holy. website. batman.

Just finished my portfolio website for JRN 423! here's the image from my 'history' page.
And, thanks to a nice surprise from my good friend Michael Hotwagner [a very talented web designer], it's libbymarch.com !

I feel so grown up.

signs and communication

As Tuesdays go, today has been a rough one. School is running me ragged. It's been one of those days when you just don't feel like even getting out of bed, let alone going to class or doing homework. Let's note that projects kept me up and at the computer lab until about 5:30 a.m. last night, and it's 4 a.m. now. You can imagine my level of enthusiasm for my 8 p.m. CM-Life assignment tonight after doing more homework all day.

Don't get me wrong. Shooting for CM-Life is a coveted position for anyone who's serious about photojournalism at Central, and being a CM-Life staff photographer is incredibly important to me. However, this is the point in the year when the sun seems gone forever and work seems here for longer.

Evening assignments also often instill a kind of inertia in me; after the day of school, I crave kickback time with friends, a run to blow off steam, or just a nice cold PBR. Long story short, I was running on empty when I arrived at Plachta tonight to shoot the Deaf Professional Artists Network's presentation.

I didn't know what to expect. I'd borrowed a long lens for the occasion, knowing I'd need it to procure a few dreaded "speaker shots," and waited meekly in the aisle, cutline book tucked in my jeans, for things to get rolling.

After a mildly long-winded introduction from a quite well-meaning RSO leader, a guy came out and began speaking. But he wasn't just talking with his mouth, he was speaking with his hands.

Sean Forbes, deaf rap artist and founder of the Deaf Professional Artists Network (D-PAN) speaks about his passion for music and sharing it during the Deaf Professional Artists Network's visit to CMU Tuesday in Plachta Auditorium.

Never having come in close contact with anyone fluent in sign language, my lackadaisical mood flipped into one of fascination. The fluidity and dexterity of Sean Forbes' fingers and wrists was beautiful to me. I decided to snap a few 'safe shots' (in-the-box portraits without much inspiration) and then focus on capturing the fluency of hands signing. I was entranced.

I returned to the office for deadline and told my editor, Ashley, about my vision for the night, crossing my fingers she would choose the 'artsier' imagery I had in mind. I'm really excited to say that a detail set much like the one I have edited above (in color, and with different hand gestures because I can't remember which frames we chose and I must've shot over a hundred) is running as a secondary image on the front page. I'd prefer it run big and primary, but this stylized sort of work is a rarity in CM-Life.

This is the first time I've really pitched my vision for an assignment; it wasn't anything wildly earth-shattering, but I'm so pleased it's getting published this way. Here's to all kinds of communication, be it sign language or sharing vision, and getting that cold beer when things wind down for the week.

423 Soundslide

I wish I would've had more time to spend with them to complete this; but I'm barely keeping up with school/work/newspaper things as is, and behind deadline already. C'est la vie.

coloring outside the lines

About a month ago, a historically devastated country made more history, this time for earthquake devastation. As more and more pictures and multimedia rolled in covering Haiti's plight, I grew more and more fixated by a need to Do Something.

I've been obsessing over heavy imagery and jonesing after globetrotting humanitarianism since I was little...but this time, I realized I was old enough, and maybe even had the time, to actually go. To make the kind of pictures that so constantly permeate my brain and make me determined to work hard and become a better storyteller, a more compassionate person. I suddenly understood I could really be part of the things I've always cared about on surface level.

I started praying and putting out feelers in earnest and soon got in touch with Carla Ives of Heart Cry International, an outreach organization based in Potter's House, a church right here in Mount Pleasant. I visited the Heart Cry office with my friend Taylor yesterday to help with materials for Carla's trip to Haiti this upcoming Sunday.

Carla Ives, pastor of Potter's House Family Worship Center and co-founder of Heart Cry International, discusses ways to transport relief material to Haiti Tuesday at about 6 p.m. at Heart Cry International's office on Bellows Street. The yellow boxes piled on her desk are left over from packing bags of candy, stickers, and crayons to bring with her to Haiti this Sunday. Ives has been working since 10 a.m. to get ready for her trip and has only had time to eat a packet of Swiss Cake Rolls during her busy day.

Taylor and I talk sometimes about how very shallow it seems that we [Americans or Westerners or whatever the official We may be] are all so often aware of the world's issues, yet continue to muck around absorbed by our smaller self worlds. We were so excited to be part of something Bigger.

Carla put us to work. We stuffed sandwich bags for Trauma Kits for Haitian children, each with one piece of candy, a sticker or trio of small stickers, and three crayons, preferably of different colors.

I looked at these modest offerings and thought, one piece of candy? And why the hell can't they have a full box of crayons?! I was mildly miffed, and I think Taylor was too.

We kept stuffing, and Carla collected the bag boxes on her desk to keep track of the amount finished. She wanted to bring 10,000 Trauma Kits with her.

Between finagling travel details and hashing out a home for a girl recently kicked out of her apartment, Carla told us a story. I'll paraphrase it best I can.

A few years ago, Carla and a Heart Cry team went to a remote part of Guatemala and gave out bags to children there similar to the ones we were packing. They returned a year later, and when passing out bags, she encountered a little girl clutching a bag, and thought she'd received one already.

She then realized the little girl's bag was from the prior year, and had never been opened. That little girl had never had anything of her own before.

Taylor and I were quieter then, I think, at least in our minds. As we went through boxes of baggies, I started to appreciate the vibrance of the crayons.

Crayons, left, await bagging for "Trauma Kits" for Haitian children, but are soon cleaned out, right, and more supplies are needed at Heart Cry International's office on Bellows Street. Carla Ives, director of Heart Cry International, will be traveling to Port-au-Prince this Sunday and distributing 10,000 Trauma Kits, also including sanitary items like shampoo.

The conversation moved on. We laughed over the irony of sending candy along with toothbrushes. And I thought, well...you've got to be a kid. Kids need candy. Every kid should have it. And crayons, and other simple things like sweet tastes and bright colors that these would bring.

The light began to go from the window, and the darker it got outside, the more I realized how crucial these crayons, candies, and stickers were. Just that flash of yellow wax, that slightly forbidden rush of sugar.

Things I take for granted every day, and have been since I was a kid.

I don't think I'll be traveling to Haiti this summer, but I am so glad I can be part of these baby steps. Whenever I get wrapped up in coloring very hard in the lines of my life, something usually hits me - it's the little things, the baby steps, that make the difference. I may be able to go to Uganda for a few weeks, if I can get the funds. But if not, I can color just as hard here. And I'll get to those faraway places eventually.

Taylor Pelletier, 23, of Mount Pleasant, packs boxes full of supplies for "Trauma Kits" for Haitian children at Heart Cry International's office on Bellows Street. Pelletier is folding small bags each holding a sticker, a piece of candy, and three crayons into tubes to pack them tightly.

"You know," said Taylor quietly when the rest of the room grew preoccupied, "I wonder which kid will grow up and write about these three crayons?"

gym jams for your eyes?

The tough image

It was a pretty run-of-the-mill Tuesday...my good friend Sean and I were hanging out post-class when he got a call from Randi Schaffer, another friend and CM-Life reporter. Randi was working a breaking news shift at the Life office and a "K" for "kill" or fatality, popped up on the police scanner. Spot news, with a possible body? We were ready.

We drove about five miles outside Mount Pleasant, pulled over to a small, Lincoln-log-looking cabin and hit the snow half-running. It was about three steps when everything slowed down. There were so many flashing lights; must've been at least six cop cars and a fire truck, neon vests and milling firemen everywhere.



Carefully inching closer to the scene, it started to sink in. The death was confirmed by a policeman, and my thumbs began aching with cold. We shifted awkwardly, trying to figure out where to begin, how to do the jobs we'd chosen to dedicate four years of education and the rest of our lives to.

A man and two women appeared from the small bar where Randi's car was parked.

"What's going on? Do you know what happened? That's my truck," the man said, and kept repeating it. "That's my truck. My son borrowed it."

I looked at Sean and there was a sudden heaviness in my gut. I knew what we had no business telling them.

And I wanted to gather these people up and bundle them away back inside the little log house where they'd come from, away from the half-mile of backed up traffic, the slink of quiet snow, the pretty lights, the bitter winter air. Wanted to hide them from the knowledge that in a few minutes a policeman would tactfully explain.

I watched a man find out his child was killed, and I photographed it. It was what I was there to do, and it felt like the winter was creeping between my ribs.


This is Roy Buckner, father of 38-year-old crash victim Candon Royal Buckner.

Sean turned in a photograph of this father walking away from the accident. These were photos that hurt us to make, but we made them. And all the questions about ethics and sensitivity we as students discuss in class were real.

My friend Neil, a recent Central photojournalism grad, always said he never wants to cover spot news...I get it now. Spot news is a little piece of hell.

Yet these are stories that we need to tell; parts of humanity that should be documented, that we all can remember that everywhere, people around us are dealing with situations about which we have no idea. Anyone could have been in that crash, or lost someone in one just like it.

It's important to be scared by this because it reminds us how short life is. I want to be able to make these tough images, and be scared every time. I hope I never lose the sense of helplessness this accident inspired in me.

Sibs weekend !

Collin Rodriguez, 9, of Chesaning, laughs upon reaching the bottom of a slide with his brother Isaiah Rodriguez, 11, of Chesaning, during the Sibs Weekend carnival Saturday in the SAC's lower level.


Gabbie Sanchez, 6, of Macomb, squeals in response to a color command in a game of Twister during the Sibs Weekend carnival Saturday in the SAC's lower level.


Safiya Seydi, 7, drinks fruit punch during the Sibs Weekend carnival Saturday in the SAC's lower level.

Hearts Wide Open - multimedia piece, finished