I found this event by signing up through an email sent by the COJO department head. I took the day off to attend with a school excused absence. It was difficult to get the shot because of the crowded room, which made it hard to get a clear shot that encompassed the events. I used perspective to frame the event by taking a photo that first focuses on the food and Jane Dvorak and her mentee in the foreground, while still focusing on the speaker and his fellow panelists.

I found this event when I was searching the campus for things to photograph. I heard the music from below and found a good vantage point to take a picture from. This shot was easy to take because I was invested in the performance and had a good vantage point. I used vantage point to take this photo as well as framing. I used a vantage point from overhead and angled myself from behind the violin players to get an interesting perspective.

I found this event while searching for picture opportunities on campus. When I saw this opportunity I felt lucky to have found an intimate moment of the only person in the cafe enjoying his morning routine. This photo was difficult to take because I wanted it to be good while still respecting the moment and not disturbing him. This made the photo hard to capture. For this photo I used the rule of threes to keep it visually interesting.

I stumbled upon this sporting event while finishing my workout in the upper level of Half Acre. There were not spectators on the court but you could feel the tension of the close game. Other people working out were also watching the game and were invested in the score. Getting this shot was easy because I had a good vantage point and was able to take burst shots to get the action shot. I felt focused and invested in the yellow team scoring while I was taking this photo. To get this photo I used a vantage point from above in order to get all the action.

I found this photo while looking for photo opportunities in between classes. This photo was hard to take because I didn’t want to disturb the students. When I took this photo I felt lucky to find the moment and inspired by their work ethic. I used the rule of thirds to keep this photo visually interesting as well as perspective by taking a picture from the side profile of one of the students.

When doing this assignment I wish that I had respected the amount of time it would take to find photo opportunities, but did surprise me how much I enjoyed looking for stories I could tell through pictures.

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On August 17 2019 I made what could have been a life ending move by some. I said I do and got married at the ripe old age of 19. I got married before “living it up in college” and I don’t regret it at all.

1. I love being married because I live with my best friend. I know that this is a cheesy thing to say about your spouse but in college after a busy week sometimes you want be with your best friend. When they live at the same place your best friend is with you always.
2. It gives me purpose. After getting married I have been more positively motivated than ever before. I have more to work for than myself now and I find myself positively motivated to lay the groundwork for Katie and I’s lives.
3. We get a head start on our life together. Katie and I got married right at the start of our 20’s which gives us a head start on being that happily married old couple that everybody thinks is adorable.
4. We get to be adventurous without being weighed down by much else besides school.
5. We encourage each other to go after what’s important to us while we are young enough to be able to do it whole heartedly.

A couple weeks ago I wrote about Teddy Roosevelt’s method for schoolwork. Last time I wrote about this method I talked about how I had gotten my work time down to a three hour a day average, which is only an hour over the great Theodore’s average. Today I am sad to report that my daily average has ballooned to around 5 hours.

This is all because honestly working like Teddy is the equivalent to imitating a cokehead. However, he knew what he was doing because while I have not done any stimulants I have been very productive. But also because I have not I have been very exhausted. So if you really need to plow through a weeks worth of work quickly even if you just want more time on Saturday with the bros or gals you should try it, it’s very hard to keep doing though.

We don’t often think about the little things. Whether they’re little habits or little things that happen around or to us. I was listening to the Art of Manliness podcast and according to Dr. BJ Fogg keeping your goals small helps to build habits that last. By keeping your goals small he means taking something you want to do like workout everyday and to start by doing a two minute workout every time you get out of bed.

The podcast was really interesting, even if it sometimes veered into some strange examples. For example apparently every time our good Dr. Fogg does a number 1 he also does two push ups and then washes his hands (of course.) I thought this was weird until he told listeners that this is how he gets in fifty push ups a day. I was in, not for the push ups, mostly because my bathroom is too small. Joking. Mostly.

I decided to use the tiny habits method to help myself with too things I have fallen off on: stretching to improve my flexibility for climbing when I get out of and go to bed, or meditating for one minute until my bus makes its first stop. I’ve only been doing it for about two days but I have already found that these two things that would be hard for me to do are no problem now because I do them for amounts of time that I can throw away.

The dominant creative device used in this photo is viewpoint. The photo is taken off-center from behind the back of the Benjamin Franklin statue. By using this viewpoint a unique lens is added to the way that you can see an otherwise common place event. Other creative devices used in this photo are the rule of thirds and use of focus. The rule of thirds is used by dividing the content of the photo along the grid (Benjamin Franklin, the first student, and the second student.) Focus is used by slightly blurring out the statue and surrounding trees in order to draw your eyes to the students. These secondary creative devices helped make the photo visually pleasing by equally distributing space, and by drawing the eye on to the students through the use of an interesting object.

The dominant creative device in this photo is focus. Using focus draws the viewer to the main point of the photo by making it the first and most clear thing seen. Focus also makes the photo look nice visually by showing a clear and detailed image of the focal point while showing the movement of others as well as the scenery without making it distracting. Other creative devices used in this photo that help make it aesthetically pleasing are balance The background is balanced with both the people and the rocks to keep the photo from feeling uneven and helps to avoid empty space in the photograph.

The dominant creative device for Downward Spiral is symmetry and pattern. By taking the picture at the start of the spiral pattern the viewers eyes are drawn down to the end of the spiral and also the texture of the hose. This helps the picture look good visually by presenting a satisfying pattern and by drawing attention to small details. Other creative devices used are texture and color. Texture and color help the picture’s aesthetic by making the patter and downward spiral stand out and by providing subtle details for the viewer to take in.

The dominant creative device used in this photo are leading lines.. The use of leading lines in this photo helps draw the viewer towards the focal point because the lines continue to recede into the background which allows the viewer to take in all of the greenhouse and follow the lines back. The leading lines in the photo helps make it aesthetically pleasing by leading the viewer into more and more details. Other creative devices used in this photo that help make it look good visually are contrast and symmetry. The photo starts out dark and gradually adds color which creates a nice progression of contrast in the picture. Symmetry also helps the picture because when the plants break the symmetry of the lines it helps the individual plants stand out before looking at the lines and contrast within the photo.

The dominant creative device in this photo is texture. Texture in this photo is used by incorporating the insulation as a background for the head of the succulent which makes the succulent stand out because of their differences in texture. The two different textures also help make this photo pleasing to look at by creating a contrast that complements the natural texture and features of both objects featured in the photo. Other creative devices used that make the photo aesthetically pleasing are symmetry and the rule of thirds. This helps to make the picture pleasing because the symmetry of the insulation fills up the space where the succulent is not. The rule of thirds helps make the picture aesthetically pleasing by placing the succulent along the grid and helping to divide the photo in a more balanced way.

While doing this assignment I was surprised by how easy it was to find interesting events and places to shoot but at the same time how it could be so hard to get the picture just the way I wanted it. Two things that I wish I could have done differently are use my actual camera which I neglected to bring and to shoot on different days in order to get pictures in different weather conditions.

So I started out my day by taking pictures. As some of you may or may not know I am a journalism major which means I need basic photo skills. The problem is I do not have them. I am not too great at photography and I also don’t like putting myself in the positions both socially and physically that it can take to get a decent picture. But, I had to for the grade so there I was, freezing in a greenhouse taking pictures of succulents inside neon dinosaurs.

I thought I was doing pretty good too, I really captured the fear in the little plastic dinosaurs faces as a parasite grew out of their back. But I remembered, that the requirement is five different photos of different things including people, and in different times of the day. Which means I’ll have to take roughly over one hundred photos and I have 15 minutes of class left. Driven by fear I leave the greenhouse at 9:35 a.m. I thought the greenhouse was cold until I stepped outside. So then I was driven by fear and the fact it hurt to stand in one place too long.

In my fervor I forgot that taking photos of people in public while legal, freaks me out. So I’m shooting a bunch of pictures until that revelation hit me and I decide to fake a selfie (dozens of times in a row) distorting my face in various poses that I’ve seen from e-boys and influencers while walking and holding my phone at an angle that either of the former groups would have told me is unflattering. I did this for hours and hours, it was excruciating. I reached the building of my next class and stepped inside. It was 9:50 a.m. Oh. That wasn’t too bad actually, I think I got some decent photos.

I’ve been bouldering for half a year and I’m pretty okay at it. But as I would boulder I’d finish my problems and look up at the others. The ones who were climbing top rope and loving it. They’d take bigger risks for bigger pay outs and rely only on the rope and their partner to make sure they were safe while doing so. I knew I had to try it.

Last night, I took a top rope class to learn the basics of this more exciting version of climbing, I even managed to rope two friends into it. When we arrived we signed a waiver and then the instructor rattled off a list of skills we would need to demonstrate later in order to top rope on our own in the gym. The basic gist came down to knowing our equipment, knowing how to a tie the knot and knowing how to catch and perform a fall.

I’ve talked about me a lot during this post and now I want to talk about why you should take a top rope class. Besides the most extreme sports, think skydiving, bull fighting and the like, rock climbing is one of the few sports that trains you to do what nature never intended. Climbers also have great names for their gear an ATC or air traffic controller is a device that keeps the belay and the belayer from flying through the air. Plus there’s a certain coolness that comes with saying climbed hundreds of feet in air for fun.

So guys, I am a nerd. Recently I read a massive biography on Teddy Roosevelt, the politician who said what he thought and did what he said he would do. During his time as an assemblyman in New York he even clocked one (off hours of course.) He lead a fascinating life, but to me one of those most fascinating things about Teddy Roosevelt was his work ethic.

As you may or may not know I am currently a college student, because I am admittedly fueled by self interest one of the most interesting things to me was his work habit and work ethic during college. Our former president was highly involved and maintained a high GPA despite studying roughly two hours a day. Teddy did this by maintaining a strict schedule and after that his physical health.

Being a little crazy I thought I would see how close I could get to one of the most interesting men who ever lived. Frankly, guys I have been exhausted but I can proudly say that I have managed to get my study time to in between three and four hours a day. Because this has been working so well I decided to try to carry this out for at least a month and record my success here.

The wonderful book I read was The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt by Edmund Morris, which is available on Amazon and other bookstores.

For those who don’t know, winters in Southern Wyoming are typically long and harsh. This is fine, it can get uncomfortable but all in all it is fine. Unless, you like to hike. What happens if you like to hike is that you end up thigh deep in snow that can cushion a fall, and find snow so packed that it’s slick enough to slide down on your back. But man is it fun.

If you made it through my about page then that means you’re here by choice, and I appreciate it. This is my first post on this site. If you accidentally stumbled onto this post and don’t want to read it I’m sorry but you have to, it’s the law.

My about page covered the basics of me as a human being, but because this is my first post and I need something to write, I’m going to tell you what’s going on with me, sorry about that. Some of it isn’t boring though I promise. So with the purpose of not boring you I’ll tell you about my recent exploits as a beginner level adrenaline junkie. How does that sound?

My “adrenaline activities” include bouldering, and learning how to downhill long board as well as a top rope class that I have coming up. Last weekend I took my longboard down about a long winding golf cart ramp of a certain sports complex at a certain establishment (I think it was allowed but plausible deniability you guys). I am happy to report that there were no crashes, only lessons learned such as: if you don’t want to risk road rash tighten the board before launching yourself down a steep incline (I believe Icarus learned a similar lesson.)

It’s always important to train for any activity, and I think that this was a successful practice run. I look forward to buying more equipment like longboard gloves and a helmet of course.

That’s the most recent adventure y’all, but if you liked hearing a glimpse of that one there’ll be more to come that will be more exciting. As the great Mick Jagger once said, “anything worth doing is worth overdoing.”