Graduate School, Ohio University, Athens, Ohio

I’m not still in Peru. For various reasons I stopped updating the journal (obviously) but not traveling and moving around. After leaving Cajamarca we flew via Lima to Cuzco and stayed in that area for several days exploring the sights and countryside. I made some amazing photos there – more because of the incredible subjects than my photography skills.

I also put my photos together into two books which I have self-published on blurb.com: From “Ah-choo!” to Machu Picchu: Images from a volunteer medical trip to Peru is a large book which includes photos from both portions of our trip, showing both the medical and the tourist aspects. Usha usha! Favorite memories from a trip to Peru is a smaller book with only my favorite photos. It does not include very many of the photos from the medical portion which may only be interesting to the folks who were actually involved.

Oh, and just for laughs I brought out Volume One of my manhole cover photo collection, Manhole Covers and Other Utility Cover Plates.

I hope to write up more of those journal entries some day, but for now there is something completely different: I’ve gone back to college!

I’d been threatening to do it for a while, and finally the time seemed right. And by “the time seemed right” I mean “I couldn’t get a job”. I am hoping that with the education, experience, credentials, and contacts that I get here I will have an easier time finding work I enjoy once I am finished.

I had planned that this journal – “blog” if you must – would be exclusively for travel-related words and photos, but the professor in my very first class strongly suggested that we have a blog as a place to write about our experiences and on which to post and share our work. So now, rather than traveling around the word in my journal we’ll be traveling around my mind, apparently.

I just realized that I have gone an entire day without taking a photo. Since I’m a photography grad student that may be grounds for expulsion, so let me pull out a camera and get a shot of something.

I think my first class is going to be fantastic and I’m really excited about it, but also intimidated and slightly confused. I thought I was coming here to study still photography, and yet my first class is Audio and Video Editing. “It’s the way the industry is going, and you’ll need these skills when you get out.” Fair enough, but I was already anxious about my skills and abilities with still photography, a field I’ve been focusing on heavily for years, and now I’m jumping into one I have essentially zero experience with. Whee!In other news, I’ve already had the cops called on me. Sorta. Actually, I called them on myself, apparently. We all have panic switches in our rooms – pull it, and they send in the cavalry. Well, it seems I accidentally pulled mine while rearranging shelving or something, and before we knew it a cop was trying to bust down our door. Good to know the system works, unfortunately false alarms such as this cost me $50. The panic switch is now covered in gaffers tape.  :-|