A student sits with his head down, avoiding the bright light of that day.

Wouldn’t it have been easier for him to sit in the shade, than to spend several minutes on this sunny bench twisting and turning his head to keep it out of the glare?

Was this some ill-planned rendezvous with someone?

We may never know; all I know is that before I pulled my camera out and long after I put it back in my pocket this guy was doing his best to avoid the sun in his eyes while sitting on that bench.

The UMCP Memorial Chapel, after last week’s snowfall.

Less than a week after the last snowfall of more than eight inches in College Park, MD, not much is left of the snow. A couple of warm days this week took most of it from the ground. I snapped this picture the day after, on a hike up to campus.

Two students smoke close to the doors of McKeldin Library, despite the act being proscribed within fifteen feet of any building entance on campus.

If there is one single rationale for the rash of voyeuristic photos that I have recently posted, it’s that this is my first venture in actually photographing people and making them look good in the pictures I have taken. I have been taking pictures with a digital camera for almost four years now, but this is about the only time that I’ve started to take good pictures of people.

In this photo I capture a moment shared by two friends (or lovers, maybe?) as they smoke outside the library. It is ill-composed in a way: they should have had at least their feet and, for good measure, some ground to give them full form. However this was taken on the spur of the moment. Creatively cropped it could be good too, but I have resisted the urge for that in lieu of being able to compose a picture (and crop using the zoom) with a mind set towards taking a good frame. That way I can practice my shooting without relying heavily on post-processing techniques (which I would use in a professional setting anyway).

A student sits, immersed in a phone call.

There are many things I like about this photo of a student sitting in front of the Library. The perspective of his figure against the door may be a bit off (depends on your taste, really) but it holds its own strange charm to my eye.

A student studies under the sun on a crisp February morning outside McKeldin Library.

I spent last Monday morning walking around campus. I got bored with taking pictures of the usual stuff (there are only so many angles of a building one can take without getting sick of it) that I decided to take candid shots of people. My camera has an additional lens assembly both telephoto and wide angle shots so I can point the camera in someone’s general direction and in a way that doesn’t look too imposing.

Here a student sits at the steps in front of McKeldin Library; it was pretty windy but the sun was really bright, perfect seasonal weather, I must say.