I see the light...

"Influenced by his mother to become a professor, George McCool has been teaching French for about 25 years. However, his career path may not stand out as much as the other gift he received from his mother: his looks. McCool was ranked No. 49 on Ratemyprofessors.com’s “Top 50 hottest professors of 2007.”"

...The Towerlight that is.

Tuesday marked my second to last semester at Towson University and as photo editor and staff photographer at The Towerlight, the now independent student newspaper.

I began my day making new folders on the server for the various sections of the paper and labeling them accordingly for our issue dates. It's tedious and mindless, but saves us a lot of time for the next four months. I then archived images from last semester and submitted some images in two college photo contests.

My first time ever submitting images for awards was last year. I won a total of seven. I was shocked I won so many and looking back, it's great to see how my images and vision have grown. Photos at the time I thought were my favorite early last year are now my least favorites.

I decided to go back through some of the originals of my assignments and discovered many images I liked way more than what we ran with.
Around 11:30 a.m. I walked across the frigid, ghost town like campus. With only a handful of winter courses being taught, not many students were to be found.

Entering Linthicum Hall, I was again greeted by a eerie, empty building. All that stood between Dr. George McCool and I was a couple of empty newspaper racks.

Once in his office, we proceeded to a classroom for a portrait. The first assignment back always seems to be a portrait. But this time it wasn't someone who had just been hired or decided to retire. Dr. McCool was as cool as they come. Laid back, fluent in French and just an all out good guy.

I don't know why, but Americans who speak fluent in other languages always intrigue me. English is such a complicated language and for them to be able to master another is fascinating.

So, after some small talk, I knew I wanted to do something a little different than the standard portrait. He was dressed very nice and didn't smile much, but when he talked about something he was passionate about, he would let out a small grin. After shooting a standard portrait, I had him write some things in French on the board. I told him to tighten his tie and fired a couple frames.

It wasn't what I expected, so I had him relax and talk about how he decided to become a professor. His smile came out and I asked him to tighten his tie one more time, as it "wasn't tight enough." I was happy with the end result since he was
rankn No. 49 on Ratemyprofessors.com’s “Top 50 hottest professors of 2007.”

After parting, I shot the wish I had a dollar every time I shot it assignment of the year: construction.

Standing in the sleet, shooting through a fence with a 300mmm is always boring. But this new site on campus had some interesting angles and I was again pleased with my images.

So far, so good. Hopefully the semester follows this trend of different images.