Somewhere I Belong or Just a Dream…?

Monday night was the annual Crunch Brunch event held at Memorial Coliseum. It was also the first real event that I shot with my new camera! Greg and I went over at 8:45, and the line was huge! And it only seemed to get longer… As the doors opened and we began traveling back down the ramp, you could see where the line had wrapped all the way up the ramp on the opposite side! Crazy!

After getting my free shirt and taking a few bites of my breakfast food, all I wanted to do was go out and take pictures. As I was sitting up in the stands, I saw the familiar faces of Kernel photogs which made me even more excited to think that I am slowly becoming a part of “that group.”

Caricature Artist

The next day, I met with Jim, who gave me a lot of great suggestions and feedback on how to make my pictures better. Although I was a little more disappointed with my first outing than I was initially, the prevailing feeling I had after leaving the photo office was excitment! I wanted to get back out there! Not only did I wish that I could re-shoot the event, but I began thinking more about the advice Jim had given me and how I could apply it next time.

As I lay awake last night, unsuccessfully attempting to fall asleep, thoughts of all kinds kept creeping into my mind: FINALS, Christmas presents, Christmas cards, my plans for today… but also Taking Pictures! I kept brainstorming and started to make a mental list of things I wanted to try and photograph over Christmas break. I want to go into the photo office after the holidays and blow Jim away with how much I have improved! …okay, maybe not blow him away, but I want him (and everyone who reads this blog) to see how hard I have worked over the break to show I “belong” in the photog group. I realize that I just bought my camera and that I don’t have any experience or any money to buy really nice lenses, etc, and that I am running low on time in my collegiate career, but I don’t want that to stop me from producing the best work that I can. I realize that I will probably never be as good as my colleagues who have been doing this much longer than I have, but I want to try.

An Interview During Finals Week?!?!

Yes, that’s right folks! As if I didn’t have enough things stressing me out, I have an interview for an internship with the Lexington Horsemen tomorrow (today actually if you want to get technical since it’s currently 2:28am) at 12:30. Crazy? Yeah, kind of. But I really want to get an internship next semester! Why?… Do I really think that I will have an abundance of time, what with taking 18 hours again, as well as continuing to write for The Kentuckian, The Kernel, and learning how to take pictures??? Um… probably not. But I think that this position will be a good opportunity for me to, not only be around football (My favorite sport ever!!!), but also to try out another career path that is a blend of my majors.

The fact that next semester officially begins my senior “year” in college really frightens me, especially because I feel that I am no closer to having made a career decision than I was at the beginning of the year. If anything, I think I am even further away because I keep adding options to the list. ::Sigh:: I thought that this was supposed to get easier! LESS complicated! Obviously, I was mistaken…

The Elusive ‘66′

A little over 24 hours ago, I rediscovered something that I already knew: I am not a bowler.

Friday night (11:30pm-2am), I went bowling for the first time in a year with a group of Newman Center friends and let’s just say, it wasn’t pretty.  Here is a small disclaimer: I only learned how to roll the ball down the lane one-handed twp trips-ago…

1st Game: 65.  Definitely nothing to write home to the folks about, except maybe to say that I am pretty much the worst bowler ever… But overall, I tried not to let it get me down.  I decided that I wasn’t competing against anyone but myself: I would do better next time.

2nd Game: 57.  I’m not getting any better.

3rd Game (and final full game): I have a 60 going into the last frame.  All I need to do is knock down six pins.  And what do I do?  Two gutter balls.  So is my life.

However, I did rebound in the end.  We were running out the time until 2a.m. and while everyone else was wind-milling and pushing the ball down the lane on their stomachs, I kept on trying.  I finished with two strikes in a row(!!!), my only strikes for the night!  Lesson learned: I need about two hours before I am good and warmed up!!!

Sorry folks, but no pictures for this one.  I did take some snapshots of friends, but nothing creative.  Facebook and scrapbook material.

Finally!!!

Again, apologies for not posting when I said that I would. As you can probably tell from the title, Yes! I finally have my camera!!! YAY!!!!!!!!

This past weekend, my best friends from Louisville made their annual trip to Lexington to celebrate the two November birthdays in the group. Let’s just say, that I’m sure that they were pretty tired of having their picture taken by the time Saturday was over! I mean, I usually take a lot of pictures when our group gets together, but THIS time, not only was it a birthday celebration (which always merits more pictures for the scrapbook) but I had a new “toy” to experiment with!!!

Everywhere we went on Saturday, I took pictures: Ovids. Maggie Moo’s. Fayette Mall. BD’s Mongolian Grill. Dorm. I couldn’t be stopped! One of my friends made the comment that it was like the paparazzi was following her! Anyway, I had a lot of fun with it. I got a lot of good scrapbook-type pictures, but not really photojournalism-type. Nothing really impressive, but I am definitely still at the beginning stages of it all, so I thought that the practice would be good for me. Hopefully, there will be a lot going on over Christmas break in Louisville, so I can go out and take some good shots. Until then, I will be attending the mandatory photo meeting for those who are interested in taking pictures next semester for The Kentuckian and The Kernel. I don’t know if I am good enough yet to do this, but the possibility is extremely exciting! Getting a picture into the yearbook and into the paper are definitely at the top of my short-term goals list!!!

Here are the two pictures that I think best resemble something that would go in a newspaper vs. my scrapbook:

Katie in FYE

Build-A-Bear

Like I said, I am just getting started with all of this, so any suggestions, ideas for things or events I can photograph, things to look for, etc are welcome!