Photo Awesome

This is the story of how two stories met up tonight, on the all-knowing internet.

Story One: When we were on the New York trip in June, we had the opportunity to go to the Polaroid 20×24 studio and work with the lady who is partly in charge of the studio. Her name was Jen, but unfortunately, I never caught her last name (or else I did and forgot it, which is more likely). She was great with that crazy camera, and we talked a bit about internships down the road.

Story Two: Lately I’ve been on what seems to be a never-ending quest to figure out where (if anywhere) Stacy and I will move upon graduation. Dave and I had this conversation the other night, and we’re somewhat mindlessly throwing out cities because of various things we’ve heard or read. Boston’s obviously a top pick (Just one reason of many? More universities than anywhere else), and for me, Philadelphia is another (Much more affordable, closer to NYC). As a future adjunct professor, the number of schools in our general proximity is of the utmost importance, but if that were the only factor, Boston would probably win, hands down. Alas, it’s not that simple.

So I was doing research on other major cities with an abundance of schools. This isn’t as easy as it seems (at least, it hasn’t been yet). I try Google for things like “what are the cities with the most universities?” (I know this isn’t askJeeves or anything, but you never know what exact phrase will pull up a decent forum thread) and “most university cities”, “highest number of colleges”, etc. This really leads to very little, as it seems no one has compiled a list. There’s the “most literate” and “most educated” and others, but nothing that really hits the point I’m trying to find.

So I start guessing.

Stacy said something about liking the idea of the Midwest, and it’s certainly not something I’m opposed to. So after a couple of flops, I find Cincinnati, Ohio (which, no, I didn’t know how to spell correctly at first). Now, I’m not claiming here that Cincinnati is one of those cities. It could very well be a flop as well, but I stopped because I moved over to Cleveland, where I found The Cleveland Institute of Art. I went straight to the undergraduate photography page.

Where the stories meet: So I’m at this site and there’s a girl in a picture that looks quite familiar. At first, I didn’t even notice that the view camera in the photo was massive… perhaps a 20×24? Could it be? Clicking on Jen Trausch’s name brought up a PDF with a little information about her and sure enough, it’s the same person. Small world? I dunno. Maybe I really did get to the end of the internet.

But here’s the point: She’s freakin’ good. Look at her web site. All this is to say that, I don’t know why I’d never heard of her before. If I had, I probably would’ve been a complete distraction to her the whole time we were shooting that day.

Related Links:

• Interview with Jen
• Shane Godfrey’s Blog (he’s an assistant that worked with us at the studio)
• Jen’s work at Nelson Hancock Gallery