Pepe

Emily Gray, a freshman at Dryden High School, is raising her second pup for Guiding Eyes, an organization to provide guiding eye dogs for the blind. Pepe, a 7 and a half month old yellow lab, is learning to fight distractions.

Senior Thesis

Here at Ithaca College, senior cinema and photography majors concentrating in Cinema Production are hard at work on their Senior Thesis films. Filming takes several weekends, and hours of pre-production and editing.

Joe Pera, a senior at Ithaca College, devotes Saturday, November 7th, to filming his movie.

Henri Cartier-Bresson

Henri Cartier-Bresson is considered to be the father of photojournalism. He tried to convey "street photography" and specialized in candids to represent the world around him.

He was famous for coining the term "the decisive moment". This is when the camera shutter opens in the exact right timing for the perfect shot. In other words, being in the right time at the right place.


This is Cartier-Bresson's famous photograph, "Behind the Gare St. Lazare"

Through studying Cartier-Bresson's work, I have tried to capture this moment through my photographs.

Here are some examples:


I wanted to capture the essence of childhood in this photograph. I saw their feet peeking through the holes and snapped the shutter to convey a message.


I saw this from across the room as this young girl was staring down the snake that most of the other children were afraid of. I was amazed by her courage.


Strike three. I wanted to show the defeat this boy felt at the end of the at-bat.


Laughter and happiness came together instantly for this girl as she enjoys a lazy summer afternoon.

SAB presents Tobacco

SAB did a great time putting together this Wednesday night's show in Emerson Suites at Ithaca College.

With local DJ's Diselectrics and Glittermonks opening, different tracks were being laid out for Ithaca College students to enjoy.

Tobacco's appearance is greatly apprecited by the students, and having a great show for free on campus proves the perks the school has.

I took a video of one of the last songs, hope you enjoy it!

DJ Tobacco at Emerson Suites

Cornell-Brown Field Hockey

All eyes are on Michaela Seigo, a senior at Cornell University from Annandale, V.A., as she looks to switch fields in Saturday’s Cornell-Brown Field Hockey game at Cornell University.

Katie Durkin, a freshman at Brown University from New Canaan, N.J., looks disappointingly across the field at Brown’s net as Cornell scores another goal, leaving the game 7-3 Cornell.

Halloween Masquerade Ball

The Halloween masquerade ball was held yesterday, October 30th, at the Women's Community Center.

The ball promoted using recyclable material for costumes.

Kat Anible, 18, a senior at Ithaca High School, has her Mrs. Claus costume hanging on a mannequin for Halloween.

The masquerade focuses on having masks for everyone.

Anible shows off a mask she has made.

Max Tzara, 15, a junior at Ithaca High School, gets ready to make a robe for the masquerade ball.

Helen Hamilton, a sophomore at Ithaca High School, puts her outfit out to put together.

Ithaca Beer

Ithaca Beer finds travelers from the city to taste their beer last Tuesday. Beth Maeyer from New York, N.Y., laughs over a glass of Ithaca's Nut Brown Ale.

Maeyer and her boyfriend Drew Childers, also from New York, N.Y., talk to Tasting Room Manager Michael Benz about Ithaca's beer, enjoying the atmosphere Ithaca has to offer.

First Annual Woof Walk

October 17, 2009, marks the first annual Woof Walk dedicated to owners and their canine companions. Diane Holmes, a Certified Educator Trainer, leads an enthusiastic group of dogs and their owners along a walk through Toronto's High park, which is located in the heart of the Runnymede-Bloor West Village. Woof Walk is part of the Toronto Trails Festival, now in its seventh successful year. The eight-week festival, which runs until the end of October, encourages Torontonians to keep healthy and fit by participating in a series of walks through the city's parks and ravines and along the waterfront.

The dogs and their owners wait for the walk to begin.

Abbey-Road, a two-and-a-half-year-old bijon poodle from Port Credit, Ontario, wags her tail as she waits for the walk to begin.

Sydney, a mini dachshund from Toronto, takes a breather after jumping over one of the hurdles in High Park.

Jake waits patiently while his owner, Diane Holmes, explains to the Woof Walkers how both owners and dogs will benefit from this morning’s

hike.

A resting point for the dogs provides relief for everyone.

Mickey Burns, William Assaff and Janice Ingram lead their dogs Marvin, Partner and Bunny along the southern edge of High Park as the walk stretches close to The Queensway.

Mickey Burns guides her multicolored ganaraskan, Marvin, through a short work out on one of the Park’s picnic benches.

Brass, a German Shephard, and Abbey-Road happily trot along at the back of the pack during the Woof Walk.

Burns and Marvin wait to cross the street.

Brass, and his owner Tina Fedson work out their muscles as they climb up a hill.

Holmes and Jake lead the walk with the rest of the members behind them.

For more information on Toronto Trails Festival, click here

The Fading of Dark Rooms

Ithaca College’s dark room designates areas to be wet only – for prints made in the dark room. This area is left completely untouched this Tuesday, October 5^th, 2009, but behind the wet area is a table where a student has a laptop open to work on digital prints.

Dark rooms are no longer considered necessary in many colleges. College photography students are now being immersed in the wonderful world of digital photography that is becoming more and more readily available.

Four years ago, it was universal for freshman photography students to walk into college their first day and immediately be submerged in the black and white dark room. For almost 200 years, photography has been a practice meant for the passionate, the artistic, and the crafty. Dark rooms have satisfied all of these drives, allowing one to completely work in their own space to provide the desired effect.

However magical the dark room is to students, the costs of maintaining a dark room exceeds many schools budgets. Because of the trend towards digital, the chemicals, involving stop bath, hypoclear, developer, photo flo, and fixer, are all becoming much more expensive.

Equipment to develop your own film is left out for students at Tompkins Cortland Community College.

Here at Ithaca College, Intro to Photography was just two years ago an all film class. Freshmen were required to own a 35mm camera and learned how to load, shoot, and develop their own film and make prints, using the chemicals in the dark room. Their final portfolio consisted of all black and white, 35mm negative prints.

Ahndraya Parlato, an Intro to Photography professor at both Itthaca College and Tompkins Cortland Community College comments on students learning film first: “When you're shooting film, there's a sense of importance - your negatives have to be developed and printed, they take up physical space in the world. I think the combination of these things often makes students slow down and shoot more carefully than when they're using digital cameras.”

Last year, they introduced digital photography into Intro to Photography, but only in the last few weeks of the course. However, as times are changing, so is Ithaca College’s Intro to Photography class. Janice Levy, photography professor at Ithaca College, says “all intro students are now required to own digital SLR cameras. In the past, they were required to bring in film cameras, but that was presenting all kinds of mechanical problems, what with very old film cameras that were handed down to them. They were constantly spending money having to fix them.” Levy says that SLR digital cameras are current to this day an age, however, so students will be buying new ones. “I will work hard to keep film alive as long as possible, and that’s why it is important to me that they learn both mediums,” Levy says.

Marianne Dabir, a junior journalism major at Ithaca College, is a photo lab monitor for the school. “When I set up in the morning, I only put out one tray of chemicals. I’d say in an average day only four people use the actual darkroom. When I dump all the chemicals at the end of the day, almost all of the chemicals are going down the drain.” Dabir says she thinks that it is sad that it is turning so film-based, but she has “a great appreciation for digital as well. It truly is the beginning of another era.”

It has been a dispute for many colleges. The Metropolitan Community College decided in May of 2007 that they should empty their photography department of dark rooms. They believe it simply to be impractical to keep the medium going.

Drawers are available to rent for photography students at Ithaca College. These hold negatives and paper for both film and digital photography equipment.

Tompkins Cortland Community College remains true to keeping their Intro to Photography class purely film. Eric Merkalein, 25, a third semester student, is a graphic designing major, taking Intro to Photography because it is required for his major.

Eric Merkalein studies his contact sheet to pick a negative to make a print from in the dark room for his class that afternoon.

“I wasn’t sure how I’d feel about photography, but I am loving it more than computer graphics.” Merkalein isn’t sure if he will pursue photography after this year, but Tompkins Cortland Community College offers separate digital photography classes to learn that specific medium in detail.

Merkalein finds the negative he is looking for so he can put it in the enlarger.

Trends are changing to make photography a digital world for means of advertising, photojournalism, wedding photography and portrait photography. In a world where photography is a business, digital provides great potential to produce millions of with a snap of a camera. However, many colleges do see the authenticity of film. Fine art photographers will continue to use film to achieve effects that are limited with digital photography. The education of both at Ithaca College as well as other colleges in the world leaves the student to make the decision.

Route 13

Route 13 sparsely has any cars occupying the road on this Monday night. Although a main road connecting Ithaca College and Cornell to Cortland and Syracuse, rush hour and weekends tend to be the only time the highway is congested.

Headlights and street lights paint the scene.

Wildfire taking over Lost Dog space

Lost Dog, located on 106 S Cayuga St. in Ithaca, NY, is now transforming into Wildfire Grill.

Teresa Miller, co-owner of Wildfire Grill engages with the many people involved in this renovation process.

The plumbing in the space was something that needed look at behind the bar.

The head chef of the restaurant checks over the freezer space, envisioning more shelves to hold all the necessities.

Hamburger patty sized are demonstrated as the menu is being put together.

Miller nails shut a door leading to the basement.

Check Out Wildfire Grill