News | Alex Farris Photo Blog

This past weekend's assignments both involved a lot of walking around downtown. The first was Saturday's Walk for Water, an event I covered last year. I wasn't worried about taking a test later the same day, so I was able to be mentally present at the event a lot more completely than I was last summer. So, I tried something outside the box and rented a paddleboat to cover the water-retrieval part. I didn't get the photo I envisioned (the water fetchers didn't throw the buckets out into the canal, so there wasn't a chance to get a photo of one of the buckets hurtling toward the camera just above the water), but it did force me to think differently, which is always good in a photo assignment. The photos went here on the IndyStar website, and two of them got into the paper.

The second assignment, early on Sunday morning, was a triathlon that started in the canal. The Tri-Indy Triathlon snaked up to the Northwestside, but it was centered in White River State Park, where all three segments converged. I found a parking spot in time to cover the start of the sprint-distance race, and really, what part of the race would be better than people jumping into and swimming in the canal? These photos also went up to the IndyStar website, but there was a very unfortunate crop done on photo 4 in that gallery (probably by the website's CMS), so ignore that version of it. Photo 7 here is the full version; it has the all-important walking-on-water aspect that the cropped version lacks.

Sabra Logan, founder and director of Iibada Dance Company, leads walkers in an African welcoming dance during the third annual Walk for Water event downtown, Saturday, Aug. 2, 2014. The event raised money for a community clean-water well in Kager, Kenya. Attendees walked from American Legion Mall to the canal, filled buckets with water and walked back to the mall, simulating the path villagers without clean water have to take every day.

Earlier in my journalism career, I learned how to be very good on deadline. I learned, through the crucible of the IDS, how to be quick, yet thorough, and it is because of those skills that I first got the privilege to work with the Star. By now, I've sent off a great many assignments with tight deadlines, enough that I don't bother to count them anymore.

While editing photos of a wedding I covered last month, though, I was reminded of how much good work can come out of the absence of a tight deadline. (I'm also reminded of this in my studying for organic chemistry; you cannot quickly learn and memorize how an alkene reacts with a peroxy acid to create an epoxide!) The most effective lesson came from an assignment ten days ago, when I had my eyes so focused on the deadline that I didn't send my favorite photo (4). If I had been taking things slower, focusing on the photos more than on the time I had remaining to send them, I would have thought more clearly, and I definitely would have selected that photo for submission.

Anyway, here are photos I've taken over the last two weekends, chosen outside of the fog of deadline-induced blindness. They include Greenwood's pre-Fourth of July Freedom Festival, a concert on Georgia Street on the Fourth (with high-school friends in the crowd!), and a concert by The Fray, one of my favorite bands from high school. Side note: This is the first concert I've covered where I found myself singing while taking pictures. I think the other photographers (and some audience members) might have heard me sing "You Found Me." Whoops.

As for those wedding photos I mentioned earlier: I sent the couple a CD yesterday, and a few of the best will be up on the weddings part of the website before the week is out. That is, if studying for an organic chemistry exam allows it.

One more thing: I was fortunate enough to not be directly affected by the multiple shootings in Indy this weekend. Unfortunately, seven people in Broad Ripple and the family of IMPD officer Perry Renn weren't. While Chicago had a much more violent weekend than we did, this should still be a wake-up call for the city, a time when we can discuss what can make us better. The Star, through its news coverage and commentary, is fostering that important discussion, one in which everyone in Indianapolis should take part.

Breianna Harlow, 4, with her grandfather Robert McCalister, pushes a button to make Greenwood mayor Mark Myers fall into a dunk tank during the Greenwood Freedom Festival, Saturday, June 28, 2014. The mayor was helping raise money for chemotherapy treatments for two girls at Northeast Elementary School.

I've neglected to post an entry since the Little 500, and while this hasn't been my longest drought, it does come with the best reason so far: finals. Four science classes tend to swallow up most of a student's time, but now that my spring-semester classes are over, I can finally post a bit more frequently.

I got five assignments between May 2 and May 10, including four in as many days. Along with National Train Day celebrations at Union Station on Saturday, I covered four concerts: Amy Ray of The Indigo Girls, Nickel Creek, John Legend, and Tegan and Sara. The concerts were four unique experiences: Amy Ray was at Radio Radio, meaning I was among the crowd; Nickel Creek had me shoot from the wings at Old National Centre about ten rows back; John Legend had me shoot from waaaay back at the Old National Centre soundboard; and Tegan and Sara were the best, allowing photographers to shoot from the pit in the Centre's Egyptian Room. The train photos got onto the local front on Sunday, thanks to the enthusiasm so refreshingly typical of five-year-olds, so that's another noteworthy appearance of my photos in the Star's dead-tree edition.

All my procrastination in posting blog entries, both throughout the semester and in the past two weeks, seems to have paid off. I'm still waiting on official word on what looks like an A- in my second general chemistry lab, but I have straight A's (all vowels, no dashes!) in second-semester physics, second-semester biology, and first-semester organic chemistry lecture. An A in that last class, historically the bane of most pre-med students, is by itself an accomplishment worthy of a run up the steps of the Indiana War Memorial with the Rocky theme running through my head.

...That's a great idea. I'll be right back.

Tegan and Sara perform at Old National Centre, Saturday, May 10, 2014. (Tegan Rain Quin and Sara Kiersten Quin are identical twins, so I can't tell from my photos who is whom. I feel bad about that, so any help with putting the right name to the right face would be the sweetest thing!