Older entries | Alex Farris Photo Blog

IDS reporter CJ Lotz and I, as well as freelancer Peter Stevenson, went on the first public search for Lauren Spierer on June 5. There, at the front door of Smallwood Plaza, we met her parents, Robert and Charlene, who had flown from New York to Indianapolis over the weekend. The parents, about 15 volunteers, and we members of the media (including a Fox 59 cameraman) drove to Hoosier National Forest to search.

Robert and Charlene Spierer listen as a public search is organized for their daughter Lauren Spierer. Lauren was reportedly last seen at 4:30 a.m. the morning of June 3 walking south from 11th Street and College Avenue in Bloomington.

Over Memorial Day weekend, my family went to Wilmington, N.C., for my cousin Adam Hinz's wedding. He's the third of five siblings to get married, but by no means was it routine. Three days of extended family, card games, the Atlantic Ocean at night and perfect sunlight during the day doesn't happen all the time. (Neither does the end of the 100th anniversary of the Indy 500.)

Adam and Amanda had already hired a wedding photographer (he had taken photos at other family weddings). Being the nice guy he was, George was cool with letting me tag along. Because I didn't have the flashes or the long lens that he did, I was largely an assistant. I still took some of my own photos, 14 of which appear here in the style of a photo story. (The rest will be on Facebook soon.)

Bride-to-be Amanda Osborne rides with Amy Hinz and other bridesmaids toward the ceremony.

I was working on the final draft and multimedia element of my Hawaii story in the Herman B Wells Library on Wednesday evening. I knew storms were a'brewin', so I brought my camera with me.

Sure enough, at about 10:15 p.m. the auditor at the library, Matt Duff, tells everybody that they should go down to the basement. Five minutes later, the lobby doors shook and wind beat against the westside windows. There were frantic saves of projects, ejections of hard drives, some stalling and a stupid question with a blunt response, but we eventually left the window-filled Information Commons and headed to the basement.

For the next four hours, I felt journalism in me. I interviewed people in the basement, I heard where damage had been reported and I went to take photos of that damage. Fortunately, after I walked a ways down Seventh Street, a car pulled up and were willing to drive me home. After that, I drove my own car to other damage sites and got home at about 2:15 a.m., thanking the cleaning crews wherever I went. The result appears below.

(My former IDS colleague, Peter Stevenson, had a wholly different, and scarier, experience with the evening's storm. Check it out.)

A tree lays across Hunter Avenue near Fess Street. Because the tree did not break through the home or any power lines, the city workers decided to wait until morning to move it so they could take care of other damage.