Faux Macho

New York City native Professor Philip Graham volunteered time after the September 11 attacks working in a not-for-profit restaurant serving recovery and clean up workers at Ground Zero. He now writes fiction based on the attacks. (Ned Mulka/The Daily Illini)

Sanna Stegmaier, an exchange student from the University of Vienna, is focusing her thesis on the differences between American and European literature after 9/11. (Ned Mulka/The Daily Illini)

For Friday’s DI, I took a pair of portraits of people that had some academic involvement with September 11.

For this first time in a very long while, I went on an assignment. It wasn’t a photo illustration or a sporting event. It was refreshing.

The local art supply store, Art Coop, is moving about a mile down the street and off campus which is kind of a big deal. This is the co-founder and co-owner Knut, who got BFA’s in Graphic Design and Photography from U of I in the 70s. It’s good to know even BFA’s can be business owners.

Image Copyright Ned Mulka/The Daily Illini May 18. 2010

A few weeks ago I was called over to the sports desk to brainstorm ideas for a story about a track athlete who is also in ROTC. I followed the art from concept to shooting, to editing and publishing.

Image Copyright Ned Mulka/The Daily Illini March 4, 2010

Yesterday I shot Illini of the Week for the first (actually third) time. Dean helped me out by running a lot to test my panning shot, but next time I have to shoot a short athlete, I don’t like I’m going to have 6’5″ Dean be my test subject.

Image Copyright Ned Mulka/The Daily Illini, Oct. 27, 2009

This guy, Jay Geyer, cool guy. I had a lot of fun for 10 minutes taking portraits of this guy in the LaBamba parking lot. I got to use all the fun stuff, my new cybersyncs and my ND filter. It printed HUGE, so that’s awesome too.

I put an off camera flash on the dashboard for this shot.

Image Copyright Ned Mulka/The Daily Illini August 31, 2009