Midwest Foresters' Conclave

Brad, a member of the
Purdue Society of American Foresters,
takes a break during practice
for the yearly SAF regional conclave

Remember Brad from way back when?

I grabbed this picture of him while taking a break from practicing for the Underhand Chop competition at the 2010 Midwest Foresters' Conclave.

This year the conclave was held at Purdue and, while I wasn't able to grab any sweet stills like you see here, I did get the opportunity to shoot some video during the actual competitions.

I wasn't able to stay all day, however I did make it in time to film the Underhand Chop - one of my favorite events of the day.


So here it is - The Underhand Chop

Underhand Chop | 2011 Midwest Foresters' Conclave from Michael Carney Media on Vimeo.

150 Competitors from nine schools gather each year to challenge each other in traditional lumberjack games at the Midwest Foresters' Conclave. This year was the first year the event was held in the spring and was hosted by Purdue University during their annual Spring Fest and Bug Bowl.

Purdue Red Ranger

I met with the Purdue Red Ranger this evening to shoot a short movie. Originally it was supposed to be a western-style stand off between the Red Ranger and Purdue Space Ghost. Space Ghost never showed (and now his facebook account is deactivated).

so we just did some stills instead. I went for an edgier look with some grungy processing a bit Dave Hill-ish, but not as desaturated.

Strobist: Three lights. SB80dx and SB26 as 45degree kickers (1/2 power ea) and on SB600 into a reflective umbrella camera right (1/1 power). I triggered the SB600 with CLS (manual and FVlocked) and the other two with their optical slaves.

Back to Taking Pictures

I've been doing lots of video. It felt weird to take stills again.



I went shooting at night with Kevin, didn't like anything I "shot" though.

We sat down in the Union for a while, kevin got a bit tired.

and then we both got a bit bored.

Okay, so maybe Its Monday

I hate mondays. I hate weekdays. I think everyone would be better off if we had a 1 day week and a 6 day weekend.

I've been fairly busy the last few weeks. I'm now the Multimedia Editor at the Exponent. This basically means that I produce videos all week. The good thing is, its not as many hours as the photo editor job which means I have more time to shoot pictures and do homework.

Here are a few of the things I've been working on recently.

Patrick Jones - a former criminologist for the Chicago PD - is the Forensics Lab director here at Purdue.

Patrick invented a compressed air powered device used to dust for finger prints. Using air to apply the powder instead of a brush reduces smudging and makes it possible to recover prints from extremely delicate objects.


Here Jones is using side-by-side microscope comparison to match bullets fired from the same gun. Unlike TV, the match isn't made from striations from the gun barrel, but from the impression the hammer leaves when it strikes the primer.


On the first day of Jones's criminology class, he is carried into the room in a body bag and remains there motionless before popping out to the surprise of his students.


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Alex Camarota is a TA and graduate student in the department of creative writing here at Purdue. Alex is also almost completely deaf. While he can still here sounds such as stomping and enjoys listening to reggae music, Alex can't hear you if he can't see your lips move. Alex and his twin brother (a graphic designer in California) were both born with their mostly hearing intact, however it has degenerated ever since. Alex is putting on a free writing workshop that aims to help people understand how to write about disabilities.


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Lastly, I've been producing videos like mad. I've come to understand how to use my D300s in this capacity quite a bit better. I'd still like to see a firmware update allowing manual video control, however I think I've got the work-arounds pretty much down.

Click the links to watch in 720p HD

Starting with the Most recent:

Water Break live. A weekly piece written by the sports desk. This is my first attempt with a green screen - I've got some bugs to work out.
Water Break Live


Rube Goldberg. The Purdue Society of Professional Engineers' Rube Goldberg device was definitely a crowd pleaser at the regional competition Saturday with cannons, Tesla coils, and (in theory) the Purdue fight song.
Rube Goldberg


Big Man on Campus. This greek philanthropy event raises money for breast cancer research each year. This year's contribution: over $127,000.
BMOC


Patrick Jones: Purdue Forensics Lab director teaches us how to recover a fingerprint.
Patrick Jones


Cupid's Arrows: Members of the Purdue Music Organization deliver singing Valentines on Feb 12th.
Valentines


Well that's it for now. I'll have another update in a week or so (hopefully!)

And then the cops came...

So today I was shooting for my black and white photography class (film - gasp!) out between Beering and Recitation Halls.

For those of you who aren't familiar with the Purdue campus, there is a random - and pointless - brick wall between these two buildings.

My goal for the day was to shoot one roll of film (36exp) of nothing but portraits of people walking by me.

I taped up a white sheet (since my instructor wasn't able to score me any white seamless... :( ) and a small sign saying "free portraits." As people were walking by I politely introduced myself and asked if they could spare a few seconds of their time to help me with my project and, in return, I would email them a copy of the photo once it was developed so they could send it home to mom, dad, wife, whatever.

Things were going pretty well, 25%-ish of the people I asked were kind enough to spare 15 seconds to help.

About an hour (and 26 frames) later, a Purdue Police officer came and told me that I was not allowed to "do that."

When I asked her why, she started talking about not having reserved the space to set anything up, not having waivers signed, and that I wasn't allowed to ask people for their email addresses, etc (almost all of which is false).

Stupidly, I neglected to snap a photo of the officer or get her information - she basically ran off as soon as my back was turned (however the people at the OSRR were able to Identify her by her description quite quickly which makes me wonder if she has caused them problems in the past to...).

Not feeling like getting arrested today, I obliged the officer and took down my sheet and headed to Schleeman Hall (an administration building) where I started to talk with the kind people at the Office of Student Rights and Responsibilities.

I explained to them my story, and they were quite confused because A) they have never had a complaint like this and B) they weren't quite sure what was wrong seeing as there is no provision about photography in the 2009/2010 Purdue University Regulations guide (which I now have a copy of that lives in my camera bag).

After about 15 minutes of pondering, looking things up, and discussing, we decided that nothing I was doing was wrong or illegal, however I did not have the 'space' reserved (mind you this is a bed sheet taped flat against a useless brick wall).

Needless to say, I will be calling space management tomorrow to reserve this wall for the rest of the semester so that I will not have any more run-ins with the Purdue Police, or if I do, I can kindly tell them to - as the ever so wise Fonzie would say - "sit on it."

I'm glad to see the Purdue Police are keeping the campus safe - one photographer at a time.