Occupying Penn State

This Occupy movement is gaining steam pretty steadily, including here at Penn State. The Occupy Penn State gang is very open and agreeable, making it all the easier to come and go in search of pictures.

A few from the couple of times I’ve visited late late late at night:

A janitorial services employee works in the HUB-Robeson Center as freshman Jarek Curtis, center, tweets before climbing into his blanket "tent" for the night at Occupy Penn State. The movement is in its third week. Photo by Andy Colwell

 

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Occupy Penn State is in its third week of around-the-clock protests against high tuition and other education costs, drawing students who even camp out in the HUB-Robeson Center, including senior Kim Pedersen, whose right foot is visible from under her blanket “tent” early in the morning of Thursday, Nov. 3. Photo by Andy Colwell

 

Penn State senior Regis Mellinger plays the violin at Occupy Penn State in the HUB-Robeson Center as fellow protester Chris Grant, left, a junior rests and listens early in the morning of Thursday, Nov. 3. This version of the international Occupy Wall Street movement is in its third week of protesting high education costs and other concerns of students at Penn State. Photo by Andy Colwell

 

More soon! There’s always something going on there, even in the dark of night.

Six months later, back to the blog… Whoops.

Sorry for the hiatus there, folks. Twelve weeks of internshipping went by really really fast; add to that my job as Blue Band videographer, and my last-minute attendance at the Eddie Adams Workshop XXIV and that kinda made my summer-into-fall crazy. Really crazy.

Some things lately:

My dear friends Kaitlyn & Jake got married and I was given the honor of being their photographer. Both families are fantastic groups of people and I’m glad to know them.

A shot from the wedding day of my good friend Kaitlyn

I’ve had a really cool opportunity to be a super-senior and join in a project about Shanksville, Pa. and its role 10 years after the 9/11 terrorist attacks. Here’s a portrait of Merle Flick, a retired fire fighter who was one of the first emergency crew responders to the crash site of Flight 93 that day.

Merle Flick of the Shanksville Volunteer Fire Co. (ret.)

Spent some time in Bloomsburg, Pa. where Tropical Storm Lee wreaked serious havoc.

Discarded muddy boots sit awaiting their owner's return during cleanup in one part of town

Boyd Welch of Bloomsburg, Pa. tosses sodden wall materials from his waterlogged home after Tropical Storm Lee flooded the nearby Susquehanna River.

And I shot a few magazine covers (more on that later), a video story on dodgeball and some football.

Purdue running back Akeem Shavers flips across the goal line against Penn State in State College, Pa. on Saturday, Oct. 15. Penn State won 23-18.

And lots of little things in between, like the wedding of another friend, Emma and Occupy Penn State, to name a few.

Check back again soon…or, as my friend Joe McNally says, more tk.

The last four weeks…

….have been some of the best of my photo career.

Have you ever thought you didn’t want to do something, only to find out that you’re in love with it when you actually try it?

That’s this summer in a nutshell. I began work at the Harrisburg Patriot-News on May 25, four weeks ago today. and I’ve never felt more at home, more in-tune with photography, and more happy to be doing something than I have at the Patriot. The funny part: up until about nine months ago, I never really intended to work at a newspaper. And then I decided to be more open-minded, and so I looked into things a little further, and what did I find? That the Patriot internship was open for applications. I applied. I got it. And here I am, happy as a clam.

 

It’s funny how things change, isn’t it?

 

But life never slows down, especially in the news business. Likewise, I’m back in State College through the weekend. Off to shoot a wedding now, and another tomorrow. But to keep you occupied til I can post some more, here are a few links to what I’ve been up to at the paper the last few weeks:

http://www.pennlive.com/midstate/index.ssf/2011/06/pit_bulls_maul_to_death_harris.html

http://photos.pennlive.com/patriot-news/2011/06/boiling_springs_high_school_gr_14.html

http://videos.pennlive.com/patriot-news/2011/06/area_firemen_leave_to_combat_f.html

http://photos.pennlive.com/patriot-news/2011/06/northern_high_school_beats_eli_17.html

 

More to come of course – but, time for Kaitlyn & Jake’s wedding!

(Note: he’s a lot bigger than her, but not THAT big – wide-angley goodness prevails haha)

 

Good summer is good…

 

The Idea of You

Except the “you” here isn’t a person like in the (awesome) Dave song, but rather an idea. My future I guess. Just got a great listen of this DMB song today courtesy of a dear friend, and it got me thinking about the idea that I’m 21, and fresh off of an awesome workshop , and really really REALLY pumped about the next few years. That’s the “you” of which my idea is quite hopeful.

"When I am among the trees, especially the willows and the honey locust, equally the beech, the oaks and the pines, they give off such hints of gladness, I would almost say that they save me, and daily." - opening of a Mary Oliver poem

The Multimedia Immersion. I’ve heard of it, seen some photos from it thanks to my professors who have coached it, but that was all. I nearly withdrew my registration due to some crazy workload pressure right now.

Yep. Nearly withdrew. That’s just stupid, in retrospect, because in one week I learned as much about storytelling and making friends in the pro world than I have in the last four years. Not knocking PSU Journalism at all, but a two-to-one ratio of pro coaches to students is just phenomenal. John Beale, I loved your 469 Advanced Photojourn course, and Curt Chandler, 481 Multimedia Convergence was singlehandedly game-changing, but this week…. Snap. Awesome

I’d never been to Syracuse before, but I’m a fan of the Newhouse school – definitely somewhere I’d love to study if I were to hit up grad school. Speaking of my future: great question. As lots have been asking, I’m doing an extra semester to round out my portfolio, try my hand at this crazy thing called video, and interview the heck out of as many papers, orgs and editors as possible. And already I can’t wait to bust out some of the more interesting projects that I’ve shot but not edited….except now that I’ve learned to shoot for the edit, we’ll see if I’m satisfied with making something out of the pile of footage and pixels that I have on my hard drives. #timewilltell

And yes I just hashtagged a blog post. This would be a good time to share that I’m on twitter. Rut roh. @andycolwell. Who knew.

But for now, here’s my final project from the workshop. Comments appreciated highly. More content, like photos from the week, to come shortly….: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ByEZ1MF8ieA

In other news, I start my internship at the Harrisburg Patriot-News today… as in, about 15 minutes from now. Fortunately, I live within sight of the paper, so I’ll be fine for time. Peace out.

One more once.

"Bad artists copy. Good artists steal." - Pablo Picasso

(This picture fits, since I stole the blog post title from my band directors Richard Victor and Dr. Bundy.)

So this blogging thing is new, sort of.

The last time I tackled the idea of blogging, I posted a few things, and let time get away from me, and it fizzled. Womp.

…but this time is different.

It may not be a photo per day, or a post per day, but it’ll be more regular that things have been in the past. I’ve been up to a lot of cool stuff, and I’ve decided to stop posting large amounts of work to Facebook, instagr.am, etc. because of the rights-grabbing issues that pervade. I’m going to try to post as regularly as possible – more content will appear on Facebook, or Vimeo, or my website – but check back regularly etc. etc. This summer will consist of a 12-week internship at the Harrisburg Patriot-News, which is more-than-somewhat awesome. A great way to end senior year of college, take one – yep, gonna be back this fall for one last hurrah…redshirt senior year or something like that. We’ll see.

Currently, I’m at the NPPA’s Multimedia Immersion workshop at Syracuse University. Started EARLY this morning, goes through Saturday, and then I go visit my best bros Alex and Alex at Cornell on the way home. The MMI is a really neat event, and even though this is my first, and first day, it’s been a crazy mix of instruction, networking, inspiration-ing and fun-ing (I made up those last two terms to keep parallel structure….shhh.). I got my story assignment – a dance instructor who works one-on-one with clients who aren’t dancers by profession, so that’ll be cool. And we worked on sequencing and match-cut shots, among other gear, shooting and theory techniques. Oh, and have I mentioned that my profs Will Yurman and Curt Chandler are here as coaches? Cuz they are, and they’re awesome. More on them later haha.

But the best part about the MMI is the level of sharing that goes on – between coaches and students, and students and students, and students and coaches. Very cool. Great inspirational lecture by Richard Koci Hernandez of UC Berkeley, which included sage advice, both original and, well, stolen (see the photo above). Such tidbits as: “Bad artists copy. Good artists steal.” – Pablo Picasso; or, “don’t worry, the future will have beer;” or, “you’re going to suck, and you’re going to be bad, and that’s good.” Oh, and his presentation was hysterical and uplifting and thought-provoking.

More to come as the week progresses, including better pictures that aren’t from my iPhone – gotta sleep now. Big day tomorrow.

Thanks for reading – I hope you like what you see. If you don’t? Come back again

As Joe McNally says – more tk.