The second # Fest that I shot was less wild than the first. For the first time since I came to OU, it didn’t rain the day before or the day of the fest, so when I arrived around 11 a.m., the field was mostly dry. Once people finished setting up tents and chairs, they cracked open their Natural Light cans and the party began. From what I saw, I estimate that about 85 percent of the alcohol that was consumed actually made into someone’s mouth. The rest of it was lost through various drinking games and beer-drinking gadgets (the most common being beerbongs and water guns filled with beer). The lost beverages, combined with around 20,000 youth moving around all day, created another field of mud for the intoxiced students to enjoy. It makes me believe that the # fests will forever be cursed to ruin fields, shoes, and showers for the rest of existence.

For those who do not know what 8fest and the other “number fests” are, it’s a day long, BYOB music festival in a field in Athens, Ohio. It brings in a lot of students from other colleges, as well as OU students, and features musical performances from local and state artists. Proceeds from the event are donated to various causes; 8fest benefited Don’t Break the Bond (www.dontbreakthebond.org), Project Lifesaver (projectlifesaver.org) & SALT (Seniors and Law Enforcement Together) (http://www.athenssheriff.com/salt.htm).

The following video is an attempt to very breifly show what being at 8fest is like.

Lt. Anthony Fish, Athens Police, speaks to a crowd of Athens County officers, media and those who have relatives that serve and protect May 11, 2011, during a memorial preceeding National Police Week.

This week was National Police Week, following National Peace Officers’ Day on May 15. Last week, I covered a memorial in honor of fallen officers in Athens County. It was interesting seeing a more sensitive side of those who serve and protect, which I don’t see very often because of the nature of their job, especially in Athens, Ohio. The keynote speaker, Rev. Dave Cogar, talked about how a little bit of appreciation goes a long way. This sentiment was repeated by Athens Police Lt. Anthony Fish, who encouraged all those in attendance to give a simple thank you to the next person in uniform that you see.

I’ve also decided to try to come up with a project a week. These projects might be picture layouts or stories like this one, something just written (but I’ll probably still have a photo), a photo and a story, a slideshow, some audio, a video or anything else I might be working on. My hopes is that doing this will keep me pushing myself to be even better and inspire others to do work that makes them happy. As Sol Neelan said, “Own what you shoot.”

Read more about the event at The Post

I took a short roadtrip out to Snowville Creamery with Sir Zachary Nelson for a portrait of Victoria Taylor, who owns the creamery with her husband.

After wondering around for about five minutes and going to the wrong building, we found the entrance and met Victoria. We quickly found a huge window at the end of a hallway that looked over the fields and decided it was money to shoot the portrait there. As we were setting up the lights, we talked about how it would be sweet if there were cows in the field (there were not) and joked about photoshopping them into the photos. As we finished setting up the flashes, the cows that were outside the building we went to first came walking down the path right outside the window.

I ran down the short hallway, told Victoria that there were cows and we wanted take the photo before they walked too far way. She kindly moved quickly back to the window and we got it done in about 10 minutes. Zach and I then prayed to the Photogods on the way home. Story by Jessie Cadle here.

Click here to read the story, written by Matt Wagner. Next stop: NCAA. Here’s some pictures.

Thanks for looking

A decent amount of my photography from the summer is of my friends or stuff I shot for myself. I like carrying my camera everywhere and taking pictures of anything interesting. I do it a lot, but sometimes I feel like it’s not appropriate or I don’t feel inspired enough to carry my camera; it usually doesn’t bother me but from time to time something will happen and I find myself without a camera. Point-in-case, don’t put down your camera unless you’re 1. sleeping, 2. charging your batteries or 3. uploading pictures.

Cheers

Rides, kids, parades, kids, queens (and a king), beautiful light and kids. The last few weeks of summer was filled with these things because of the Ohio State Fair (no pictures), the Dublin Irish Festival, the Athens County Fair and the Parade of the Hills in Nelsonville. I spent a lot of my time during these wandering around looking for light beams or interesting moments, and if I was lucky the two would happen together. Overall, it was a fun time running around and getting to see the differences and similarities of each festival’s culture, which is reflective of the area surrounding the fair.

Cheers

This summer, I worked for Ohio Brew Week, which meant attending OBW events, drinking amazing craft beer from Ohio’s breweries and taking some fun pictures. Every event was different, even each tasting was done differently. The music was great, the people were great and the beer, of course, was great. I would recommend anyone who has never been to attend if they can. Anyone who’s been already knows that they want to, and probably will, come back to Athens for OBW.

My favorite part of the week, besides the beer, was the night I shot a show at Jackie O’s. The headlining band, if you can call them that for playing with one other band at bars and small venues, Holy Ghost Tent Revival, played a show that I have never experienced before. It started out slow and everyone was digging the music, and a couple was even dancing but they seemed drunk. Suddenly, the floor of Jackie O’s was covered in people dancing to this music which sounded like a post-punk rock bluegrass folk ska mixture that’s just wonderful, and really inspires you to dance. Between dancing, Jackie O’s beer and taking pictures, it had to be the best night of Brew Week.

Cheers

Portabello mushroom sauted in beer for the Brew-B-Q compition.

During the Parade of the Hills in Nelsonville, Stuart’s Opera House held the Ohio State Fiddling Contest. The contest has to be one of my favorite assignments of the summer, so I thought I would good to open my summer posts with.

I arrived at Stuart’s with my friend Zach Nelson and we wandered around back instead of going in the front, where we stumbled upon the practice room in the basement where young fiddlers were getting ready to perform. Each contestant performed two songs, a hoe-down and a waltz, usually with the help of another person playing rhythm guitar. Overall, it was an exciting experience since I don’t get to see fiddling very often, and everyone who performed was really talented and incredibly nice when they were hanging around in the back room offstage. I’ve learned to really enjoy string instruments in the past few years, and the energy that usually comes with fiddling makes it, for me at least, one of the most interesting instruments to see and hear played.

Cheers

Palmer Place Fest

These are the images I took at Palmerplace Fest throughout the day. There were no arrests, fires or riots; there was only fun, drinking, probably some bad decisions and a lot of games until the night ended and people either went inside or went home.

Palmer Fest:

As the crowd at Palmerfest got rowdy, the batteries died on both of the cameras I was using. We had a good number of the staff from The Post, and they got some nice pictures and video of what was happening. Check it all our here. Here are my shots from the funness that is Palmerfest before dark/riots. Also, nice coverage by Lisa Bernheim, Alicia Fidler, Dustin Lennert, Erin Corneliussen, Gwen Titley and Meg Roussos.