Gearing up for Ecuador! (and the rest of the semester)

I am part of the Florida Fly-Ins program, run by Prof. John Kaplan, this year at the University of Florida. Every year the Fly-Ins program goes to a South or Central American country to document a city and culture in words and pictures. This year is the first year traveling to Ecuador and I'm super excited because it's the northern neighbor to Peru, where I just was this summer.
We've only had one meeting at this point. But the class meets once a week to prepare and research the country and area before departing. After the trip, Sept. 29 - Oct. 7, the class will continue to meet once a week to wrap things up and prepare everything for the online magazine that is published every year and for the gallery showing that happens near the end of the Fall semester.
This year is also the first time photographers are going to be REQUIRED to do multimedia work. YAY! We haven't discussed it very much yet but I think this means we will just be creating a short soundslides project with our photos and narrating it ourselves. Hopefully we can incorporate some sound from Ecuador.
I'm not sure yet what story I'll be working on, but with the departure date about a month away, I'll have to know VERY soon. So for now I'm hitting the research books and I'll be trying to make connections for my story before we even arrive.

This is going to be one fun last semester for me.

I'm also piling on 3 other classes with the Fly-Ins class. Those include Advanced Design (dealing with newspaper design and photo editing), Advanced Ballet (my body is regretting that choice) and Renaissance Art in Northern Europe (my last Art History class for my minor).

Also I'm seriously starting to look for winter internships to follow my graduation. So on top of everything else, I'll be sending out applications for those this month!

Elephants Homecoming

Not real elephants. Statue elephants.
Yes I was slightly disappointed in learning that too. This past weekend the Appleton Museum of Art in Ocala celebrated the return of a elephant statue/water fountain. The fountain had to undergo restoration and apparently the community really missed it.
The museum had clowns, student jugglers (who were very good), and crafts for children. There were also some more grown up activities for the adults including a video on the restoration and a speaker from Silver Springs who spoke about wildlife conservation. All in all it was a nice little assignment and here are the three photos that ended up running as a package.

First multimedia piece!

Bluegrass in the Park.
This was part of an article on free things to do in Ocala. ARTICLE
Just scroll down the article and you'll see a link for the slideshow.
I sure learned a lot from this first project. Definately use some kind of mic to cut down on background noise and WIND! Darn wind. I used Audacity to edit the sound and Soundslides to create the slideshow. All in all it took me two days to do the project, that includes learning the two afore mentioned programs. I think the slideshow turned out a little long, but after losing the audio track halfway through creating it, I was just glad to be able to rebuild it quickly. From now on though slideshows will be 3 mins max. But anyways, I am excited about this multimedia stuff now and can't wait to do another project!

Feature and Hospice Thrift Store

I finally got IPN sent to my cell phone since I don't have access to a scanner as a stringer. It seems to works pretty well, I've only received one page so far so time will tell if it's worth it.

This weekend was semi-busy.
Saturday was short, but on Sunday I had 4 assignments.

Here is a feature from a park on Sunday.


Here is a man waiting as his wife shops during a block party sale at Hospice Thrift Store. She must have found some deals since he was left sitting there for about 15-20 mins.

Control Line planes

ARTICLE
I shot this assignment two or weeks ago. It was pretty fun. They didn't use my favorite photo so I'll try to put it up later.

Flea Market

Yesterday I was allowed to once again create a 3 photo package of anything I wanted, but they didn't want the pool or Lake or Springs since I had just done them. So I headed to the flea market. These are two of the three that ran.

Officials

ARTICLE
I showed up late because my previous assignment started late and missed the best part of this workshop. But I had to return with some art, therefore I walk around while they all ate lunch and looked for people discussing "official" stuff. It worked, enough. I filled the void of no art.

Punt, Pass & Kick

Saturday's first assignment where boys competed in punting, passing and kicking to be the winner in their age group. If they won their age group then their name was put in a drawing for a chance to win a trip to an NFL game wher they would be call onto the field during halftime.

Playground Feature

Yes feature hunting at a playground is like shooting fish in a barrel. I thought they might hold this for their Thursday Belleview section but I guess the desk needed a feature. There are actually two versions of this photo. The top is the one that ran and the bottom is the other version. I'd appreciate any feedback of which photo people prefer.

Golf Tournament

Such an early tee-off time on Sunday... 8:00 AM. ARTICLE

Chruch Yard Sale

I shot this two weekends ago. I loved the architecture of the church. The adobe style church looked like those I have seen out west. I really wanted to show the front of the church in one of photos and I'm glad it was printed. ARTICLE

Debutante Emily

Emily needed some last minute debutante photos. I like the more untraditional ones like the laying on the floor. It's hard to take a bad photo of Emily so we ended up with way more than I think she needed. :)

Paso Fino Show

Stand-alone package for Sunday's Local CP. Wonderful show even in the extreme heat. It made me want to ride and show again.

Puerto Rican author

I think I took this two weeks ago. I can't find the article that accompanied it.

Local author of Puerto Rican themed children's short stories and books, Yolanda Morales holds some of her books at home in Pedro, Fla., Sunday July 23, 2006.