Last week as I headed back to collegetown from class on North campus, I decided to take a bit (read: 1.5 hours worth) of a detour. Instead of taking the direct route down East Avenue to the engineering quad, I wove my way around Beebe Lake and through some hidden parts of central campus (even central campus has its secrets, I’ve recently discovered). Armed with my camera, my goal was to document the autumnal scenery along my route, since this is sadly my last fall at Cornell. The pictures that follow document the trek. All photos are linked to their individual flickr pages.
That’s probably the best word to describe how any Cornell sports fan is feeling right now.
After a quick stop at a Rhode Island train station to pick up Tina, a fellow Daily Sun photographer, I returned to Gillette Stadium in Foxborough, Massachusetts again today. The men’s lacrosse national title was on the line. Syracuse University was heavily favored heading into the contest, but Cornell came out with an early lead and preserved it (or at least a tie) for basically the whole game.
The 40,000+ people in attendance were witnesses to the kind of sporting event that will be shown on ESPN Classic for years and years to come. With Cornell up by three goals in the fourth quarter, I started to think, “oh wow, so this might just actually happen; Cornell could be national champions in just a few short minutes”.
Syracuse had other plans. One goal. Two goals. The third goal to tie the game came four seconds away from the end of regulation play. FOUR SECONDS. Backed by a vocal, orange-clad fan section, Syracuse scored first in sudden-death overtime, ending Cornell’s hopes for its first national championship title in men’s lacrosse since 1977.
Having watched from home in 2007 as, in the final seconds, Cornell lost at the hands of Duke in the NCAA men’s lacrosse semifinals, I couldn’t believe that this was happening again. I clearly remember standing up in my living room and screaming at my TV until I had practically lost my voice; I had never been an ardent lacrosse fan before. Cornellians across the globe had similar experiences today. The outcome appeared surprisingly good, only for Cornell’s chances of victory to be stripped by the now 10/11-time (depending on who’s counting) national title winners. Pillows were thrown at TVs, couch cushions were punched, and heads were hung low. The adrenaline didn’t subside for hours.
What was different this year? I witnessed it with my own eyes (see a slideshow of the day’s action here). Armed with cameras and surrounded by the familiar crew of professional photographers from Saturday’s game, I had a front row seat (is it still considered a seat if I was kneeling on the FieldTurf?) to what many Cornellians are calling the most devastating loss they’ve witnessed in the world of sports. Great. Now it’s etched into my brain, for better or for worse.
Lamenting aside, it’s important to recognize the incredible amount of talent and effort displayed by Cornell’s men’s lacrosse team this weekend and all season long. They came into the NCAA tournament as an underdog and performed beyond nearly everyone’s expectations as they took on the toughest competitors in the country.
Good season, guys. We’ll be back at Schoellkopf next spring to cheer you on to victory once again.
The Daily Sun officially stopped publication for the academic year on Friday, May 1st.
HA, I say to that.
Since we’re more of a news organization than solely 24 pages of gray-ish paper five days a week while classes are in session, I’ve been caught in a logistical whirlwind at my desk in…Rhode Island.
GChat / GMail, AIM, and my cell phone have been put to constant use as those of us accustomed to convening frequently at 139 West State Street are unable to meet face-to-face. Such is the reality of summer break and a national lacrosse championship on the line. Editors are spread out across the country; one’s in California, another’s preparing for a summer in Mauritania. Meanwhile, we’re attempting to orchestrate the best coverage possible for Cornell’s epic battle against Syracuse tomorrow. Following yesterday’s 15-6 blowout of the top-seeded University of Virginia (as many Cornell fans shouted: “OVER-RATED!”), I headed back to my desk and spent the better part of today preparing slideshows of both yesterday’s upset of the Cavaliers and the lacrosse team’s season-long journey to the championship game.
Yesterday at Gillette Stadium, as I stood alongside photographers from the Associated Press, Getty Images, and major media organizations, I felt a bit insignificant. Here I was, possibly showing up in the background on ESPN2 replays, with a lens that has been more than adequate for everything I’ve ever needed to photograph, but that looked microscopic compared to the behemoths being handled by these more professional members of the photojournalism community. That said, I had the best seat in the house and was able to witness some Cornell sports history being made. I’ll be back tomorrow with another Daily Sun photographer as we document Cornell’s final game of the season. Only time will tell which central New York school will claim the national title.
As you watch the game on ESPN (hint, hint), check out the Daily Sun’s website for live-blogging and other updates throughout the game. After all, there is a greater purpose to this work that goes beyond just personal gratification.
Starting in the spring of my freshman year and leading up to my departure for Chile in August 2008, I paid many a visit to the Cornell Abroad office to throw around ideas with the CU Abroad staff about what and where to study. The countries that I considered spending a semester in ranged from Sweden to Brazil and lots of places in between. After finally narrowing down my options and choosing the SIT economic development and globalization program in Chile, I couldn’t wait to board the plane in Miami and head to the southern hemisphere for a semester. My program provided me with everything I wanted to get out of an abroad experience: a combination of classroom and field study with a significant independent project to culminate the semester, all tied together with a homestay in Santiago.
What I didn’t anticipate back when I got my acceptance email in early 2008 was that I would be delving even deeper into Chilean society than I could have imagined. Later in the semester, I applied to become a student correspondent for National Geographic Glimpse magazine. Fall 2008 was to be the first semester of the magazine’s correspondents program (after a test run in Spring ‘08), in which eight young Americans studying/working abroad would be chosen in a field of specialty (writing, photography, or video) and asked to produce content about their observations abroad over the course of the semester. I couldn’t have imagined a better way to supplement my abroad experience; this, after all, would be my first semester in a while with none of my regular extracurricular activities. Not having the duties of a senior photographer at The Cornell Daily Sun left me longing for some project-based photography beyond the billions of photos I was bound to take in Chile.
It came down to my last dinner in the United States; I was eating at home with my family when my phone rang and on the other end was Kerala, founder and editor-in-chief of Glimpse, informing me that I had been chosen as one of eight correspondents out of a pool of about 600. Well, that was unexpected. I’m glad I had swallowed my food before she got to telling me that part.
Fast forward to mid October in Chile when I embarked on a quest to find a good topic for a narrative photo story. The topic had to be something that people back in the US might find surprising or interesting, but it had to be feasible within the constraints of my program’s schedule. My host mother brought up the cartoneros at dinner one night; the idea stuck and I went for it. She accompanied me the first time to meet a couple of these Chileans who make their living collecting trash and recyclables off the street, but they were eager to talk to me and tell me their story, so from there on out, I handled pretty much everything. Recorder and camera in hand, I interviewed Pepe and Vicki in my neighborhood and eventually at their home in southwestern Santiago (one of the poorest parts of the city) to learn about their lives. A couple of weeks ago, the photo story went live on Glimpse’s website and you can see it here.
By having the opportunity to work on such a project, I had one of the most genuine and meaningful intercultural interactions of the semester. Pepe and Vicki gave me their address and I promised I’d write in the Spring. Come the end of this week, I think I’ll take some time to refresh my Spanish and and thank them again for all of their help.
Cornell’s varsity athletics teams have been gaining prominence over the past few years, and this year is no exception. In a few minutes, the men’s hockey team will be playing in its second ECAC quarterfinals game at Lynah Rink on campus, while tomorrow at 6PM, players on the men’s basketball team (Ivy League champions) will have their gazes fixed to CBS to see where they will be playing their first-round NCAA tournament game.
Excitement in the world of Cornell sports makes my life as a college photojournalist much more exciting. While it makes life a bit more stressful at times, covering these high profile teams is totally worth it. Field-side, rink-side, or court-side, we have some of the best seats in the house to witness history. When the men’s basketball team won the Ivy League, we had three photographers on duty and two the next night at the annual Senior Night ceremony. Their work made for a great slideshow.
Two weeks ago, Daily Sun senior photographer Dan Salisbury and I had the opportunity to do a brief photo shoot with men’s lacrosse captain Max Seibald and some of his teammates. While the skies were blue, the temperature was hovering at around 25F and Max was wearing his uniform, which wasn’t designed for maximum warmth. We spent 10-15 minutes taking photos before we called it a day. One of those photos was featured as the cover of the Daily Sun’s spring sports supplement on Thursday; as a photographer, I must admit it’s exciting to walk into the dining halls and libraries around campus and see your photo taking up the whole front page.
Assuming men’s hockey wins tonight and tomorrow, I might head up to Albany to cover the ECAC semifinals later next week.
There we are. The 127th editorial board of The Cornell Daily Sun. To get a better understanding of who we all are, see the article that ran in the Daily Sun today.
Last week, my Latin American Politics, Economy, and Societyprofessor mentioned to my class that the former mayor of Medellín, Colombia would be paying a visit to Cornell; it seemed like an interesting-enough topic, so I planned on attending, under the assumption that my packed schedule last week would allow it. Fortunately, I did end up having time to go, and covered the event for the Daily Sun while I was at it.
After a really long introduction (longer than any speech at my high school graduation) by a Cornell professor who has studied extensively in Colombia, Sergio Fajardo took center stage in the Plant Science building lecture hall that the talk was held in. The crowd consisted of mostly grad students; this was, after all, a talk that was a part of the Cornell Institute for Public Affairs (CIPA) colloquium series. I took a seat at the edge of the room at the front, right next to one of two suited bodyguards keeping an eye on the crowd. That was the first sign that this guy was a big deal — and from Colombia.
While I don’t really consider myself knowledgeable on Colombian affairs besides what I hear occasionally on the BBC Mundo podcast (gotta keep up my Spanish skills somehow), it was obvious from the get-go that Sergio Fajardo could someday be considered for Colombian sainthood. During his four years in office from 2003 until 2007, Fajardo completely transformed Medellín from an urban center considered the most dangerous city in the world to one that now has a murder rate lower that that of Washington DC, Atlanta, and Detroit. His approaches were far from anything I heard mayoral candidates promising in Chile last October; he decided that the best way to understand how to bring about change in the plagued city was to walk and to talk. So he and his aides did just that. They went to soccer games, movie theatres, and front doors to ask people what they wanted from their city’s government.
Fajardo, the son of a high-profile Colombian architect, had to deal with revitalizing the poorest sections of the most dangerous city in the world, in a country that’s constantly engaged in fighting the drug trade. (Full disclosure: If I had been in his position, I probably would have given up before taking office.)
Among the approaches he detailed in his 90 minute presentation was a Library Parks program, in which he ordered the construction of community libraries and common spaces in the city’s most destitute comunas (neighborhoods). Not only do these areas now have access to safe public plazas, but the plazas are filled with stands run by microentrepreneurs (mainly women) who have been trained by Fajardo’s city government to own and operate microenterprises. While the function of these Library Parks is what matters most to the underserved communities, Fajardo managed to make nearly every school, park, plaza, and health center built under his watch an architectural wonder. The stream of photos and renderings proved his point; the Library Park in the poorest part of Medellín actually won the Ibero-American Architecture competition a couple of years back.
Fajardo took a break from his campaign for Colombia’s presidency to complete a short tour in the United States and Mexico. If I were a Colombian citizen, I think I’d know who I’d be voting for next year.
Last Friday, the Canadian Indie-pop band Stars paid a visit to the State Theatre in downtown Ithaca. Friends of mine in Montréal, where the band is based, went to a concert of theirs last year and later exposed me to some of their music. I’m not much of an indie fan, but I liked what I heard. When I got back to Ithaca last month and heard that the band would be coming through town, I decided to jump on the opportunity to cover the event for the Daily Sun. It would be the first indoor indie/rock concert I’ve ever been to and my first time in the State Theatre.
My primary goal of the night was to leave with some decent photographs of the band; having never dealt with constantly-changing colors, I was faced with a challenge. Especially during the times when intense red lights were shining on the stage, the group members’ faces were blown out, sometimes beyond recognition (not too flattering, in my opinion). Fortunately the emotions were strong throughout the show, allowing me to get some expressive shots when the lights were more photographically flattering.
Before the band took the stage, every piece of equipment from microphones to the drum set was decorated with fresh flowers that were gradually thrown out to the crowd and thrown into the air throughout the performance (see photo above). Another highlight was when Torquil Campbell, the band’s lead singer, broke out a crazy instrument I had never seen before: a melodica (see photo below).
From start to finish, the nearly-packed house was on its feet and a bunch of the more enthusiastic fans stood at the stage’s edge. The whole vibe was a lot more civilized than it might be on the drunker, more crazy Slope Day, and I thought it was a great show overall. Others I talked to weren’t as excited by the performance, claiming it was a bit slower and less exciting than other concerts they’ve seen at the State. I wouldn’t know, seeing as how this was my first time. Maybe I’ll just have to go again. Gomez and Josh Ritter will be there on April 1st.
7:45AM. The earliest class I’ve ever had. At Mann Library, a good 20 minute uphill walk from my apartment in Collegetown. Why would I put myself through such torture?
Because it isn’t torture. It’s a whole new approach to learning that actually motivated me to get out of bed at 6:30 this morning and make the hike to the Ag Quad through the -12F windchill.
Needless to say, I passed only a few brave souls on my walk to class, but the twenty-ish of us in the sustainable development global seminar were ready to connect with our international counterparts in Australia, Sweden, Honduras, and Costa Rica by the time the clock struck 8:00. We were seated in Mann Library’s distance learning room, which is an average-sized classroom with a huge widescreen TV that has a webcam that’s a bit more advanced than the iSight camera built into my Mac laptop. Also connected is a microphone on a long cord that can be passed around the room. A big sign reading “Comment” sat on the desk and would be raised whenever we at Cornell wanted to respond to a comment/question. On the TV, the four images of our counterparts flashed before us, sometimes with all parties on the screen, other times with only one school taking up the monitor. In Honduras and Costa Rica, it was even earlier in the morning (how do they do it?), while it was the afternoon in Uppsala, Sweden and midnight in Melbourne, Australia.
For an hour and a half, representatives from each participating class introduced their respective countries and institutions and started to discuss some issues regarding sustainability. I was one of four presenters from Cornell; I figured my experience as a Cornell Ambassador might help in synthesizing and communicating what Cornell’s all about. There was so much that could have been said about Cornell, the greater Ithaca area, New York state (not many people outside of the US understand that ‘New York’ is more than the city), and ourselves. We had only seven minutes to communicate this information to our international counterparts, many of whom do not speak English as a native language. You can imagine the challenge we faced of cutting out 90% of what we could be saying. While the picture we painted was incomplete to a degree, I think (in my humble opinion) that we did a decent job explaining where we come from.
At each school except for Zamorano in Honduras, there were US or Canadian exchange students scattered throughout the classroom. The Costa Rican, Honduran, and Australian delegations looked enviably warm in their short-sleeved shirts, while we at Cornell and Uppsala were comparatively bundled up, still recovering from our trek to class. We had a short discussion period at the end, when we started to debate various viewpoints on sustainability in general; those “Comment” cards in each classroom were flying up as students and instructors made some provocative statements on the topic. Soon enough, our one and half hours were up, we debriefed via video and then among ourselves, and we continued to our next classes of the day.
Last Wednesday, we got a decent amount of snow at Cornell; something to the tune of six inches or so. Far from paralyzing all human activity, the snowstorm made for some good photo opportunities around campus. Jenn and I decided to embark from Collegetown at around 6pm, starting in the Cascadilla Gorge area. The photo trek brought us through the engineering and arts quads before reaching the clocktower, Ho Plaza, and eventually Cornell Law School. We called it quits after about 2.5 hours; by the end, few extremities had any feeling left, but I’d say the photos were worth the time and effort. See a selection of them in the slideshow below.
Slideshow
The photos in the slideshow aren’t in any particular order.
