Canyonlands National Park

Wedding.

If it's good enough for Britney...Tunnel of Love Wedding Chapel.

Road Trip.

I don't really know if anyone follows this blog or anything, and if anyone does, well, you may be disappointed that I never posted anything from my trip, that I said I was going to post about, on here. Well, I spent every single day of our trip shooting photos, except for my wedding day. Even when either Dave or I was sick, I still went out and shot photos. So now, I have 14,000 photos, and 70 gigs worth of shit to go through. Anyways, I'm going to post that stuff when I'm ready. For now though, I have new stuff I wanted to post. This was shot on the way to/at the Franklin County Fair last Sunday. The fair was pretty awesome for people shooting, so I'm going to the Vinton County Fair this weekend to shoot more photos. More of this stuff is on my flickr page (www.flickr.com/photos/leahjanefisher).

Road Trip Tentative Schedule.

We are leaving in 2 more days, and I am more than excited. I'm nervous about leaving my life and my schedule, and leaving others to take care of our house and our cats, not that the people taking care of our house aren't more than capable (THANKS in advance to Guv and Amanda, Mom and Gary, Emily and Jon, Ben, Nick and Jenn!!!). I am just someone who lives by routine and schedules and it's hard to get away from that. On the other hand, I have had basically the same schedule for a few years now, and am in a rut in how I live my life. It's become too predictable, and I just do the same shit all the time and I need to get away from it for a while to keep me sane. I am also excited because this is me and Dave's 3rd real vacation together in 6 1/2 years of being together, so it's nice that we get to spend like 6 straight weeks together, as well as the fact that I get to marry Dave who I absolutely love and who is also my best friend. The "wedding" doesn't mean that much to me, I mean, we really just want to BE married, we don't care about GETTING married. We know where we stand, and that's what is important to me, I feel like it's kind of a private thing anyways. So, those are my thoughts on the day before the day before we leave. I wanted to post our tentative schedule so people might know where we are and how long we are going to each place. I guess it's also a record for myself. I'm looking forward to doing more writing, and documenting this amazing adventure we are about to embark on, so I hope whoever reads this enjoys the output on here. One more day.

Road Trip.

Now that this class is over, I plan to keep using this blog for other work I do outside of school. This Saturday (May 16th), Dave and I are leaving to start our trip out west and back, and are getting married along the way. In Vegas. In a drive-thru. Anyways, I'm putting up our map and stuff now so whoever wants to see what we are doing can do so. These directions are not set in stone, but kind of a guideline of where we are going. I'll be posting as often as I can, but this site is kind of a pain in the ass to upload large photos to, so you can also check out my flickr site to see if I've uploaded stuff there (www.flickr.com/photos/leahjanefisher/). If you don't see anything on either site then I haven't had internet access, which will peobably be the case for the first 2 weeks. So, keep checking back to see what we are doing. We'll be back on the 25th!


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The Bottoms and Franklinton in Columbus, Ohio.

The Bottoms and Franklinton are located just west of Downtown, and are some of Columbus’s oldest neighborhoods. These shots are from a series I have been working on, doing “drive-by shootings.” I have my boyfriend drive me around Columbus, and shoot almost every person I see with a zoom lens from the moving car. I really liked the character of the people on the West side, so that was always a stop on these trips. These people are mostly ignored in Columbus photography, and this area is kind of avoided as one of the “bad” areas, so I don’t know that there is much documentation of this area currently. This is part of what attracts me to this area. The area also is a mixture of houses that are completely trashed, boarded up, condemned, vacant, or all of these things, but also interspersed with these are nicer homes that people are taking care of which may show some progress towards change taking place to make it a better neighborhood.
As for the people of the neighborhood, it’s really mixed. I have mostly seen Caucasian and African American people and most seem to be on the low income side of the spectrum. Some people are nice and seem to like having had their picture taken, some people get angry after I take their picture, and some don’t notice at all. The reason I enjoy the “drive-by” shooting is that I can catch people before they can pose or somehow change their appearance. I catch them raw and unedited, and see them as they are instead of what they want me to see them as. I catch people at 1/4000th second of their life, and all of these things combined are what I think make this work striking.

Leah Fisher

Drive-By Shots.

I shot photos all weekend, which was great, besides not getting all the things done I needed to do! On Saturday I went with some friends to the Renaissance Fair at the Oval on OSU Campus. It wasn't very big, but I got a ton of great shots. On Saturday I went to the Buckeye Alpaca Show at the fairgrounds with Dave and my brother Graham, and took a lot of shots of all the alpacas there. It really made me want to quit my life and start an alpaca farm, but I don't think I'm ready for country living just yet. Alpacas are amazing animals however, they look so weird, especially when they have just been shaved. I didn't realize they were related to giraffes! Anyways, after the alpaca show I went out to do more drive-by shots and got some decent stuff. I think I'm done with the west side for a little bit, and am looking into different areas on the east and south sides to shoot. These are more of the drive-by shots. Ren Fair and Alpacas will be posted later. (I do have the photos up on flickr though at www.flickr.com/photos/leahjanefisher/).

Drive-By Shots.

Drive-By Shots.

Drive-By Shots.

Drive-By Shots.

Drive-By Shots.

Drive-By Shots.

Drive-By Shots.