It’s strawberry season! The Farm and Field column in Tuesday’s paper was a feature about this most excellent time of year, and I went to Whippoorwhill Farm to take some photos of the Pick-Your-Own crowd of strawberry people. Whippoorwhill was only open to members of its co-op, since a frost had destroyed too much of the crop for everything to have a go at picking–but a surprising number of people still showed up for their berries.
I spent the first part of Sunday afternoon at my cousin’s graduation). I had to leave right afterward, though, to go cover a student art show at Sense of Wonder Creations in Vineyard Haven.
It was a nice little event- Sense of Wonder has been around for 20 years and is becoming an Island institution of sorts. I loved that the kids got to set their own prices for the art they’d made- they looked so thrilled when counselors would find them and hand them the dollar or two they had earned (half of the proceeds went to UNICEF).
Plus, there was a fire juggler. She was impressive.
And there were stilts! Also impressive.
In exciting news, talking with some of the parents at the event has gotten me started (I hope!) on a new photo story (it has nothing to do with art, stilts, or fire juggling). More on that in the next couple of weeks!
I have been to a few graduations in the past several years, but for the most part- they’ve all been mine. With the exception of my cousin’s eighth-grade graduation five years ago, I didn’t ever find myself on the audience side of things.
But on Sunday, that same cousin who I watched enter high school is now leaving it and moving on to other things in life (hello, gap year!). I was so relieved that I didn’t have to cover the event for the Gazette, because, frankly, all I wanted to do was take photos of Seneca, since it was her day and all. Sometimes you just want to be the family, not the photographer.
Guess who had the bare feet!
I still took some photos during the processional and seating, though. Then I went back to the family and enjoyed the rest of the show.
Not Seneca. This person just happened to be looking near me when I took the crowd shot.
Nobody makes fires quite like my uncle Jeffrey.
Turns out I did get to go back and shoot the MV boys in their second MIAA match against Ashland. I wasn’t as happy with these shots as from the first go-around (of course); I had much better, tighter action shots from the Friday match. Those weren’t the ones that ran in the paper (actually, these weren’t, either), but what can you do?
In completely insane news, I had so many major assignments last weekend that when the Tuesday paper came out, two of the articles and nineteen of the photos were under my byline. It feels so ridiculous just writing that.
I went out to Felix Neck Wildlife Sanctuary this morning to photograph a crew of SCA (Student Conservation Association) volunteers doing some restoration work for the area. It’s pretty great- they’d cleared out an entire thicket of bittersweet and brush that had grown up around an old granite foundation on the property. Today they were working on moving more granite blocks from the surrounding woods into the foundation area to create a natural amphitheater for Felix Neck. Hardcore—granite isn’t exactly the lightest of rocks. I think it’d be fun to do an SCA or AmeriCorps environment project sometime.
I didn’t intentionally pose this. Either everybody’s just naturally intrepid-looking (likely) or they saw the camera and were posing (possible).
I had to write an article for the story, too…took me about four hours. I have got to work on my writing speed…
Fairly crazy day yesterday- I had an 11:30 assignment in Edgartown and a 1:30 assignment in West Tisbury (which wouldn’t be a huge deal if I had a car, but my parents still haven’t gotten their new car, which means I haven’t gotten their old car. Phoo.) Fortunately, my aunt was free to pick me up and drive me over to the Charter School after my first shoot.
Which was, by the way, super fun. The 5th and 6th grade classes here spend the last three weeks of school building little solar-powered cars, which they then race in a derby. These kids know more about solar energy than I do (hope for the future!).
Unfortunately, the sun decided not to come out that day (it rained), so the races were held indoors and the cars were powered by little 9V batteries.
I haven’t written the article yet for the event, so I can’t post that part. It’s so crazy trying to report and photograph the same thing, but I think I’m getting better at it.
I wish I had names for all of the kids I photographed, but I might drop by the Tisbury School and Edgartown School tomorrow to see if I can track those down.
After the derby, I went to shoot my first graduation ceremony! The MV Public Charter School has its ceremony a week before the regional high school does (my cousin Seneca is actually graduating IN that ceremony (hooray!), so I doubt I’ll be shooting it). The Charter School had a class of just nine students graduating, and the whole program was very much a personalized tribute to those seniors. I almost cried at one point, and I didn’t even know anybody. I’m a huge sap. It can’t be helped.
I’m moving my blog over to the wordpress.org domain! That means I can post SoundSlides files! (Apologies to iPad users out there…)
To kick things off, here are some color photos from the ballet spread that ran in Friday’s paper (and some that didn’t).
After I shot the first ballet rehearsal (the Peter Pan one), I was heading to the bus stop when I saw a lacrosse game going on at one of the high school fields. I’ve never shot lacrosse before, so I decided to try making some photos just for fun. It’s definitely one of the harder sports I’ve photographed (that might be because I don’t have a clue as to what the rules are—I was so confused when play moved to BEHIND the net), and I’m glad I tried it out before I ever have to do it as an actual assignment.
On Friday, I went to photograph a tennis match; the high school boys’ team had made it into the playoff bracket for the MIAA. They completely smoked their Cohasset High opponents and are moving on to the next round. Tennis was far easier to shoot than lacrosse, but, again, I haven’t shot this particular sport very much (I think the last time was junior year of college), and I hope that I get to go to the second round match so I can practice some more.
Some of my favorite- and least favorite (see image four) -things about Martha’s Vineyard. Plus, guest picture taken by my mom! and de-colorized by yours truly…because no island trip is complete without jumping off of Second Bridge (which, incidentally, is the bridge in Jaws that the shark swims under to get into the giant pond. Cue scary music).
Texe
Charles
Seneca (well, mostly her shoes)
Lorna
Jeffrey
Coals, as shot at 1/2 of a second while handholding. It looks very Mordor-ish, I think.