As I opened the door to the basement of a church office I was greeted by a scene of laughter, music, brightly painted walls and teenagers lounging in comfy chairs.  I met Vaughn, the youth director for the church who introduced me to his “crew,” the twenty youngsters who were scattered through the space.  Vaughn opened the space several months ago as a safe creative place for teenagers to express themselves and learn.  Four nights a week the doors are open, some nights with a message and chatting about everyones individual purpose and goals, and other nights full of improve, music jams, games and snacks.  I swung by here and there throughout the week to catch Vaughn with the crew and capture their energy.

“LETS GO STATE” could be heard as I pulled in to photograph at the Blue Band practice field one afternoon last week.  Today a story I worked on about Blue Band director Richard Bundy was published.   Bundy coordinates one of the best college marching band traditions in the country.  As I spent time at several of the band camp rehearsals I saw all the work that goes into a few short days.

Today a project I worked on last month ran in our Good Life section.  The first Sunday of each month we publish Good Life, which features people in the area doing unique and interesting things around the community.  This month featured illustrator Jason Lenox.

I met Jason when I was photographing a Setsucon, a comic/anime convention hosted by Penn State students.  Knowing he was from the area I spent some time at his booth as he worked on detailing a panel for his upcoming book and chatted with visitors of all ages.

I sat down with him as he enthusiastically showed me the first book, “Ugli Studios Presents #1.” He then flipped through his current project showing me how he sketched out the pages, and will continue the process by detailing each panel after a high quality scan was made.

A couple weeks later I met up with Jason again in his home studio to see the progress and make some more images.  We chatted for two hours as I photographed and he carefully detailed just one panel of a four panel page.

I tried as many different angles as I could as his pens moved very precisely through the panel.

Keep your eyes out for the new book and Jason’s work to be featured in a movie in the upcoming months.