Pain in the Neck

This month is hectic for everyone. From now until the end of the semester is probably the most stressful time in a college student's life. Final exams, signing up for next semester's classes, finding out you can't graduate because you don't have enough credits, and schoolwork in general stacked on top of the coming holidays are enough to make anybody go insane.

All of my friends plus myself have been experiencing this hectic mess lately.

And in case I haven't mentioned on here, I play snare drum in the school marching band. Outside of band, however, I participate in an activity known as Drum Corps International (DCI for short). I'm auditioning for a drum corps this fall, and I've had to learn about 30 exercises /excerpts of snare music. Needless to say, I'm sick of the Center for the Arts here at Towson.

Balancing all of this can be extremely difficult at times. Work piles up for class, assignments are rolling at The Towerlight, and drumming nightly leaves room for very little sleep.

I know I do all of these things because I like them and I know that I want to do them, but is there a point where there is too much going on? If so, how do you handle that?

These are just some of the things I like to think about throughout the course of my day.

I'm probably not nearly as busy as the young woman in the above picture, though. Shelly Guy is a contortionist who has performed at the Atlantis in the Bahamas and who is heading to Hong Kong over winter break to perform 3 times a day. Talk about stress, huh?

It was interesting to work with her. As a performer, I know that people who attract a lot of attention can have a proverbial "big head" sometimes, but Mrs. Guy was very professional and relaxed about her craft and working with me to get the shots that I wanted.

The semester is almost over, though, as all good things come to end eventually. Wish me luck with my auditions!

Oh yeah, here's some of my recent stuff from this week's issues of The Towerlight.

Hiatus? You could say that.

I haven't posted in a while.

Why?

I say for betterment. I have had a lot of work thrown at me these last few weeks, and as my main job is to do well in my classes, that came first. Sorry, fans.

So, rather than post 3 or 4 separate entries, I decided to put them all into one packaged deal.

PJCLass: Spot News and Sports



Two of the hardest assignments I've had in my photojournalism class were spot news and sports. The assignment wasn't actually "spot news," but that's what I turned in.
My teacher, Monica Lopossay, was overall very pleased with what I turned in. So was I.

The fire was down the road from my dorm. I remember that Friday night clearly. As I was getting ready for bed, my roommate Mark called, walking back from his night job. "Hey dude, there's a fire across from Papa Johns. Just thought you should know." No sooner did we hang up was I already sprinting down the hallway to the door. I ran all the way from my dorm to the scene, a good half mile (p.s. Don't run without securing your backpack completely...my 70-200 f2.8 is not happy with me...).

This having been my first spot news scene, I was on an adrenaline rush. I was shooting nonstop, getting right up next to the engines, etc., all the stuff I was trained to do.

The night was exciting to say the least. No one was hurt, thankfully. A simple 2-alaram fire and some nice images with no one hurt or anything personal lost? Sounds alright in my book.



This shot was taken at Towson's soccer complex. The complex makes for messy backgrounds, but there are certain areas near the field, including the hill behind the far goal, that are great for clean images. I was actually standing on the hill shooting down, which gave me this insanely clean image. I wish I had got Ruck's hand in the shot, but no image is ever perfect.



Then of course there was this semester Erlich visit. Every semester the former governor speaks for Towson University Professor Richard Vatz's persuasion class. I was the lucky photog to cover it this time. I only had 20 minutes to shoot, which is a lot in this business for some assignments, so I decided to see how quickly I could produce a quality image. This is what I got. Simple, but it gets the job done.



I thought this portrait was pretty cool. David Vanko is the acting dean of Fisher College of Science and Mathematics. Ok...science. I had NO idea what to do for this prior to meeting the man. He agreed to visit his classroom, and we tried some things. I told him I had this idea of him behind something else, like something he uses for class. Well, this is what he thought to use, and I am glad he thought of it because I think it turned out well.



Well those are the biggies...here is some other stuff I shot and thought was worth posting.







Up next: twisting and shouting