News | Alex Farris Photo Blog

There are 10 days left in the year, so now is the perfect time to remember that I am behind on my posts. I picked a good time to accidentally stop posting; I could focus on a new job with ScribeAmerica and on my biochemistry class, and that photo illustration of the partial solar eclipse is quite pretty, isn't it? Alas, it is time to knock it down the list of most recent posts and upload some new photos.

This first batch of catch-up is just that: the first. I also neglected to post photos from two weddings, one in the summer and one in the fall. Those deserve their own entries, and they'll go up before the year-end recap.

Unlike what I've done with most previous entries, I'll select only one photo from each assignment. It's an exercise I've grown away from, given the focus of my Star assignments on filling pageview-greedy photo galleries, but choosing only one photo from these assignments is refreshing. I hope you like it.

One more thing: Last week, Michel du Cille died at the age of 58 while covering the Ebola outbreak in Liberia. He was a three-time Pulitzer Prize winning photographer who worked for the Miami Herald and The Washington Post, but before all of that, he was a photographer for the Indiana Daily Student and a graduate of Indiana University. I had the fortune of being in the same room as him on three separate occasions: a lecture and after-lecture photos during centennial celebrations of the IU School of Journalism; a lecture with two other Pulitzer-winning IU alumni; and possibly my most helpful (and most humbling) photo critique. I'll never forget how good he was at seeing the ordinariness in photos I, the day after taking them, thought made up a great set of breaking-news work, and his ability to pick out a set of photos that most effectively told a story. It's palpable in both his images and his words from Liberia.

You were a good guy, Michel. I hope people remember your work for years and years.

Adil Majid (far right), a member of the Muslim Student Association at Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis, leads a prayer of supplication for slain aid worker Abdul-Rahman (Peter) Kassig during a memorial service for Kassig at the Indiana Interchurch Center in Indianapolis, Saturday, Nov. 22, 2014.

This has been a big month, especially on the medical school front. I've been working on secondary applications, and last week I received my scores on the MCAT (which were quite good!). The work for the Star, of course, continues, and I did six assignments for the paper this month: the front-page community clean-up, a reunion for children who had spent time in the neonatal intensive care unit, two different beer festivals, the IUPUI Regatta, and a charity event called Dancing with the Johnson County Stars. And since the last entry, my photos have wormed their way into five editions of the dead-tree newspaper.

So, uh, September has been pretty good. Let's see what good things October brings.

Engineering and Technology Alumni team members Akram Khatib and Jerry Hohn capsize after an exchange during the IUPUI Regatta in the Downtown Canal, Saturday, Sept. 20, 2014. In the regatta, teams race up and down the canal from the head at Fairbanks Hall to the Walnut Street basin and back. Two of a team's four rowers paddle from the start line, then exchange the canoe with the other two team members at the basin.

I lucked out with my previous two assignments for the Star. The first was a private dinner event and de facto debut on Aug. 30 of a new restaurant on the Northwestside, Georgia Reese's Southern Table & Bar. The restaurant, owned by former Indianapolis Colts linebacker Gary Brackett, is named for his daughter and aims for a casual dining experience focused on soul food, which meant the kitchen smelled AWESOME. I lucked out immensely with the last picture; I was driving away, realized I didn't get a photo of the front of the restaurant, drove back to get it just in case, and caught Brackett walking out the door. Superb.

The second assignment was arguably a more important affair. The Near Westside of Indianapolis is not the best of places to live. It's full of abandoned homes and crime and a lack of the economic & social stability found in many other Indianapolis neighborhoods. Good people live there, though, and with the help of good organizations such as Keep Indianapolis Beautiful, residents spent Saturday sprucing up Elder Street south of Washington Street. They cut down trees, cleared out weeds, swept the sidewalks, picked up trash, and generally made the street a safer place for kids to play. These "cosmetic" changes are important, not least because it brings neighbors together for a common cause and shows hope for a better future.

Plus, the kids were kids. When they weren't dragging branches to the trash bin or raking weeds, they were running up and down the street yelling about being famous. You can't help but see some promise in that enthusiasm.

Both sets of photos were paired with a story, and both showed up in the front section of the paper. The restaurant played out in color on A3 and A4 on Sept. 3, and the clean-up was the A1 centerpiece on Monday with a jump color photo on A11. This is my second centerpiece for the Star.

On a sadder note, as part of Gannett's "Newsroom of the Future" plans, five good Star photographers are on the staff no longer,. They're all good people, and it will be hard to imagine the Star "photo phamily" without them. Best wishes to Greg Griffo, Brent Drinkut, Danese Kenon, Rob Goebel, and Joe Vitti.

Georgia Reese's Southern Table & Bar hosted a private event at its location at 86th and Michigan Streets, Saturday, Aug. 30, 2014. The restaurant, set to serve soul food staples in a Prohibition-era supper club atmosphere, opens to the public on Sept. 2.