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.

Adelaide Cadence's beachy baptism

I was at the beach this weekend to see my second cousin get baptized, and I must say, Miss Adelaide Cadence is the most precious baby ever. She is giggly and bouncy and doesn't have a care in the world. She smiles and laughs and takes in the world moment by moment, observing every part of anything she looks at. She will stare you down with these big, bright blue eyes of hers, and starts a staring contest that ends in her getting so excited she kicks her legs and laughs and scrunches up her little nose. She's bound to be a heartbreaker. Here are some photos of the adorable Adelaide from my short trip to Stone Harbor, one of a few of my homes away from home. 

Laurie, Eric & Adelaide Cadence.

Always such a curious girl.

The baby on the right was asleep for all but this part of the service. When he woke up, he looked around like 'what in the world is going on?' and then went back to sleep. 

Eric, Laurie and Adelaide.

My cousin Brad (or Uncle Butter to Addie) and  Addie.

Gus/Mr. Gus/Emon/Goosey-mAAny, the abnormally large but ever-so-lovable chocolate lab.

In her mouth? A play starfish. She's a beach baby already.

Busy day...time for a nap?

Spot news tip? Run.

State College didn't hesitate for one moment to take to the streets to celebrate the death of Osama Bin Laden, and I was able to capture it a month ago. Within minutes of the confirmation from our president that Bin Laden was dead, I was getting phone calls and texts telling me to get to Beaver Canyon. Luckily, I live about four blocks away and own a pair of running shoes. I dropped my STAT 200 notes (I had a final the next day), grabbed my camera, cradled it for dear life, and took off sprinting. I arrived as people were still gathering in a large crowd that settled right between the Alexander Court and Cedarbrook residences, in the heart of the infamous 'Beaver Canyon,' where my peers are always rioting or celebrating something. People were screaming, chanting, carrying flags, blasting USA themed music, singing, crowd surfing, throwing toilet paper, etc., to show their excitement over this particular death. Many fingers have pointed this death as an answer for our generation. In a time of so many question marks for my peers about evil and the world that we live in, this was finally a period (or at least an ellipses) on an era of a certain kind of evil. Here are some of the photos that didn't make the cut from our website (we were editing at four in the morning during finals week, I only threw a few up there) showing the true passion of my fellow peers at Penn State. Mostly all of these images are the unedited raw images (shot with my D80 in the black of night, until I found a friend with a working flash that I could borrow), so coloring and direct flash is a little harsh, but I feel like the message is more important then a few yellow photos.

This guy climbed a light post. Here it is close up, and now a wider shot:

Group of students chanting

It was finals week, and caught up in the moment, it seemed many students felt it was more important to rip up their textbooks and let the pages fly out the windows as opposed to study them. 

A student crowdsurfs...

...and so does Captain America.

Underwear guy gets a lift.

Crazy in the Canyon.

The crowd surfing continues.

A fire breaks out when someone lights a chair on fire and people start jumping over it...

The cops then show up, resulting in my personal favorite picture:

A girl attempts to move her car in the middle of a crazy crowd.

The cops line up along Beaver Avenue to monitor the crowd from afar.

And they literally look on as the crowd winds down for the night.

Also filmed this video (thank you iPhone), which seems to be the only alcohol-fueled part of the celebration:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w6zq8XyoWok&feature=player_embedded

Forgotten moments

I stumbled upon this photo today when I was looking for a photo of Tressel for the Collegian website. This was last football season (November I believe) when we had an away game at Ohio State. Since we had driven there, we had some time to kill before we could actually be let into the stadium, so we were walking around. We saw their band practicing on a field nearby and I saw this little girl with her dad (assuming), and just took a photo. I love photos like these that crop up when you're supposed to be doing something else. Even though I'll never use it for an assignment or for my portfolio, it's a cute little memory that made me smile amongst a bunch of files of serious football players.

A look to the future

I was looking through my London photos in search of some to print and hang on my wall, and I stumbled across this photo. I'm normally drawn to weird and obscure things on the street to photograph, and though I don't exactly remember the story behind this photo, I obviously just saw this piece of paper lying on the ground somewhere. It's had me thinking. While I've been meeting new people this summer and I tell them my major is photojournalism, they always ask, "where do you want to go with that?" To be honest, I don't have an answer. I might not ever have an answer. I like taking pictures and telling stories, so I'm following through with that and getting an education.  I've been saying goodbye to some really good friends recently thanks to graduation, and though some of them are off to jobs that are in accordance to their majors, I don't think they know exactly what they want to do either. It's all an experiment. We experiment by making friends, going to college, doing our homework, and taking on jobs and internships hoping that these things lead us to a great future. All I can say is I'm not worried about the future. It's a big question mark, and I still have another year in my college bubble before the real world, but I'm not going to get all caught up trying to match an answer to a blank.