Goodbye.

Carl the kitten died this week.

Perry County Fair

This marked the beginning of my eleventh week here at the Patriot-News, and in some ways, the time has gone quickly, and in others, it seems like I have been here for years.

The biggest thing that I improved here was my technical skills, such as, learning how to make even a dark cave of a room look decent on A1. I used flash all the time, and learned how to get by without the cage. (I had to provide all my own gear, as I shoot Nikon, and the paper's pool gear was Canon) I had to edit and tone well, quickly, and there was no room for BS.

At this point, I feel like I have grown enough that I can provide at least three decent photos, and one "good" photo for every assignment that I shoot. I hope this will change to three good photos and one awesome photo, as I continue into my next internship.

The internship was truly one where I had a lot of independence- I got my shoots everyday and had to plan when I was going to edit/find standalones/do story research/get lunch/talk with my editor. There was no handholding even from the first day. I had to ask around on how to connect to the network, caption, and upload photos. It was terrifying at first, not knowing if I was doing anything right (I did mess up more than a few times at the beginning), but this independence grew into a norm that I'm afraid will be hard to grow out of once I get back to school.

I photographed a semblance of a story while I was here, but access was my biggest issue from it becoming a full-fledged portfolio story. I think that was my biggest disappointment here, the fact that I had a story idea, a subject, and was in the middle of it, but several factors kept it from becoming anywhere near finished. This is my goal for Vermont- to come out with at least one well-rounded story that I am more than moderately pleased with. The stories are out there, I just need to push myself and find something that hasn't been done by the paper before.

As for exploring the area, I think I did a pretty darn good job- put approx 8,000 miles on my car, mostly with assignments and trips to Jeff's and the ocean, but between this all, I found my alltime favorite bookstore (midtown books- whole wall of photo books), favorite vintage store (atomic warehouse), an incredible view, 5 minutes away from my house (a view of the valley from the appalachian trail), and got to ride on a pretty sweet ferry.

Goals for the end of the summer:

-Polo Match on Saturday
-Dog Show on Sunday
-Party Island on Sunday
-Roller Derby on the 28th
-Laser Tag with Ann
-Drive by 3 Mile Island

Favorite Assignments

-Going to Party Island on the Pontoon Boat
-Creation Music Festival
-The Family with Two Mothers
-Carlisle Truck Show
-The Last Ferry on the Susquehanna
-Dirt Track Races

From Anne and Jason's May 2010 wedding

Inspecting the inside of Lulu's Stomach

Weekly Dinner for Penn National Employees

I didn't think I'd get lucky enough to get on a boat again after I had gone pontoon boating to party island with Sam Musselman and his friends, so the opportunity to ride around on the only Ferry left on the Susquehanna was readily welcomed by me. I got up early this morning and took the first few trips across the river with Captain Cliff Tschopp and his first mate Nathan Hoy. I saw a few herons, egrets, eagles, and deer, and learned from a story by Captain Cliff that even valedictorians can do stupid things like blow their hands off with homemade fireworks. Also learned that bear meat works well in stroganoff.