The gentle way

Most students at BU know Jack Rude as an accounting professor. 

A few know him as sensei. 

Rude has practiced the art of judo since 1961 and advised Bloomsburg's Judo Club since 1998 (with just a few years off for the remodeling of Nelson Field House). 

Two evenings a week during the semester Rude and about a dozen students move into the wrestling room to practice. 

There's no cost to the students beyond the uniform and sweat equity.

While it may appear to be rough and tumble, judo translates literally as "the gentle way."

"The founder of Judo, Jigoro Kano, was looking for a lifetime sport," says Rude, who is a level 1 certified coach with the U.S. Judo Association. "This is a martial art you can fully practice without hurting anybody." 

The club generally competes in two tournaments a year, the Liberty Bell Tournament in Philadelphia and the Am-Can Tournament in Buffalo.

Photos by senior photography intern Lee Patton.

BUSTED: Will it be a knockout?

Season 12 of BU's BUSTED opens Monday, Oct. 1, at 9 p.m. in the Kehr Union Ballroom. Photography intern Lee Patton covered the auditions at the beginning of the semester for 8 to 10 new members to round out the cast of 24.

BUSTED, organized by residence life staffer George Kinzel, has presented 78 shows so far, both for the college audience and performances at high school conferences. In addition to the cast, another half dozen students work behind the scenes in production.

From left: current BUSTED members Samantha Polichetti, Kyle Boyes and Rich Viteritto.

Sharing research

Catching up a little from the end of last semester. This shot was taken at the College of Science and Technology's student research symposium.  Kathleen Paiva, majoring in both education and geography, is discussing a project she did with faculty mentor Cynthia Venn to make a tactile map to teach visually impaired students about geology. Yarn, glue, pipe cleaners were all pressed into service. Biology major Taylor Ball took a real interest in the project and stuck around, paying no attention to me while I took photos.

In all, there were more than a dozen student research posters at the event and another 19 research talks.

Technical notes: Nothing remarkable. Canon 7, ISO 800 1/64th. Tokina 11mm at f/4.5. Though you'll see distortion at the edges, the lens is really useful. Click on any photo to make it larger.

Final instructions

I photograph commencement each spring and fall and this part of the ceremony I find particularly interesting.

The students line up in the wings of the stage, waiting to walk on and receive their diplomas. Just before they walk on, a faculty marshal, in this case Professor Gary Robson from accounting, gives some final instructions. His words of advice?  Leaning over he says (to many of the students), "Look at those people, dragging their feet," he jokes. Naturally, no one is really dragging their feet. "I want a quick walk and big smile."

Quick walk and big smile. Sage advice for more than a few situations.

Technical Data: Canon 7D, ISO 1600 at 1/40th. Tokina 11-16mm at 11 mm and f/2.8. Despite the wide aperture, the shortness of the focal length keeps the depth of field fairly deep. 

I think this shot really shows the usefulness of this particular lens. One thing I've noticed is that in the most extreme lighting situations, and it is very dark off stage, off-brand lens will not focus as reliably as a Canon lens. The Tokina 11-16 did just fine here; from experience I can say that the 16-50 would have difficulty locking focus. Note: The relaxing musicians in the right of the frame aren't noticiable to the audience in the hall.

The second photo is also with the 11-16 Tokina. The third shot was taken with the Canon 50mm f/1.4 at f/2.8. The 50mm is very sharp, but has a naturalness to the sharpness that I really like. Exposure on all the shots was manual.

Click on any photo to see it larger.

A joyful assignment

Among the photo shoots I do in a given year, Bloomsburg's Gospel Choir would consistently rank among my top five favorites. I simply love going to the shows. The choir is very good and the energy of the shows is very high.

Rev. Marwin Reeves from the community is the director, but there's a lot of leadership by the students in making arrangements and publicizing the concerts.

For this show, I really wanted to focus on the conductor, student Keywuan Caulk, who exemplifies the kind of poise and charisma the choir seems to develop.

The trickiest part, was picking which photo to lead with. I selected the top photo because I think it conveyed a sense of seriousness and purpose that Keywuan exudes. But I've included some others to give a sense of what happens when the choir really gets cooking.

Technical Notes: This was a tricky shoot to do because there was not a lot of light to work with in the Kehr Union Ballroom. Focusing on the conductor brought some additional challenges because he's lit from behind. This was my first shoot down with the Canon 70-200mm f/4. The lens is magnificent to use. However, there's no IS, so it was a matter of pushing the ISO (to 3200 for the top pic on 7D), keeping the aperture at f/4, and handholding at 1/100th in bursts at 70mm. Shooting in bursts is a bit of hedge against camera shake. If there's some hand vibration in a given frame, the next may not show it.

The compromises of those choices can be seen. There's noise and detail loss to noise reduction,  the depth of field is narrow, the edges aren't completely crisp. But it was still worth it.

 Click on any photo to see it larger.