Genia

Here are some pictures from my piece I did on Eugenia Durham. Genia is a 34-year-old mom of 2. Oh, and she is deaf. She is an amazing lady as are her kids and her family members who support her. Enjoy!

-rso-

One Year in BBBS

Today, October 8, 2009 means that I have been a Big Sis to Alexis in Big Brothers Big Sisters for a year. I wish she wasn't living hours away. :-( I did call her though. :-) Her response? "WOW!"

-rso-

1st OU Football game of the school year! She is quite the fan!!!

Me and Lex at Stroud's!!!

Me and Lex last year at the house before our BBBS Halloween Party!!!

Getting Inked

Here is a little one-day shoot I did for ViCo 486. I met this girl Colleen Eddy and documented her getting a tattoo at Decorative Injections by tattoo artist Jim Kisor. Below are the four pics I ended up using and the final layout for class with story.

-rso-

Paw Paw Perfection

The 11th Annual Paw Paw Festival at Lake Snowden was a great way to recreate some magical moments I have experienced with some of my closest friends since sophomore year when we first drove out to the festival without knowing what we were getting ourselves into. Between the Paw Paw beer garden, the Paw Paw buckeyes, the children and dogs running around, tents with crafts, beautiful light, fabulous people and hay bails to sit on, it's no wonder we always come back for more. This year was even more amusing since I spent a great deal at Lake Snowden while working on "Trailerpark", except when I was working it was usually freezing and not quite so laid back (but we did it and it was a huge success!). Here are some photos I took while having fun (recreation of sophomore year group photo by the lake courtesy of Michael Glass). It was nice just to shoot for myself rather than for a class. So here, here to the Ohio fruit and it's festival and all the wonderful memories it has given me.

-rso-

8 years...

8 years since I moved to Ohio. 

8 years since I left what I had back in Delray Beach.

8 years since I began my 8th grade year.

8 years since I made my friends in Ohio who I still am very close with.

8 years since I sat in the choir room while the principal announced the Twin Towers news.

8 years since I thought "what? where? what is going on?"

8 years since I ran and waited in line to call my friend, then realized I didn't know the number.

8 years since I looked outside and saw a priest and young boy I didn't know then.

8 years since I sat in homeroom as a young boy cried out to the class that he was not a terrorist and to stop treating him like he was.

8 years since I realized that something was not right about the planes.

8 years since I find myself dealing with a lot more security at the airport.

8 years since I figured out we were going to actually go to war and that it would be a long one.

8 years since I stood in the BBHHS stands for a vigil with my American flag sweater on.

8 years

8 years

When did it get to be 8 years?

Where did 8 years go?

Why am I so fixated on it this year more than I have been other years?

Why are we still sending people, young and amazing friends, to fight the attackers?

When will this all end?

What will the history books say for those who were and are too young to know about it?

What will I say about it all? 

Will we still be fighting this for another 8 years?

8 was never a number I found to be that big. 

My little sib in BBBS is 8. She wasn't aware of 9/11. I don't even know if she knows what it is.

I'm a senior in college. Top class at my school again and I'm still as confused as ever.

Do we ever actually figure life out? 

Why did some people survive and others didn't? 

Why do I wish I was close and able to help someone who truly needed help coping with 9/11?

When did we all stop saying the pledge every morning? 

When was it no longer a fresh wound?

Why did I never know about the towers or go to the towers until AFTER they were gone?

Why were those people on those flights hijacked and killed?

"When did we become adults? And how do we make it stop?" - Meredith Grey

The quote may seem cliche, but this is what is running in my head today. 

My heart goes out to everyone today, all those thinking about this day and mourning their loses and wondering when it got to be the 8th anniversary of such a tragedy. Also to the soldiers, specifically Wesley Woodall, who is back for 3rd time and will hopefully come home and enjoy life with all of his friends for good, sooner rather than later. 

-rso-

#SPJ100 - tweeting, meeting, and looking towards the future

When Emily asked me if I wanted to attend the Society of Professional Journalism conference in Indy near the end of the summer, I really wasn't sure I was going to go. I mean, journalism conference vs. photojournalism conference? We all try to be combined, but what if I register and get there and there is NO ONE talking about visual content and I am sitting in news writing seminars all day? Luckily, visual communication seminars were going to be involved. So why not go?

Now here I sit in the Westin in Indy and enjoying the 2nd day of the conference. I seriously am amazed by how much I am learning about journalism, photos, technology, and how to have a career in something I love to do! The cardboard box future is looking less likely, thus the future does not look quite as bleak as it once did.

I have also found myself obsessed with tweeting this summer, but especially here at the conference. There must be at least 100 people twittering about the conference every few minutes and hash-tagging it #spj100. I have to constantly refresh my page because 120 new posts have been made! Plus I have gained about 5 new friends on Twitter just from putting #spj100 into my tweets. Technology and social networking is a powerful thing.

Still tons of seminars to attend as well as othe

r things before the weekend is out, and plenty of places to go and things to do with Emily and Tom, but so far I'm a big fan. :-)

-rso-

The good and the bad... leaving Elkhart

With every good thing, there is something to counteract it.

Today is my last day at my internship and I have had the most amazing time and I am now freaking out about having to leave. Here is how my pro/con list has begun to look.

Good: I did my 10-week internship! Awesome! Now I can check that off my DARS!

Bad: What? I'm done? That means senior year... that means real world... [hyperventilating]

Good: Now I can go home and see Mom, Patrick, and my friends back in Cleveland for a few days.

Bad: I'm leaving my new friends and home and I really have been enjoying it. Plus I don't want to go to the doctors! 

Good: I have learned so much at The Truth and improved so much thanks to so many people.

Bad: Once again, I really don't want to leave my friends. 

Good: Yay senior year is going to begin! OU, Oh yeah!

Bad: Oh. My. God. Senior Year?

Good: My summer actually wasn't all work and no fun! I got to go all sorts of places and lucked out living with amazing people and their awesome dog.

Bad: Oh, I made good friends and now I have to leave them? This sucks.

Good: I got to shoot all sorts of interesting things and had lots of fun assignments.

Bad: There are so many more things I want to do and shoot! How did 10-weeks pass so fast?

The list goes on and on. But even though today is my last day, I hope to keep the friends I have made for a lifetime! 

-rso-

Fair time...

As the Elkhart County 4-H Fair gets off to a start, I find myself very busy and a bit sunburnt. Some of the assignments are your usual group shots of 4-H winners with multiple wins and multiple participants which all must be I.D. correctly for the caption versus just saying "Poultry Showmanship winners". But it's cool, you are a kid you won an award, the least I can do is let your name be under the caption of the pic for the paper for your 24 hrs of fame. I think I just don't get 4-H. Well, some aspects of it at least. I mean the horse stuff is cool and some of the animals end up being pets at the end of the fair. But, as I have confided in a few people, I have a whole "Charlotte's Web" complex and the feeling that it is just a death camp for the poor animals entered in some of the competitions. They all look so sad. I try not to venture to that side of the fair unless I have to. 

I did shoot an armwrestling competition that got pretty intense with the other intern, Dustin, who wrote a great story about that and the strong man competition (which I did not get to shoot). Also did a quick and dirty soundslides on the cheerleading competition. I am actually quite pleased with it, more so because the pictures were so funny and the out takes I didn't include probably could have humiliated those poor jr. high and high school girls. I'm not THAT cruel... just sorta. Plus it was just fun to be around the madness of it; oh, and that i'm secretly jealous I was never able to do all those cheerleader moves. I did my cheer camp at Atlantic High School as a kid and got to be thrown in the air and cheer for the local high school's basketball team (they won, obviously thanks to us cheerleaders), and then I retired my green and white pom poms. :-P

Anyway here are some pix from the arm wrestling and the link to the Cheerleading soundslides. I feel bad for not adding more on here and adding all the random things I have been shooting, time just gets away. OH! And here is a soundslides I did on deadline for a vintage baseball team!!! Highly amusing. Enjoy!

-r-

 

Makin' it in Michiana

So Im starting week 3 of my internship and so far I have had an amazing time. Los and Em and Mac the dog are great company at home and the people at work are all great. Some assignments have been scary (first day, 15 mins in, covered a murder-suicide ), some have been happy (Jazz Fest, kids painting houses), and you know... the usual day to day news. Haha. If you want to see my stuff go to www.etruth.com. This is from a hot weather story we did. It was 95 degrees for like 3 days straight.

-r-

Anointed Praise

My piece is finally on SoA!!!

http://2009.soulofathens.com/?q=node/55

-ro-

TRAILERPARK!!!!!

Check out the trailer for Trailerpark!!! 

Soul of Athens

Everyone please check out Soul of Athens, starting on June 1st, 2009. My piece will be up mid-week. Check it all out though. :-D

www.soulofathens.com

-ro-

Cynthia and Nevaeh

Alexis, my little sib from BBBS, lives in a trailer in Albany, OH with 11 other people, mostly family. I went to get her for our outing the other day but there had been miscommunication and Lex was not there. Everyone assured me she "would be right back". I waited an hour with no sign of Lex and her mother, Mary. I spent part of my hour waiting in my car and talking with Mary's sister, Cynthia, and her daughter, Nevaeh. 

-ro-