Into The Woods, Into My Night

"The impossible it possible tonight."

- The Smashing Pumpkins


One reason, if not the central reason, for making the switch to digital (or selling out as I belief I may have...though still not bowing down to the the almighty Photoshop) was that I wanted to know if what I was doing was that the pictures that I took lived up to my standards of what I believe I was capable of.

Six years into this photography interest and I have to admit that I have never taken a clear, detailed shot of the moon...until a few weeks prior to this post. Back home in Garrett County, where my summer nights were cooler and my night sky clearer, I watched the moon rise over the hills and break through the trees. For the next 30 minutes a shootout between me and the night broke out. There was trial, and error, and trial, and error, and trial...

Finally, I got the settings dead on, the shutter went, and I got the shot I wanted. And after that, the shutter closed and opened, closed and opened, the camera winking at the night sky now that it had warmed up to it.

In this early night shootout I scarcely had the time to notice between shots the adjustments I was making on the camera. I knew I was getting closer and closer to perfect until I had it...

Luckily for this ignorant photographer, my Sony Cybershot allows me to go back and look at the settings for each image.

For the next lunar display, I think I'll wake my film camera from its sleep and and zoom it in on the subject, getting close enough I believe I can reach out and touch it.

The first image you see is titled "No One Knows About The Midsummer Night's Dream." The second one is titled "The Past Does Not Exist."

Photography involves endless discovery in more ways than one, thank God for that.

Hearts in Towson

These are the first good images I have ever taken down here in my new home of Towson. It has been almost a year now. This path is long and uncertain and many times a lonely one, but this afternoon, when the early June sun was descending....

"Simple pleasures aren't as special but I won't regret it never."

- Red Hot Chili Peppers

Beat Blog : What Photography Means

To everyone in MCOM 258, I have now created and published my beat blog for the class, titled "What Photography Means."

Hey MCOM 258

For those of you who have not met me before, my name is Benjamin Knepp and I just finished my junior year of college, and my first year here at Towson. I come from the rural and peaceful Garrett County, MD, and transferred to Towson from Garrett College. My hometown of Oakland, MD (and the surrounding lands) makes a plethora of appearences in this blog. I am currently a MCOM major here at Towson in the journalism and new media track.

As apparent from this blog, I have a passion for photography. Almost all of the images in this blog tell a story about myself. This is what I love about it; the ability that one image has to narrate an entire story. What I do in this blog is to relate to the readers the stories that the images hold for me. For every picture I take, I want to be able to relate the readers the stories behind them, and the feelings behind each image that means a lot to me and who I am.

And so photojournalism is my favorite way to tell stories. This is what I wish to incorporate into my news beat for MCOM 258. I want to report on and write about individuals who share my passion for telling stories fwith images. I think that the most important part of journalism is the storytelling aspect of it, and images are vital in doing this. I will create a new blog for this specific beat when I start reporting on it, and will let announce the web adress as soon as I start.

From this class, I want to most of all build on my knowledge of all the technology that goes into multimedia storytelling that is so dominant in journalism today. I hope to increase my ability to incorporarate audio, film, and images in order to create effective news stories. Also, I want to be able to learn the differences in writing stories for different media platforms, such as blogs, online, and broadcast journalism. In this class, I will improve my abilities for writing across all the different platforms.

The Air

"Because the night belongs to lovers, because the night belongs to us."

- Bruce Springsteen

Say it on the midnight air.

Turn around love, and she's not there.

Tucked in, soft and warm somewhere.

Her perfect form to soft brown hair.

And your feelings are laid bare

Shifting restlessly on the midnight air...

The Mind When It Dreams Of Stars Aligning

"All I do is kiss you through the bars of orion,
Julie I'd do the stars with you anytime."

- Dire Straits


It is the same night that a carnival became a succession of still images when my mind is running at the speed of light. It is act one of the stars alligning in my late summer. I don't know it now but I will know it looking back. Do you ever have the fleeting moments where the there is imperceptable forces at work in your favor and you become untouchable? Call it a helpless romantic who believes such things in a world of rhyme and reason but helpless to believe this I will remain.

It is now one in the morning. And while the world sleeps, my mind races on into the warm stillness of post-midnight August. This image represents how the restless mind doesn't stop in the night when it is dreaming of a world of dissolving limits.

These dreams bleed out onto the film tonight, and they will always be here to remind me how it feels to believe that this night is mine alone. A part of me lives in tonight forever, living on the tails of shooting stars, and never wanting to come back.

Nine in the Evening

"...son take a good look around. This is your hometown."

- Bruce Springsteen



" As the grey unyielding concrete, makes a city of my town."

- Flogging Molly

At nine in the evening, a hush falls on my small town and those lights shine down on ghost streets. If you want to walk them, you must want to walk alone. Maybe you need to get away from those you know a little too well (it is a small town by the way). Or do you want to feel the cool air while you try to forget the day? Still, it may that you are tired of the intimacy and isolation of being young in a small town.

Last May I went to the overlook to witness the hush at nightfall for myself. From here you can see the town in its entirety. Here you can see each of the six banks within a mile radius of each other. Over there is First United, down the street is M&T. The next block up is Susquehanna. It's as if this small town doesn't have enough places to hold all its money.

Over to your left is Shaffer Ford and Team One Chevrolet. They used to put them oversized extended-cab trucks out front. Now they hardly keep 'em on the lot. I guess everyone doesn't want to take all their money out of all the banks.

You can also see the lights of the six gas stations. What you can't make out from up here is the numbers on those signs that didn't want to stop last summer; it was 10 cents, 20 cents a day. I am glad that you can't see them from up here. I wouldn't want to put an imperfection on this scene.

In the middle of all this stands is the Oak-Lee Dairy Land, as it has for the last 50 summers. You and your girlfriend went there on the first date. After 50 summers they tore it down when the dollar amount was right. Now there is a sign that says "Coming Soon: Walgreens Pharmacy." I suppose that makes sense when there is a CVS right across the street.

I heard someone argue that Walgreens is open 24 hours a day as if there was going to be someone down there that is going to break the stillness of the night.

"I suppose that's a sign that Oakland's getting bigger," my uncle said. And it most definately is. My dad always tells me about the time that there was no Pizza Hut, no Green Acres, and no Dollar General. And I can remember the time there was no Taco Bell, no CVS, and no Wal-Mart.

Just this year they opened up Lowes and are starting construction on a Dairy Queen. This is the home town not as it is remembered. Changes come as a part of life.

But one thing doesn't change: nine in the evening. Every night at this time the silence lingers under the street lights. My picture is a falsehood, because as the world is moving at the speed of light, this town sleeps quietly tonight.