Environmental Portrait and Mugshot

 ....I really need to stop doing this stuff on Friday. So here I was ready to go to the library next to my house on Friday in the afternoon but I found out something tragic...

The library is closed on Fridays, Saturdays, and Sundays. 

I was positive it was going to be open that Friday so I had to start brainstorming on what to take a picture of next. Fortunately, at this point, I'm really good at improvising. After working, I was at Walmart expecting this to be extremely awkward, and surprisingly...

I was right.

Environmental Photo

I asked two cashiers if I may take a picture of them. It was pretty awkward but they told me to see a guy named Mark Carpenter. So I managed to find him and asked if I can borrow some of his time. It was a bit awkward but I managed to take some photos.

Mugshot of Mark

Around Town: Moringstar Grange Haunted House

 It was Week 2 of Photojournalism and I was supposed to take photos for my Around Town project. I attempted to do it on Wednesday afternoon to no avail. It was my one chance during the week to wander around town to find something that struck me as perfect for a photo due to work. On Friday, my teacher suggested to find an event near my area and low and behold an event taking place in a barn happened to begin the day afterward. So after work, I looked again at the event website where I found it...

I couldn't find it. 

I started to panic. Where was I supposed to go now to take a picture? I was getting desperate.

And desperate times...call for desperate measures.

I found an event for a haunted house and decided to investigate. I arrived at the Morningstar Grange Haunted House and managed to get all the photos I needed while waiting for my turn to enter as well as a tiny bit of info behind it. 

Overall Image

The Morningstar Grange Haunted House began about 16 years ago and only included the second floor. Seven years later, the first floor was added thanks to its growing popularity.

Medium Image

Due to COVID-19, the team was worried they wouldn't be able to do the haunted house this year. Fortunately, with the restrictions, they may have 35 people (including actors) in the house. 

Closeup Image of a Crazy Clown Played by Nick

Each year has a theme. This year was a celebration of Jeepers Creepers. The Haunted House is a charity event and will be benefiting local food banks as well as the Morningstar Grange.

Address: Morningstar Grange38794 Morningstar Rd NE
Albany, OR 97321

Price: $5 per person

When: Oct. 16, 17, 23, 24 & 30: 7pm - 12am

Oct. 18 & 25: 7pm - 9pm

Oct. 31: 7 - 12am

Photographer of the Week: Arthur "Weegee" Felig

When you think of photographers, you might think of those who take lovely pictures of nature or people. This is not so for Arthur (Usher) Felig who came to fame thanks to his crime and distortion photos.

He was born on June 12, 1899, in Poland, and his family immigrated to America when he was 11. To help his poor family, he worked in many jobs. As he was assisting a pony ride photographer, he noticed how even poor parents would pay for a photo of their child. This was Felig’s first experience with photography.

He had a rough experience with his father so he ran away at the age of 13 and self-taught himself as a photographer and worked for many newspapers until 1935 when he became a freelance photographer. He took pictures of crime scenes and will often appear at the scene when the police arrive or even before they show up. While many called this a special ability Felig had (which gave the photographer the nickname “Weegee” which is a spin on the word Ouija), it was thanks to a police radio that was installed in his car in 1938. The photo that made him rise to fame was “The Critic” which demonstrated the unfairness in New York. The photo featured a homeless person looking at two rich women. He also took pictures for his distortion series which distorts an image. He wrote several books such as “Naked City,” “Weegee’s People,” and “Naked Hollywood.”

Image Courtesy of the J. Paul Getty Museum

In 1947, he married Margaret Atwood but because of his personality (he had bad hygiene and was always on the lookout for dates with strippers) the two divorced later that year. Felig then met Wilma Wilcox who was more or less his partner. The two never married but Wilcox did move in with him when Felig was diagnosed with diabetes. On December 26, 1968, Arthur Felig died of a heart tumor.


Sources: “Weegee.” International Center of Photography, 20 Apr. 2020, www.icp.org/browse/archive/constituents/weegee?all%2Fall%2Fall%2Fall%2F1.

The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica. “Weegee.” Encyclopædia Britannica, Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc., 8 June 2020, www.britannica.com/biography/Weegee.

“The Critic | 100 Photographs | The Most Influential Images of All Time.” Time, Time, 100photos.time.com/photos/weegee-the-critic.

“Weegee Biography, Life & Quotes.” The Art Story, www.theartstory.org/artist/weegee/life-and-legacy/.

Around Town: Rip Cronk

 For my Around Town photos, I took pictures of Rip Cronk who was painting a mural based on Mary's Peak at the campus of LBCC near the entrance to Willamette Hall.

Closeup Image

Medium Image

Overall Image

Humans of LBCC

My life during the coronavirus has not changed much. I remember when quarantine just started and we had to do a story about how we’re doing it the very start for our Feature Writing class. While everyone was talking about how different their lives have become, mine was literally called “Same Old, Same Old.” I think the only problem I have with the pandemic is that I can’t get any retro games from Gamestop right now since they are unavailable at the moment. I know I could get them from eBay but why go there when I am guaranteed a better quality product and for a lot less? Okay, got a little off track there.

Where was I? COVID? Ah, yes.

Now I could go on a rant as to why people exaggerate the illness but I don’t think that would fit this assignment so instead, I’ll discuss what else I’ve been doing during the summer.

I’ve been getting into the Sonic fandom recently and have been starting to write some fan-fiction which is quite fun (for some reason I love to go dark in my writing). I’m also a writer for a Sonic news site that has been around since 1998 called Sonic HQ. The skills I learned from Feature Writing became quite handy.

Near the end of the summer, I finally got a job as a personal shopper at Wal-Mart. I’ve been trying to get a job for quite a while so I’m glad I finally got one.

Wow, I already got more than 200 words just from that? Welp, guess I’ll stop here then.

Photojournalism First Blog Post

Greetings, fellow students of Photojournalism! My name is Joshua Bloedel and have been a student of LBCC since the winter term for 2019. Things started to really kick-off around Fall 2019 when I took writing. This class in particular really caught my interest and I took another writing class the term afterward. During that second writing class, I learned about the LBCommuter and decided to go to their office and ask to be a part of it and that’s where I met our teacher for this course. He recommended me taking Feature Writing so I took that for Spring term 2020 and decided to take Photojournalism for this term.

I don’t have an idea of what my major will be and I don’t have much experience with photography either. For my three goals, I have made the following: get better with a camera, learn how to edit photos, and learn how to use Instagram.