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In the past month, I made an effort to make the most of my free-time as I could before my summer classes kicked-in. In preparation for all of it, I had made a list of events, places, and parks I wanted to hit, and was able to get around to most of them, and others I had not originally planned for!
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First-up was a free event that was Held at Holiday World to card-carrying members. And when I say free, I mean all I had to pay was gas to get there. They not only fed us, but they also showed us around the back areas of the Voyage, gave us a tour of the former site of Pilgrim's Plunge (Which was once the world's tallest flume/shoot-the-chutes ride until DiVertical opened in Italy), and showed us the control room and maintenance shed of Voyage. We ended the event with having a few hours of ERT on Voyage after the park closed!
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A week after that was the grand opening of Kentucky Kingdom, and with it being my home park and having grown up with it, I of course went!

The park was amazingly packed with families, and later on with a lot of middle and high schoolers. Biggest issue apart from some smaller kinks to be worked out, was that there was plenty of line jumping. But the park is taking on the issue first-hand now with plenty of staffers kicking out anyone who violates this rule.

Lightning Run, the new roller coaster, is wild! Those who look at it and expect a kiddie ride are, for sure, going to be taken by surprise at how it handles. The ride is filled with all sorts of ejector and floater airtime hills, especially on the little hills heading towards the station. For a roller coaster built by Chance Rides (but designed by a guy who worked with RMC!), it is incredibly smooth. The only issues people may face with the coaster is that larger people might not be able to fit into the restraints and may be denied a ride (they staple everyone into the seat).
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The week after that was the annual two-day Holiwood Nights event at Holiday World, which I had to skip last year due to a death in the family. Much like the free event two weeks before this, there were plenty of tours in exclusive areas of the park, but it also included nighttime ERT on the park three major coasters (and some other flat-rides) which continued into midnight. I had multiple reasons for going back, including riding rides in the park I had yet to try, but I had also got to meet some friends at the event and even made new friends; which made my experience at this year's event far better than any other!
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Lastly, sometime after a second visit to Kentucky Kingdom with lighter crowds, my dad was able to fly him, my aunt, and I out to Hawaii to spend one night. Not a whole lot went into that trip, but I did get some very interesting pictures I need to post here.

So all-in-all (outside of trying to catch up with friends in my hometown), that's how I made the most of my time in the month of May. I'll have some pictures to post here soon.

Sometime last month, the photo advisor for my university newspaper invited the student photographers out to Keenland horse track to learn tips and etiquettes of capturing photos at a horse track (biggest one is to do your best to not spook a horse in any way). It's almost like Churchill Downs, only I learned from my first visit (which was this visit) that it is FAR more beautiful than Churchill Downs; more "cozy" as well with all of the foliage and open landscape on the opposite side of the track.
  

While here, we met with other professional photographers who were there on assignment, and a few gave us the chance to utilize some of their higher-end equipment (lenses and/or bodies) for certain shots:
  

I was very happy with many of the things I learned, and getting to spend the day out at the center of the track shooting photographs was wonderful! There's a certain amount of strategy in trying to find the right perspectives so that you can go home at the end of the day with a few "perfect" photographs.

For those of you watching this page, you've probably notices a small spike in photos from here. They're work that I've done for my digital photography art class. Looking back at them, they are a tad darker (in context) than I would have ever imagined my work to be! But in fulfilling the requirements for each assignment, this is what I come up with.

The first set was the first project we were assigned in the class, which involved finding a place in town we had never visited before and photographing them (along with other necessary things to look out for). For this, I thought of the local cemetery because of how I was told how photogenic it is in different seasons. This was correct, but the two separate visits I made to the cemetery (both within the same week) gave two different weather conditions.

The first time was sunny afternoon with many thick patches of snow from some days before here and there. This caused the cemetery to have a nicer (almost romanticized) look in the photos. But my second visit there had rain and a small amount of fog, which made the entire scene take a totally different look, and caused the photos to become darker (again, in context) than the first few. It was mostly due to me taking advantage of what the weather and atmosphere gave at both times.

After the first project began the "creative" projects, and the second involved altering what the camera and lens saw, or "constructing" the view. It was open for however the students interpreted it, so I thought of an idea that ran along the lines of daydreaming, or of people being in one place but thinking about other places. For this, I ran home and got a projector, then took it around to various places and rooms on and around campus to project scenes onto surfaces.


Mind you, said projector was a pain in the butt to lump around...

I feel like my last year plans for staying indoors and watching a bunch of movies on February 14th might, pretty much, reoccur this year. Not that I'm a bitter person, but seeing an unusually larger amount of dudes walking around in suits holding flowers or couples showing public signs of affection kinda gets on your nerves when you don't have a valentine of your own. :-p 

Greetings all!