halloween roundup [fluffy]

It feels like 40 percent of what I've covered in the last two weeks have involved one or more of the following elements, usually in some adorable combination:

> pumpkins
> costumes
> children

Well within my comfort zone. I've tried very hard to cover things outside of that zone with my remaining 60 percent, but that's not to say I haven't appreciated the moments that crop up at these things. Here are some of my favorites of what I have shuffled back and forth from --

kids really pumped up about their historical figure presentations.

matty and i stumbled on the party at the ohio state beauty academy for a feature hunt.

hay and powdered doughnuts at fall fun harvest day.
[five eyes fixed]

hay rides at a church's beer-less octoberfest.

of course, trick or treating in my hood.

here comes the sun

i'm unsure of the clarity of this, but the paper actually ran this as a weather feature. the window at joey's submarines is huge, so i saw them fussing with these blinds from my car about half a block away.

rainbow trout

The Ohio State Fish Hatchery rolled into town with a truck full of rainbow trout and a mission to restock Lima Lake. Dan, the studly fish man, had to give the fish a hand in acclimating themselves to the water temperature. It was like 49 degrees this day and the water in the truck was much warmer. Vicente Fox and Lula Da Silva, my two goldfish my sophomore year of college, went to fish heaven because I failed to realize the importance of tempering their aquatic environments. Luckily, all the rainbow trout snapped out of their mini-comas.

rebecca

Countryside Greenhouse -- Lima, OH.

rationalization

The ongoing struggle with the complacency in photographing little kids for those quick features the paper expects you to churn out is sometimes justified by getting the shadow of a sinister looking tree as a compositional element.

or other times by having light leaks in a friendlier tree reveal visual allusions to Chinese philosophy. the ying yang twins -- sleepy and restless.

prison tour

Mercer County Jail had an open house today. There were no prisoners, so they emphasized the potential for this as a family event.

buckeye blowout

Last weekend was spent waking up way too early to make a trip to Columbus and the wide world of sports. On my journey through this perpetually unfamiliar territory, I shivered from the cold and sweat from the heat, whistled "We are the boys from Old Florida" song in Ohio Stadium, witnessed my very first Script Ohio and rediscovered my appreciation for college football media lunches. Mmm. Free Oreo McFlurries.

The game, as expected by everyone but me apparently, was a blow out. 45 to 3. Knowing I already had plays that the paper would be happy with and no imminent deadline, I walked around the Horseshoe and took photos for fun. Check the set.

brey's, barnstorm and back

By whatever freak glitch in the system, I was lucky enough to attend the Eddie Adams workshop this year. The green team rocked. You can see all ten teams' multimedia presentations online. Our theme was Generational Farms. Neil's multimedia is great. I was assigned to Brey's egg farm -- a third generation farm in Jeffersonville, NY. A set with my favorites is up on flickr.

i also made a set with all the grassy knoll, bus riding, tasty light, lecture listening fun.

limalandians.

i didn't really understand when on the day i moved in my new roommate craig [above] kept saying "yeah, we're those people," about him and his friends.

he broke it down very simply -- "there's nothing to do to pass the time in between work but drink."
this leads to beer pong parties at our house and overweight guys in ohio state jerseys passing out on our couch on the weekends. it doesn't bother me. it's just interesting. and having played zero games of pong through college, i'm proud to say that my precision in getting a tiny ball in a plastic cup has improved. practical applications to non-bud-light life have yet to be found, but i can' t say i haven't learned anything from them.

cliff

i just got back from barnstorm and find myself mega inspired. the newsroom welcomed me back by giving a halfway sincere nod and assigning a weather feature. i know the stories are out here in gloomy lima.

the mornings since i came back have been heavy and cold, only to be followed up with really beautiful and golden afternoons. it surprises me everytime because when you wake up to nothing, it's hard to remember the existence of something.

i'm rambling, but basically i met clifford a few days ago and hopefully him and his wifey amy will be hanging out with me more often in the weeks to come.

elucidation

sorry for the flaky post frequency. i've been moving and working and making tons of photos and then not making enough time to look through them because i'm easily distracted. i've also come to be less patient about spending more time than necessary on the computer. my impulse to repulse is kind of silly. brett is graciously helping me finally put this site up [that's all we really have so far]. so now i'm getting to sorting through photos from the last couple of months trying to get my stuff organized. {cred to matt for the photo }