From her perspective

For the first time in my life, I was not the youngest person at the Thanksgiving dinner table.  My cousin's adorable baby was, and she was again my subject for the day. She's always full of smiles, and a joy to photograph. Enjoy.

Peeking from upstairs in Mommom's house.

She kept bringing her toys over to show Mommom (/Grandmommom).

Addie loves to play with my Uncle's Gettysburg class ring. She's fascinated by it.

And books.

-Goodnight Moon-

Down the slide with Eric.

Across the jungle gym.

The ol' tough guy Gus.

Addie watching Brad swing as she was as well, and of course, always full of laughs and smiles.

A Season in Review, Football Features

Here are some features from this football season, both published and unpublished.

I feel like accidental eye contact in photos doesn't work, except for in sports. Here, you can just feel Devon Still's frustration with the Alabama game. Eye contact that athletes make with your camera shows a certain intensity that you may not be able to portray otherwise.

This photo is from the Temple game at Lincoln Financial Field. I'm pretty positive that this was when Bolden was pacing the sidelines, again becoming the second-string quarterback. Here, he looks optimistic, though that seemed to change throughout the following games.

This I had a long discussion with our photo adviser about with publishing. The athletic trainer's shoe got stuck in the grass as the driver began to move the vehicle before he was off the ground, and the guy fell off. Though the moment was a small humorous moment that the crowd needed after Lynn was injured,  we didn't know how serious the injury was and it was inappropriate to use. Now that Lynn is ok, it's a funny moment to look back on. 

This is hands-down my favorite photo from the semester. I don't care what opinion you have about Joe Paterno at this point, I feel like this is a really moving moment between coach and player that can say so much more than words can ever tell (sorry for the watermark, I'm really protective of this image!).

Fortt and Stupar were celebrating after a play just before halftime, and I loved the lion above them as they were walking towards the tunnel during the Iowa game. 

This was the final kick during the Illinois game that the kicker (13) missed. He previously had a perfect season record. I like the number of reactions going on in this shot, even if composition-wise it isn't the greatest.

I just really like the feel of this photo for some reason. This was when a bunch of grounds crew guys had to roll up the tarps 
covering the field before the Illinois game, our first snow in October. Though the snow let up towards the end of the game, it was really intense in the beginning. I couldn't feel my feet or hands for most of the game. Stupidly pretty underdressed. Oh well, live and learn, right?

I wasn't expecting this, and I saw a bunch of photos from this game (Nebraska) of this tunnel walk-out that were really good from different spots. I wish I had gotten to the end of the tunnel, because I saw one shot where it was just the players holding hands and their shadows. Really neat. This one was the last crew of guys who walked onto the field, as opposed to their normal running out, and really showed the energy that they had that day going into it. After all, it was the Nittany Lions' first game without Coach Paterno since 1966.

I'll miss photographing in Beaver Stadium. It's been quite the experience. I've learned an incredible amount about sports photography and just the experience of photojournalism through shooting Penn State football.  I've met a lot of people, and helped my fellow photogs as well. Through wins and losses,  something important always comes out of it.

I was just browsing through some of my old photos from London, thinking about how I miss their creativity.

Digging up memories

If you know me, you know I talk about New Orleans way too much. On my last visit home, I went through my old film photo albums and found a lot of my photos from the March following Hurricane Katrina. These aren't the best photos--not only are they cellphone pictures of pictures, but I had a point-and-shoot film camera, and wasn't really shooting for anything special other than my own memories. The sad part about these photos is the complete lack of people. This is broad daylight on a normal March day, and there is absolutely no one around. It's eerily empty and completely abandoned, and although all of these homes once housed people, who knows where they are or if they even survived.  I did a community service project (it was required for high school) with a church in Nola to help 'gut' homes down there. Really hated that term, but it's really the only true descriptor of what we were doing. These people had built up their lives and all their belongings in these homes only to have them torn and gutted out. Here are a few of the photos I found to be most telling when I was looking through my old album.

Below is one of the scenes that I'll always be able to recall in my head. This shot is of a house next door to one of the homes we helped clear. I just remember being really sad, and thinking 'what if this was my house?'

Below is the front of that same house. It's a weird feeling to see so many abandoned homes with doors wide open and exposed to the elements. I guess you never really think about what comfort your front door provides until it's not there anymore.

It wasn't from any of these homes, but the thing I remember the most from this trip was finding a couple's wedding photograph album in a completely devastated house. So sad.

This was in a small, local graveyard. Graves were eerily 'missing' their contents all over the city.

Below, you can see the level that the water rose to in this house. This was one of the homes we worked on clearing. When we arrived, the place was a mess--their satellite dish was in their empty pool, along with a living room couch. 

Yes, this is a boat on the sidewalk. Outside of a graveyard. And if you can't read the bumper sticker, it says "New Orleans, Proud to call it home."

Below are some junk piles of what we cleared.

One lesson I've learned from seeing all this firsthand? Be thankful for what you have, every day.

A PSU transfer student reinvents himself as the Penn State Boombox Guy - ComMedia Showcase

The audio is a little rough for right now, but this is a recent, short multimedia piece that I put together for class. This is the story of Brian Cronaur, who has deemed himself the 'Boombox Guy.' Ask around on campus, most people seem to have heard of him or seen him firsthand.

A PSU transfer student reinvents himself as the Penn State Boombox Guy - ComMedia Showcase

Dear Photograph...

The phenomenon of the website Dear Photograph is simple. Find an old family photo and bring it back to its location of origin. Nostalgia comes naturally to fill in the caption information. Here, my grandmother (lovingly always known as Mommom), my great grandmother (Gram), left, and great aunt (Dotti), left, sit on the lawn of Old Main in the 40s. Though Mommom didn't go here, she lived with my grandfather (Pop) while he went to Penn State on the G.I. bill after being a meteorologist in the Navy. Something as simple as a past-to-present can really bring back a sense of family history. For me, as a Penn Stater, this justifies my being here. If my family was happy here, why wouldn't I be? It's a sense of connection. My mom didn't understand why I wanted to stay here this summer, but my grandma did. She had faith in Penn State and State College to be as good to me as it was to her.

Here,  Mommom and Pop sit at Old Main again, presumably at his time of graduation (thats when the other photos were from).


Dear photograph brings a sense of connection to the person taking the photo, as well as the person viewing it. It instantly brings a then-and-now factor that can strike up a smile or choke back tears from even the most bland of viewers. 

Destiny & Andy's Wedding

Weddings are a beautiful thing, and I love that my profession allows me to photograph them. Yesterday,  I photographed my first wedding with my good friend and co-worker Andrew Dunheimer for Destiny and Andy. I had only been to one wedding before this, so it was sort of new to me, but I figured I would catch on quickly, since it's almost just like any other event to photograph.  It was a quaint wedding at a winery just about 20 minutes outside of State College. Though the weather disagreed with us during the ceremony, it cleared up for the reception and turned into a beautiful day. Here are some of my choice shots that I pulled out after going through all of my photos. It was a good wedding to have as my first one, because both areas were small, there wasn't a lot of people, it was during the day, and the ceremony and reception were in the same spot. Congratulations to Andy & Destiny, and enjoy the photos. I'm always interested in comments and suggestions as well, especially since this was my first wedding. 

The bride and her father preparing to walk down the aisle.

 Below, the receiving line begins.

In the wine cellar.