Benjamin Chodroff

Let the day of photography begin. I was really pleased with how my shots were turning out. In particular, I got a great shot of a ball passing through a tire during Obstacle course. Then, during egg toss - one of the Theta Chi groups kept dropping the egg but it never cracked. Finally, the egg smashed when the guy caught it and I caught the shot very well - the egg splatter flying everywhere.

After egg toss was the Unity event where I got some great blackmail quality shots of some friends bouncing on balls :). I particpated in Pyramid - which Phikap placed 5th in. Not bad!

I ran up into Thwing and caught some shots of the International Student Association Dinner and show. The food was *un-freaking-believable*. Indian, Mexican, Turkish, you name it - they had it - and it was great. I took some great photos of the after dinner show. I ended up using exclusively the 135mm f/2.0 prime and the 50mm f/1.4 prime. No flash. This worked out beautifully. I set the mode to shutter priority, except during the juggling act when they turned out the lights for some glow in the dark acts. At this point, I went into completely manual mode and manual focus. I need to improve my manual focus skills. It’s *freaking* hard with a lens as sensitive as the 50mm prime. A single hair length is the difference between in focus and a blur.

Last Friday I had an interview in with Avenade. I woke up bright and early, hopped an RTA to the airport, caught a delayed flight to Chicago, jumped on the Blue line downtown, grabbed a bite to eat at an authenitic chicago pizzeria, interviewed, hopped back on the blue line, flew back home, silently listened to two homeless carnies talk about their life on the RTA, and then collapsed in my apartment.
There was no time for breathing - this was one quick in-and-out trip. I was unhappy that I didn’t have time to explore Chicago. However, I really didn’t have any time to spare this weekend. You can see the very small collection of photos I took in the gallery.
My collapsed state lasted all of but 5 minutes before I was heading out the door to catch up with Steve Gough who flew in from Austin, TX to celebrate his 21st birthday at the Winking Lizard.

Apparently my strength-o-meter idea wasn’t that novel. In fact, I think the total count of chapters that built a strength-o-meter was five. Damn.

However, *nobody* built a strength-o-meter banner that was 12*sqrt(3) feet high. One might say, “But the rules state that the banner must fit inside a 12×12x12 foot cube.” And that person would be correct. However, nobody but Phikap considered the fact that the cube could be positioned such that the banner extends along the interior diagonal hypotenuse of the cube. Brian drew up autoCAD diagrams to prove that our banner which towered over 14 feet high into the sky would, in fact, fit inside a 12×12x12 cube.

We didn’t place, but we were happy. We didn’t place in variety show as well. I had a fun time shooting photos. I need to stop using the 70-200 and start exclusively using the 135 prime. I think the shots would have came out much better had I done that and never use a flash. I also need to get a monopod one of these days.

Today’s Greek Week events included Greek Sing and Chug. While I thought our song was pretty good, we did not place. However, our chug team did a great job and placed 4th. Very respectable. We have a kick ass banner for tomorrow. I came up with the idea for a Strength-o-Meter, but it has been Brian, Chris and Cody along with a team of dedicated brothers who have made it awesome. This is *not* your typical phikap banner. I’m not going to take any pictures of it until it’s on display tomorrow…

A big congratulations to my little, Jon Manuzak, for proposing to Lisa Nichols! The ring is beautiful and the date is set for after their graduation. He better watch out because he’s getting ponded