. Aren't they cute with their huge eyes? And they haven't made any pigment yet, so their skin is still clear! You can see all their innards underneath!

I intently read two books while I studied in London in the summer of 2009: Barbara Tuchman's The March of Folly and The Things They Carried, a Pulitzer Prize finalist written by Tim O'Brien. O'Brien, a veteran of the Vietnam War, wrote about the psychological trials of war in a way I hadn't seen since I read Slaughterhouse-Five for AP English class (although he was much more concrete and less, uh, Tralfamadorian). I didn't think about that great Kurt Vonnegut book as I read The Things They Carried; in fact, the thing I remember most about reading Tim's book is that I spent a day alone in Clapton Pond, in the north-east of London, overhearing a conversation in Spanish in a pizzeria and sitting on a park bench and intently reading in between bouts of taking pictures of the pigeons. I simply thought it was a very good book, and I recommend it every chance I get.

Last night, I covered the Timequake Clambake, the final event of VonnegutFest. The weekend series of events, which occurred just before the Indianapolis native's birthday, Armistice Day (he called it that rather than Veterans Day), featured a panel discussing on veterans reclaiming the holiday, and the panelists included NPR Morning Edition anchor Steve Inskeep and none other than Tim O'Brien. O'Brien also attended the Clambake, and as I began my assignment, one of the organizers told me he had just stepped outside to have a smoke. I figured, "I should get a photo of him," and so people brought me out to him. They introduced me to him, and I immediately gushed. "I adored The Things They Carried!" I said, being completely fanboy about it. "I read it while I was studying abroad in London, and it was wonderful!"

Then they offered to take a picture of me with him. Of course.

As an Armistice Day baby (just like Kurt), this was a pretty flippin' cool event to attend. I wish I could have sat in on that panel discussion, or gotten pictures of the Kurt Vonnegut look-a-like contest, or talked to Tim for longer than 30 seconds. Meeting a guy who could write about war and its troubles as skillfully as Kurt Vonnegut, though, was a real pleasure all its own.

Happy Armistice Day, everybody.

Comedian Gary Gulman (right) gets a picture with author Dan Wakefield at VonnegutFest's Timequake Clambake at Indiana Landmarks' Cook Theater, Saturday, Nov. 9, 2013. Wakefield, a friend of Kurt Vonnegut 10 years his junior, wrote the introduction for "Kurt Vonnegut: Letters."

On Saturday, my dad and I drove to Terre Haute to watch the IHSAA Cross Country State Finals. I went to cover them for the Star, but my dad was going there anyway, and as an added bonus, my law-school-attending brother Kennywas already planning to drive in from St. Louis. So, that was a cool visit. And after years of taking pictures of him and his/my teammates for free, he was really happy that this time, I was getting paid.

Here's the full 26-photo gallery for the Star. I also got two photos in the dead-tree edition yesterday.

Jackson Bertoli of Terre Haute South reacts to winning the boys' race of the 33rd IHSAA Cross Country State Finals in Terre Haute, Saturday, Nov. 2, 2013.

I didn't give or get candy tonight, and I didn't dress up in a costume, but I was around a lot of the latter last night. In a near-repeat of last year, I took photos of costumes and their people at a Halloween party at the Tin Roof bar downtown. Last year I sent 39 photos, and this year you get 37 pictures of people in costume to ogle over.

Tomorrow, I'm going to Terre Haute to cover the state cross-country championship. I haven't done as much driving for an assignment since the election last year.

People dress in costume for a Halloween party at Tin Roof, Thursday, Oct. 31, 2013.

A full pre-med schedule fills my days, but I still have chances to update the blog every now and then. Today, we have the assignments I've done for the Star in the last two weekends. You can find full galleries of the Miss Irvington Halloween Pageant, the Franklin College football team infested with Speedway High School alums, and the Making Strides Against Breast Cancer Walk on the Star's website.

Side note: I did a fancy thing during the pageant. I saw the huge window behind the stage and thought at first that it would transmit annoying backlight (it was still daylight when the pageant started). I put two radio-controlled flashes on each side of the stage, though, and when they went off, it created the mirror-like effect they use in interrogation room windows. The outside was dark by then, and so in the pictures for which I used the flashes, everything that's happening inside is reflected back, including the audience. I rather liked that effect, and I should find other occasions to use it.

Xavier Lee, Malcolm King and Gavin McLure dance zumba to keep warm before the Making Strides Against Breast Cancer 5K walk downtown, Saturday, Oct. 26, 2013.

I remember a few nights of star-gazing very well. One night in 1997 (for a great many nights, really), I could look out my west-facing bedroom window and see Comet Hale-Bopp, its white and blue tails of Sun-smoked ice and dust dazzling me to no end. The star-spangled sky over the Boundary Waters, of course, scared me back into my tent for four days before I could spend half of my last night there marveling at its vastness. And one very early morning in elementary school, my dad and I (I don't remember if my brother was there) watched the space shuttle chase the International Space Station across the sky before docking with it.

The memories have been embellished, of course, as all memories have been; but still, I smile when I remember those nights. The reminders that we live, as Carl Sagan put it, on "a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena," have stuck with me and help me to cherish our existence here while keeping me from giving it galactic import. Every chance I get, I look up and marvel at how much we've explored and how startlingly much we still have left to explore.

Last week, my attention turned to the International Space Station. I had watched Gravity on its opening weekend with my dad and sister, so the orbiting global cooperative was already on my mind. My dad had found its path over our speck of Earth on a NASA website (still functioning on what was day two of the partial shutdown). I set my camera on top of my car, steadied it with my rigid camera bag, and took the six 30-second exposures you see below (presented as both a flattened .jpg file and as an animated GIF).

Keep looking up.

The International Space Station travels for three minutes over Indianapolis in six 30-second exposures.

I am currently on fall break, enjoying a bit of lovely time amongst the fall foliage of Bloomington. Because of this pleasant bout of free time, I have two blog posts planned (after one post the whole month of September! I know, right?).

This first post is simply a recap of the three assignments I did this weekend for the Star. Two of them (of the Key to the Cure event at Saks Fifth Avenue and Beer Games at GermanFest) appear below; the third, of a new art hub in Fountain Square that reminded me of a lot of small places in Bloomington, simply appears on the Star's website. (Bonus: Check out last year's Key to the Cure photos that I took. I'd argue I did much better this year, largely because I was on a 9 p.m. deadline then as opposed to an 11:30 p.m. deadline this year.)

Tomorrow: The International Space Station!

Members of Team Bonzai and Zombie Schnitzel fight to stomp the most grapes during GermanFest's Beer Games at the Athenaeum in Indianapolis, Saturday, Oct. 12, 2013.

To go with this month's haul of photo assignments from the Star (which started with two fundraisers for Indy philanthropies two weeks ago), I got three assignments this weekend. The first was the most original art show I'd ever heard of: Art vs. Art at The Vogue. Almost 100 paintings were made by local artists in one day in early September, and these were narrowed down to 32 for voting on Friday. After voting, the top 16 paintings were brought out in one-on-one match-ups. The painting that got less cheering was put up for auction, and if it wasn't bought (or if the buyer allowed it), the painting was destroyed. I only got to see two forms of destruction doled out by the Wheel of Death, but the Dirty Sanchez and the Chainsaw were more than enough.

The other two assignments were more of the city-fair variety of party. Fishers bought out its German side for Oktoberfest, and Noblesville brought out its alcoholic side for Brewfest. Those two took place on Saturday afternoon, and despite the lack of destruction, I still got some good community photos.

This weekend's work, along with a cigar bar assignment I shot at the end of August, appears on the Star's website here: Art vs. Art, Oktoberfest, Brewfest.

...Thus endeth the only blog post I've written this month. School is a lot of work!

A member of the Naptown Roller Girls cringes as she wipes feces on a painting during the Art vs. Art competition at The Vogue in Broad Ripple, Friday, Sept. 27, 2013.

In three days, I got four photo assignments for The Indianapolis Star. That's a pretty good haul for someone who's also back in school for pre-med classes, and it's very convenient for that same person who can't easily get another job with that academic workload.

The assignments started on Thursday night with a shoot that hasn't been published yet, so that's not going up here yet, either. On Friday, the Omni Severin Hotel celebrated its 100th anniversary with a big to-do featuring period clothing, selections from the Great American Songbook, and an appearance by Jennie Ralston, the first lady of Indianapolis in 1913. She was getting on about the need to help people who were ravaged by the Great Flood of that year, showing off how well Cheryl Fesmire of the Indiana Historical Society can inhabit a 100-year-old person of history. Fantastic period costumes abounded, and with them a priceless opportunity for juxtaposition.

Saturday brought two assignments: a simple car show in Noblesville, and a music festival near Downtown in Garfield Park. The Cataracts festival, in its third year, brought together over 40 acts on four small stages, and it was yet another instance of a photo assignment bringing me to a place in my hometown I should have visited before but hadn't. If it hadn't been so hot there, I might have stayed more than the two hours that the assignment required.

IndyStar.com gallery links: Cataracts music festival, Lucky Teter Rebel Run Car Show, and Omni Severin Hotel's 100th anniversary party.

Evan Cork and Deborah Magga try to solve a problem on her iPhone while in their period clothing during the Omni Severin Hotel's 100th anniversary party on Georgia Street, Friday, August 23, 2013.

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Last night, for the first time in years, I went to the Indiana State Fair. The last time I went, I filled in for good photo friend Ryan Dorgan as an assistant on a National Geographic photo story by Vince Musi on animal domestication. This time, I went to take my own photos for the Star of the Hoosier Music Night at the Fair. The full gallery appears here, and I hope the photos express how intense the music and the passion of the band were. Jennie DeVoe, the opener, was nice and settling, but The Reverend Peyton's Big Damn Band played the most intense form of bluegrass I've ever heard. To give you an idea of their kind of music, my aunt discovered them when they opened for ZZ Top. That's a big deal for a band from Brown County, Indiana.

In between concerts, I got a giant breaded tenderloin sandwich, as is my duty as a Hoosier. The tenderloin was as flat as a pancake, but it did have about a nine-inch diameter, earning the adjective "giant" in that limited fashion. Much more importantly, it tasted good.

(I didn't get any exciting food this time, like deep-fried Reese's or chocolate-covered bacon or the Largest Ear Of Corn That Agriculture Can Grow slathered in butter. I got my fill last time when I got a doughnut burger. Two glazed doughnuts acted as buns around a thick burger topped with cheese, lettuce, onion, and mayo. It tasted great, but it made me want to both run a marathon to counteract the calories and lie down on a couch for the rest of the day. I was very conflicted.)

Remember when I said I might do pre-med? Well, as of this week, that is now a Thing. On Monday, I start pre-med classes in biology, chemistry, physics, and psychology, while still taking Star assignments when I can. The about section still applies to me as-is; I've just added more goals to my life! ...I s'pose I should still update that blurb.

Breezy Peyton, The Rev. J. Peyton's wife, plays the washboard during The Reverend Peyton's Big Damn Band's performance on Hoosier Night on the Marsh Free Stage at the Indiana State Fair, Friday, August 16, 2013.

I had an interesting series of events Saturday. I started at the American Legion Mall in Downtown Indianapolis, where I was amongst the highest per-capita concentration of yellow buckets I had ever seen. The buckets were for the Walk for Water, a 5K walk meant to replicate (inexactly, of course) the daily trip that villagers in Kager, Kenya, make to retrieve water that may or may not be fully sanitary. The organizers of the event, the Jubilee Village Project, has partnered with the 3,000-people African village to develop a safe water system that would negate the trip. To raise awareness, people walked from the Mall to the White River Canal under Ohio Street, got their buckets filled by Boy Scouts, and walked back to the Mall carrying the filled buckets on their heads. (Well, some people filled their buckets all the way, and some people put them on their head.) Except for two shortcuts, I walked the entire 5K looking for photos.

Then I took a math placement exam.

I'm taking physics at IUPUI as part of my pre-med coursework this coming year (more on than in a later post... hopefully). Because I haven't taken a college math course since spring 2009, I had to reassure people that I still know math. I needed a raw score of 46 on the test to qualify for the non-calculus physics class I have to take. In a case of not thinking things through, I scheduled the exam for immediately after the photo assignment, so I was tired, sweaty, and a little bit foggy as I began the computer-administered exam. Two hours later, I finished and promptly worried that I would need to spend money on another math course before taking physics. Fortunately, I didn't need to worry: I got an 86. Six years after my 5 on the AP Calculus exam, I've still got it.

Then I sent the 5K photos to the Star. They appear below and in the full gallery at IndyStar.com (on a special white background!).

Molly Martin and Grace Connell lead others with water buckets up the steps of the White River Canal during the Walk for Water 5K event, Saturday, July 27, 2013.

I got another concert assignment for the Star this weekend, but this concert was nothing like the ones I've shot at Klipsch Music Center. Those are fun to shoot because they're loud, they're often creatively lit, and they're a chance to listen to and discover music I don't look for on my own. There was none of that yesterday at the Greenwood Amphitheater, which does not have creative lighting. There was, however, something much better: kids. Kids who marched around the paths on the campus, kids who gave tons of hugs, kids willing to dance and jump around without shame or excessive self-awareness. In other words, kids who are very photogenic. I had a lot of fun, but nowhere near as much fun as the kids.

For more photos, check out the IndyStar.com gallery.

Joshua Wilson, 3, stands in the way of dancing children marching down a path during a Greenwood Summer Concert Series event at the Greenwood Amphitheater, Saturday, July 20, 2013.

Last weekend was the most photo-intensive weekend I've had since the J&C. Danese Kenon called me on Wednesday to see if I could take the Kendrick Lamar concert on Thursday, she texted me on Thursday to cover Peewinkle Puppet Studio's annual adult show Friday, and she texted again Friday about a gig for Saturday. That gig turned out to be VentureCamp, an entrepreneurial competition in which the participants hone their pitches while living in Kessler Mansion, formerly owned by one Jerry Hostetler. I've been to his other, more run-down house for an assignment, and knowing what I knew about his "flagship" estate, my expectations were high that I would meet with opulence and, for the first time in a while at the house, beautiful people. I got both in large quantities.

I also got centerpiece on the IndyStar website and ::trumpets sounding:: a photo on the front page above the fold. Not bad for one weekend's work.

For more on the whole weekend, click on the story links: Kessler Mansion, Peewinkle's adult show, and Kendrick Lamar.

Heidi Shackleford twirls a glow-in-the-dark ghost puppet during Peewinkle Puppet Studio's annual adult show in Indianapolis, Friday, June 7, 2013.

For my second Star photo assignment this weekend, I shot lacrosse, something I hadn't covered in over four years. Culver Academies played Carmel High School in the Indiana Girls Lacrosse Association state championship on the Northside, and the game was pretty exciting. Culver got two or three goals ahead, then Carmel pulled back, at least twice, but the game ended with a narrow 9-8 win for Culver. Not only was it a good game, but it was played under pretty consistent cloud cover, creating a giant softbox in the sky and evenly lighting everybody almost all game. That, plus the skills I've gained in the last four years, made for much better photos than the last lacrosse pictures I took, made in harsh sunlight with a slow camera and a slow lens. Check out all the photos and the story by Jason Haddix here.

Big announcement time: I've moved back to Bloomington. I moved into my subleased room today, and starting tomorrow, I'm taking an eight-week chemistry class, the one every pre-med student takes first on their trek to medical school. I describe the class (C117 for all you IU readers) that way because medical school may be in my future. I haven't made a final decision, but it's between that and a master's in science journalism. I know, it's a far cry from photojournalism, but I still want to do some of that on the side. I need to supplement my income any way I can in defense against the gloom and doom of student loans, and I can't deny that there is a large part of me, cultivated by wandering eyes and the IDS, Journal & Courier and Star, that really likes making pictures. Another large part of me, though, really likes science, and I want to be more able to show people how flippin' sweet science is.

So, there you go. Don't be surprised if a rant, positive or negative, about chemistry creeps into the blog over the next eight weeks. Also, if I can find a way to make a photo in a chemistry lab like those in Simon Hall, then that for sure is going up here.

Carmel defender Graylynn Oatess defends against Culver midfielder Annie Morsches during Culver's 9-8 victory over Carmel in the Indiana Girls Lacrosse Association state championship at Brebeuf Jesuit Preparatory School in Indianapolis, Saturday, June 1, 2013. (Alex Farris / For The Star)

Oh, hey. Just another party crasher photo gallery for the Star last night, this time at a place I went in January, Saddle Up Saloon & Dancehall. From the looks of it, it's the most successful of the new bars that popped up in Castleton recently, so it seems this time it earned a photo gallery of its own, which you can see here.

Depending on how fast things go, and they should go fast, I could have another entry up today (I know! Whoa!). I got a call from the Star yesterday to shoot the girls' state lacrosse championship today at 4:30 at Brebeuf Jesuit Preparatory School. I shot lacrosse one time at IU, before I got any good at taking photos, so I can't wait to see what I can get. Assuming it doesn't get rained out.

People enjoy a night at Saddle Up Saloon & Dancehall in Castleton, Friday, May 31, 2013.

Before I got to Deluxe, in the basement of Old National Centre (known more popularly by a much better name, the Murat Shrine), I expected a similar setup to all of my work at Klipsch: I would be able to shoot the first three songs in the pit right in front of the stage. I got there to find a poorly-lit stage and no pit. To compensate, the event handler I talked to said I could walk onto the edge of stage left, and I also found an elevated part of the room by the bar where I could shoot over the crowd. So, despite the inconsistent-to-nonexistent light (and my D300, which by no means has the best sensor in low light), I found enough good photos for another of David Lindquist's photo-story reviews.

By the way, the show was the last tour date featuring both Danny Brown and Kitty (former known as Kitty Pryde). Danny Brown got into some hot water earlier in the tour when... well, you can read about it here^{explicit note} A woman came up on stage during his show in Minneapolis, pulled his pants down, and performed oral sex on him.. It's fueled quite the brouhaha, and it brings up an interesting issue.

Danny Brown performs at Deluxe in Old National Centre, Tuesday, May 14, 2013. (Alex Farris / For The Star)

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When I was younger, I didn't listen to very many kinds of music. (But what I had was very good!) Acts like Nirvana, Seal, Savage Garden and Sugar Ray took a literal back seat, as I only heard them through the car radio as my mom drove my brother and me around for school and errands. As such (and because I was only 8 years old in 1996), I completely missed Soundgarden's effect on music.

Fortunately, I have The Indianapolis Star reporter David Lindquist's review of the band's reunion tour concert, part of the May Day show at Klipsch Music Center, to set me straight. Check out the review, in large part because it's interspersed with 10 of my photos. (Fourteen others that I sent appear here.)

So far, I've averaged an assignment per week for the Star since I finished at the Journal & Courier. I would not complain if this keeps up.

Soundgarden vocalist Chris Cornell performs during May Day at Klipsch Music Center, Saturday, May 11, 2013. Soundgarden performed in Indianapolis for the first time since 1996. (Alex Farris / For The Star)

I finished at the Journal & Courier on April 13, and by the looks of the blog I haven't done anything since. Not true, though: I did three freelance assignments for the Star, one freelance assignment for the J&C, one contract private birthday party and a quick actor headshot for my uncle in between then and now. I must also add that a lot of my free time recently has been spent, not on updating the blog, but on reading Salman Rushdie's The Satanic Verses and E.O. Wilson's On Human Nature, both of which I highly recommend if you ever want to fill your mind with profundity. On Human Nature especially appeals to my science-minded self, and it surprisingly holds up considering its publish date of 1978. It's certainly worthy of its 1979 Pulitzer Prize for General Non-Fiction.

Seriously, you should buy or rent it the first chance you get. You won't be sorry.

For more photos, head to these Star links for the Christamore House Guild event, the Vacant art show and Perry Meridian High School's prom, and the J&C's EyeSpy gallery of the Grand Prix Breakfast Club.

Students reach for money thrown into the air during Perry Meridian High School's prom, themed "Moonlit Memories," on Saturday, May 4, 2013, at the Indiana History Museum in Indianapolis. (Alex Farris / For The Star)

This is my last weekly post of photos as a temporary staff photographer for the Journal & Courier. I had a lot of fun at the paper, I learned new things and I reinforced what I learned at the IDS. I'm still slotted to shoot two freelance assignments for the paper this week, so all isn't over with them, fortunately.

Enjoy the last week of photos. Be warned, though: If you aren't a fan of bugs, or you get easily grossed out, tread gingerly through photos two and four through six. Creepy-crawly things abound. If, however, you are entomologically inclined, then have fun!

Shelby Allen reacts as Gracie Russell puts a cricket in her mouth during the cricket spitting competition at Purdue University's Bug Bowl on Saturday, April 13, 2013, on the Purdue campus.

Now that the photo editor is back from his medical leave (but in a scaled-down, managing-the-desk-and-taking-some-photos role for now), I had less photos to take this week than I'm used to here. I still found time to get some good shots, of course. The first photo was taken last Friday for MJ Slaby's very good story on the Aging Brain Care program. We visited Don Grau, an Alzheimer's patient at IU Health Arnett who lives with his son and daughter-in-law. He gets home visits in the program, which helps make sure he gets a high standard of care and prevents unnecessary trips to the ER. It's a good program, and Don's a good guy, even with the wildly-shifting conversations.

Don Grau, who has Alzheimer's disease, picks up his drink and looks at Scrabble letters arranged on his placemat on Friday, March 29, 2013, at his daughter-in-law's home in West Lafayette. During visits from IU Health Arnett's Charmin Smith in the Aging Brain Care program, Grau spells words, identifies figures on cards, and talks with Smith and his caregiver, daughter-in-law Peggy Grau.

Phew. No drama about a winter storm delaying a post. Just some photos of a Living Way of the Cross, an Easter egg hunt, and a Purdue basketball loss. Enjoy.

Happy spring-related festivities!

Lorenzo Gutierrez carries a wooden cross as Julio Avila spits water at him during the Living Way of the Cross on Friday, March 29, 2013, outside St. Boniface Catholic Church in Lafayette. The church's annual Living Way of the Cross portrays the fourteen stations of the story of Jesus' death.

I'll have an entry for my fourth week at the Journal & Courier up tomorrow, but before I put that up, I have another story to tell you.

Last night, I got the urge to drive an hour out of Lafayette and do some stargazing. Even before I started my photo gig, I mapped out a place and a time to go out into the country and ponder the immensity of the universe. I found, on Google Maps, a place south of Brook, Ind., that I had thought would be relatively dark. There, I would get freaked out about how many stars were above me, get used to them, and take some cool photos.

There was one problem: Despite how out-of-the-way my spot was, I couldn't get away from the light pollution. Indiana is not the Boundary Waters: There are some aspects of civilization, whether cities or one-traffic-light towns or large farms, everywhere you go. It resulted in a yellow haze near the horizon as I looked in almost every direction.

I ended up having a second problem, though...

Updated 2014.07.16

f/2.8, 175s, ISO 200. Taken south of Brook, Ind. at 11:14pm EDT.

After a weekend in Chicago celebrating a college housemate's birthday and watching a thrilling IU basketball game, I planned to come back to Lafayette with time to go to Starbucks and upload a blog entry. Then Winter Storm Virgil barreled through Indiana, ensuring that I would stay in park on I-65 for about ten minutes and average about 20 m.p.h. on an interstate with a speed limit of 70 m.p.h. So, the blog entry didn't go up last night.

But now, here it is. I'll be sure include inclement weather in my plans for next week's entry.

Hunter Frank, 8, examines an egg by the light of the sun during an Easter egg hunt on Tuesday, March 19, 2013, at the Beck Lane Boys and Girls Club in Lafayette. During the hunt, children were told to gather a maximum of 10 eggs and that two eggs in the hunt contained a quarter redeemable for larger prizes. Frank made sure not to get too many eggs so that he could pick up an egg with a quarter.

On Feb. 24, I was reminded how good it felt to speak Spanish every day. Eight days later, I was reminded how good it felt to do photojournalism every day.

I started what will likely be a six-week stint at the Journal & Courier in Lafayette on March 4, filling in for an editor on medical leave. My life hasn't been so full of journalism since the IDS, and I love it. There are a lot of stories to tell (like getting on the AP wire and breaking my camera on the same day), but I absolutely have to tell you one of them.

My first assignment was to cover a gold and electronics buy-back event at the Comfort Inn. It was very low-key, but one promoter was insistent that I get photos of every type of item bought at the event. This man, known around the place as Jeff the Coin Guy, showed me some of the gold they had received earlier in the day (photo 9). After the photo, he hurried off to do a live radio spot, so I asked another organizer what his full name was. (You know, for the caption.) The organizer said, without trouble, that his name was Jeff Parsons.

I came back to the newsroom and submitted the photos. The next day, the reporter on the story, Hayleigh Colombo, came over to the photo desk and asked me about the photos I'd taken. Specifically, she was confused about Jeff the Coin Guy. She had been told that his last name was Allen, which didn't jive with my Parsons. She checked it out, and she found Illinois documents showing that a Jeffrey A. Parsons owed $500 million to various creditors. Five hundred million dollars! And the photos of Jeff the Coin Guy attached to Illinois media stories matched our guy.

So, I would like to take some appropriate credit for this story copy of story here. I don't know what would have happened if I had asked Jeff himself what his name was.

Anyway, this was an exciting two weeks. As a token of my excitement, I have here a batch of photos from those first two weeks (March 4 to March 17). Going forward, I'll probably put up an entry every Sunday night while I'm here, starting with photos from my third week this Sunday.

While you're here, I should tell you that I have a series on Operation Walk in Guatemala running on the Indianapolis Monthly's Circle Citizen blog. So far, I have three entries there, with the fourth going up some time today.

Lafayette Boxing Club's Tate Sturgeon watches as Kate Mane and Kyle Siple trade light jabs during a workout Tuesday, March 5, 2013, at the club building in Lafayette. Sturgeon and Mane, along with Luis Pena, Conan Hutchison and other boxers, will compete at the Indiana Golden Gloves tournament on March 23 in Indianapolis.

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Yesterday, I started a month-long stint as a photographer for the Lafayette Journal & Courier. I'm filling in while one of the photographers is on leave, and I found an empty room in a house of graduate students to stay in, meaning I'll be under long-term exposure to "the enemy" (of course, Purdue has never been my enemy).

Before that gets going, though, I want to put up something from Guatemala. Last week, I translated Spanish and English for the Mooresville branch of Operation Walk, an organization that goes to developing countries and does orthopedic surgery for those who need it but can't afford it. The humanitarian trip alternates every year between Guatemala and Nicaragua, and this year we were stationed at Hospittalia Amatitlán, a hospital about an hour south of Guatemala City. Simply put, this is the best thing I've done and been a part of in a long time. To say that I was part of a trip that resolved 99 joint cases in 69 patients in four days is nothing short of an honor. The head of the trip (who is also my research-job boss) invited everyone back next year, and I can't wait to do it again.

I didn't have a lot of free time, but when I did I took some photos. Many of them I took on my iPhone because I was too busy to run around with my big DSLR as I gave patients instructions on physical therapy and their medications. Regardless, I hope this gives you a taste of all the good things we did in Guatemala. If you'd like, you can go to the trip website and go through the photos of the extremely talented Jim Brown, former journalism professor and associate dean at IUPUI.

MP4, WebM, or Ogg.
A 3.5-hour time lapse of Operation Walk volunteers outside the operation rooms at Hospittalia in Amatitlán, Guatemala.

I got one more assignment for the Star before I head off to Guatemala early tomorrow morning. It was a black-tie silent auction to benefit Dance Kaleidoscope, a local dance company with some pretty nice costumes, designed this year by Cheryl Sparks. You can check out the full photo gallery on the Star website (when it goes up), but a few of the more candid pictures appear below.

¡Hasta luego!

Jack Hu gets help in tying his black tie from Chris Douglas during Dance Kaleidoscope's "La Vie en Rose" fundraising gala at the downtown Marriott, Saturday, Feb. 23, 2013. The event featured a banquet and, in emcee Eric Halvorson's words, a "super silent auction" of donated items that was run through text message. (Alex Farris / For The Star)

Original post 2012.11.12

Nov. 11 was a two-fer: Veterans Day proper (although it was observed on the 12th), and my birthday. As such, after reading at IRIS, I treated myself to some kite-flying near the Indiana War Memorial and the IPL Central Library. I then looked back at other kite photos I've taken and realized that I have a backlog of unposted pictures. I also thought it'd be a good idea to collect the best kite photos in one place for those of you really into that sort of thing.

I'll frequently update this post, so a bookmark will lead right back here each time you click, but the entry itself will fly to the top of the main blog page every time I update it. That way, when you come back to the blog, whether you go to the entry or not, you'll notice if there's a new photo. I'm sure you're gonna love this. I mean, who doesn't like kite photos?

Updated 2012.11.26 and 2013.02.18

Skyline, Adler Planetarium, and 12th Street Beach, Chicago, Feb. 17, 2013

While visiting my friend the afore-appeared Steph Feeley and celebrating her graduation from iO Chicago, I took some time out to do a bit of kite-flying. I had remembered the comment I made before about trying a flight at the 12th Street Beach, and given its relative proximity to downtown and Soldier Field, I thought the place would make for some good photos.

Unfortunately, this weekend the Windy City didn't live up to its name. I didn't get the kite very high up at all because the wind was either weak or turbulent nearly the whole time. I found a grassy area next to the beach, though, and the more consistent winds there made for at least one quality photo. The rest of the take turned into the accidental session of self-portraits, crashes, and tangled line you see below. The photos come straight from the GoPro, simply sized down; later tonight, I'll put up beautified versions of some of the photos on the catch-all KAP page.

One other thing: when I pulled the kite out of the car, I found out I had lost the cross pole. There were some fallen branches nearby, though, so I improvised.

This is my favorite photo from the session, despite (or perhaps because of) the failure to launch.

I got two assignments last night, merged into one IndyStar gallery, to cover that greatest of pre-religious-purge festivals: Mardi Gras. Even though Spain did it right in 2010, I can still say Indy did okay. In between the fresh (and shipped live!) Louisiana crawfish at Kilroy's and the quite lively band at the Jazz Kitchen, I'd say the night was a success.

Jazz Kitchen near Broad Ripple was host to Nashville jazz band Halfbrass during Mardi Gras, Tuesday, Feb. 12, 2013. Halfbrass ended its set with a march through the bar of "When the Saints Go Marching In." (Alex Farris / For The Star)

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Last year, after the annual Indiana News Photographers Association awards judging, I didn't have much to do. I hung around Bloomington a little bit, somewhat aimlessly, until I recalled the Lilly Library. I had been inside the repository of Really Old Stuff maybe four times as a student, and even though I got to hold John Ford's Oscar and read Ernie Pyle's letters, I didn't fully appreciate the library and its treasures. On that day, though, I finally took advantage of my free time. I flipped through the card catalog, and in no time I had my hands on personal letters, handwritten notes, and a draft of the Emancipation Proclamation, all of which flowed from Lincoln's pen.

This year, I decided to treat my dad to that same awesome privilege. I was more prepared this time, though, and in my preliminary research I found that the library hosted, along with its manuscripts, bronze casts of parts of a life mask of the 16th President. So, my father got to hold faithful representations of Lincoln's face and hands.

Even with my preparation, we still got a surprise: the library also holds the Sumner-Wormly copy of the Thirteenth Amendment.

Note: This was an event for Dad, so I only took my iPhone into the library.

This is the Thirteenth Amendment. Or at least the Sumner-Wormly copy, made soon after passage in Congress. Before it was sent out to the several states for ratification, Lincoln made what some call a constitutional faux pas: he signed the document, even though the executive has no formal part to play in the process of amending the Constitution.

At my elementary school, we counted among our parents Tom Zupancic, then the strength and conditioning coach for the Indianapolis Colts. As such, while I was on the football team (in only the strictest sense of the word "on," as I hardly figured into the offensive line), we got to play on the RCA Dome turf before a Colts game. I don't remember much of it, but I remember how cool it felt.

I saw much the same thing yesterday. St. Charles elementary school in Bloomington has counted among its parents IU men's basketball coach Tom Crean, and in 2008 the school (mascot: the Hawks) started the Hawks in the Hall tournament held in Assembly Hall. So, while IU was playing at Ohio State University on Sunday, a few elementary school teams from around Central Indiana took over the arena, including my old school (they're the guys in green). It was a welcome return for me, as I'd last been on the floor as an IDS photographer during what is looking to be their last bad season for a long time. ...I graduated a year too early.

Tomorrow is Abraham Lincoln's birthday. It's also my dad's birthday, so I'll be posting photos of the real reason I was in Bloomington this weekend: a return to the Lilly Library.

The last time I was at the Indianapolis Zoo's Dolphin Pavilion, I was staying with the rest of my high school freshman class on an overnight trip. It's changed a lot since then, and it's definitely fit for a fancy, black-tie event like Saturday's Zoolala. Plus, when you get dolphins and macaws in the same area, you get the best reactions from the humans.

I sent 23 photos to the Star while sitting in the newsroom and watching the start of IU's 81-73 win over Michigan. It took a lot of self-control to keep from cheering.

The Indianapolis Zoo’s blue macaw, Colt, poses for pictures with attendees at the inaugural Zoolala at the zoo’s Dolphin Pavilion, Saturday, Feb. 2, 2013. The event, similar to Zoobilation, gathered young leaders from throughout the Central Indiana area. (Alex Farris / For The Star)

Another late assignment from the Star, another place in Indy I surprisingly have never been to (or even heard of), another concert. This concert, though, was philanthropic.

The gig, featuring Cheetah Chrome, Deezer and Eddy Price (who performed before I got there), raised money for Norton Records. The New York label suffered from Hurricane Sandy, which wiped out a lot of the inventory at its Brooklyn warehouse. The Melody Inn hosted a raffle that awarded vinyls, posters, a record player and lots of other music merch, and the venue's tight quarters made for some very intimate connections between the audience and the performers, appropriate for such an occasion. Check out the photos, both here and at the Star, and try telling me you wouldn't start to love everyone there out of sheer good cause and proximity.

If you feel so inclined to "help the loud sound rebound," you can donate here. You could also get a Sandy-exclusive 45 sleeve, if you want something physical for your support. Full details on the website.

Deezen vocalist "Reverend Dan" O’Connell sings during a Norton Records benefit concert at the Melody Inn at 38th and Illinois streets, Friday, Jan. 18, 2013. Norton Records, based in New York City, suffered damage to its warehouse facility from Hurricane Sandy, and benefit concerts across the country have helped them raise money to clean and dry their collection. (Alex Farris / For The Star)

After taking photos of country, 70s funk, and hip-hop concerts, it was nice to cover my favorite music genre: rock.

I must confess that I had never heard of Grace Potter and the Nocturnals. When I heard that Potter had recorded with Kenny Chesney, I was worried that I would be covering something like Rascal Flatts. Fortunately, I was mistaken. Her stage presence, vocals, and all-out rockitude... well, I could take photos of that all day. Unlike most of my recent concert assignments, I paid full attention to both the visuals and the music, and I found myself ever-so-slightly tapping my feet and banging my head.

There's a 19-photo gallery at the Star.

Grace Potter & the Nocturnals performed at the Egyptian Room at Old National Centre, Saturday, Jan. 12, 2013. (Alex Farris / For The Star)

For my eight assignment in a little over a month for the Star, I took a drive down East 82nd Street, a part of town I don't see very often. (The biggest part of the area is the Fashion Mall, and I'm not much of a shopping person.) It took two nights to get enough photos, since the first night was on the first Thursday after New Year's Eve and thus pretty sparse. By the end, though, I'd made it to seven bars along the street, enough for a large photo gallery and huge play in today's Weekend section.

Latitude 39, 4016 E. 82nd Street, Saturday, Jan. 5, 2013. (Alex Farris / For The Star)