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I remember a few nights of star-gazing very well. One night in 1997 (for a great many nights, really), I could look out my west-facing bedroom window and see Comet Hale-Bopp, its white and blue tails of Sun-smoked ice and dust dazzling me to no end. The star-spangled sky over the Boundary Waters, of course, scared me back into my tent for four days before I could spend half of my last night there marveling at its vastness. And one very early morning in elementary school, my dad and I (I don't remember if my brother was there) watched the space shuttle chase the International Space Station across the sky before docking with it.

The memories have been embellished, of course, as all memories have been; but still, I smile when I remember those nights. The reminders that we live, as Carl Sagan put it, on "a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena," have stuck with me and help me to cherish our existence here while keeping me from giving it galactic import. Every chance I get, I look up and marvel at how much we've explored and how startlingly much we still have left to explore.

Last week, my attention turned to the International Space Station. I had watched Gravity on its opening weekend with my dad and sister, so the orbiting global cooperative was already on my mind. My dad had found its path over our speck of Earth on a NASA website (still functioning on what was day two of the partial shutdown). I set my camera on top of my car, steadied it with my rigid camera bag, and took the six 30-second exposures you see below (presented as both a flattened .jpg file and as an animated GIF).

Keep looking up.

The International Space Station travels for three minutes over Indianapolis in six 30-second exposures.

I am currently on fall break, enjoying a bit of lovely time amongst the fall foliage of Bloomington. Because of this pleasant bout of free time, I have two blog posts planned (after one post the whole month of September! I know, right?).

This first post is simply a recap of the three assignments I did this weekend for the Star. Two of them (of the Key to the Cure event at Saks Fifth Avenue and Beer Games at GermanFest) appear below; the third, of a new art hub in Fountain Square that reminded me of a lot of small places in Bloomington, simply appears on the Star's website. (Bonus: Check out last year's Key to the Cure photos that I took. I'd argue I did much better this year, largely because I was on a 9 p.m. deadline then as opposed to an 11:30 p.m. deadline this year.)

Tomorrow: The International Space Station!

Members of Team Bonzai and Zombie Schnitzel fight to stomp the most grapes during GermanFest's Beer Games at the Athenaeum in Indianapolis, Saturday, Oct. 12, 2013.

To go with this month's haul of photo assignments from the Star (which started with two fundraisers for Indy philanthropies two weeks ago), I got three assignments this weekend. The first was the most original art show I'd ever heard of: Art vs. Art at The Vogue. Almost 100 paintings were made by local artists in one day in early September, and these were narrowed down to 32 for voting on Friday. After voting, the top 16 paintings were brought out in one-on-one match-ups. The painting that got less cheering was put up for auction, and if it wasn't bought (or if the buyer allowed it), the painting was destroyed. I only got to see two forms of destruction doled out by the Wheel of Death, but the Dirty Sanchez and the Chainsaw were more than enough.

The other two assignments were more of the city-fair variety of party. Fishers bought out its German side for Oktoberfest, and Noblesville brought out its alcoholic side for Brewfest. Those two took place on Saturday afternoon, and despite the lack of destruction, I still got some good community photos.

This weekend's work, along with a cigar bar assignment I shot at the end of August, appears on the Star's website here: Art vs. Art, Oktoberfest, Brewfest.

...Thus endeth the only blog post I've written this month. School is a lot of work!

A member of the Naptown Roller Girls cringes as she wipes feces on a painting during the Art vs. Art competition at The Vogue in Broad Ripple, Friday, Sept. 27, 2013.