Environmental Portrait #1

We have to turn in our first environmental portrait this week in Intermediate Photojournalism, so I decided to head back to Jeff Martin, owner of a company called True Adventures, LTD., that builds a life-size, Dungeons & Dragons-esque dungeon that attracts nearly 3,000 adventurers each year at GenCon, a gaming convention held in Indianapolis, Ind. This year, the True Dungeon is coming to Southern Illinois in addition to Indy, and Jeff, along with hundreds of volunteers, will work hard every weekend building the experience in a rented warehouse located in Herrin, Ill. Right now, the crew is working on building the wooden frames for the walls, but they have already set up a multicolored puzzle, which I must say, emits a great light for interesting photographs.

Martin and helper Warren Snider liken the puzzle to Sudoku, only much more complicated, and built the puzzle themselves. I lit Jeff with a single strobe from the camera's left side with a fancy diffuser I made out of a piece of paper I ripped out of my pocket notebook. The text on the photo is just for added effect, so it looks like some kinda fancy magazine spread, so I probably won't turn it into Professor Mark Dolan with that stuff on it. It was kinda difficult to balance out the exposure to include both the glow from the table, and the 128th-power strobe.

I also shot an SIU track and field meet today at the Rec Center, and a Science Center of Southern Illinois 15th Birthday Bash with a bunch of little science activities at the University Mall.

THOMAS BARKER / THE SOUTHERN

Noah Kippenbrock, 11, of Carbondale, tries to hold on to friend Austin Helfrich, 12, of Murphsyboro, as he slides down a mound of plowed snow Friday in the Dick's Sporting Goods parking lot. Days after last week's winter storm, many area parking lots still haven't been cleared of snow and ice.

-TB