Oh Syracuse University...

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A rainy day in Syracuse.

I'm probably the only one who hasn't really minded the poor weather in Syracuse lately. In fact I'm kind of enjoying it. It feels so nice and warm when you're inside and it's pouring outside. And considering that I'm indoors all day, it works out nicely. On that note, I should probably venture outside more often.

My internship at ICS is going well and I've been there about a month now. I wrote my first post on the company blog, here, if you want to hear a little bit about what I do there. ICS provides technological solutions for its clients' web needs and has pioneered technologies in web design, content management systems, e-commerce solutions and other areas. I work directly with ICS' clients and this is really giving me a good understanding of the business side of a web development company. And that knowledge is really what I think I need at this point, seeing as how Newhouse doesn't offer any insight in that.

Although I still intend to find a career relating to graphics and/or photography in some regard, I really want it to involve the web as well. It's a bit depressing that I have less than a year to figure this all out. Even more depressing is that I think Newhouse, which touts itself as a great journalism school, is really falling wayside. My Designing Interactivity (the only undergrad web class in Newhouse) professor, Stephen Masiclat, is aware of Newhouse's lack of competitiveness in the upcoming years, as demonstrated by this graph of web traffic of a couple other journalism schools in the nation (from left to right: SU, UFL, Berkeley, Columbia). People aren't really looking at Newhouse anymore and there's a reason (or two) for it. I could go on and on about what I think is wrong with my own VIC department (which houses graphic arts, photojournalism and photo illustration), but I'll save that for another time.



The most recent annoyance I've experience from Newhouse is the realization that, although our photo department currently owns two tilt shift lenses, students are not allowed to check them out for their own use outside of the studio. We're allowed to check out a number of other lenses, but not these. Why? One of my friends came across this video online which was done using still photos and a tilt shift lens. By distorting the focus of the photo, you can simulate a shallow depth of field that makes the photo seem much smaller than it actually is. Check this out:


Bathtub V from Keith Loutit on Vimeo. From the blog of Keith Loutit.