We're back! (And welcome!)

Lucia (09-10 Alum) drawing our logo on the floor of the lounge.

It's been a while since my last post, but nothing exciting really goes on over the summer (Photo House related, that is). Now that everyone has moved in for the 2010-11 school year, the fourth floor of NRH has been hopping with the excitement of the new year.

Kenna leads the first meeting in the packed lounge.

The freshmen moved in almost two weeks ago, and after they got settled in, our first meeting was held that night. The e-board introduced themselves to all the new members, and everyone got to know each other over some icebreakers outside. The first Jay's Run was also made that night!

In other news, the facilities have all been cleaned and are now completely ready to begin this year. A lot of the floor has already been trained for the Print Finishing room thanks to Jackson Roland, this year's labbie. Jackson also managed to figure out what was wrong with our door locks, so those have been fixed, and now it only takes one swipe to get in! (If you were with us last year, you remember needing to get new cards all the time, and asking others to let you in, because they were so finicky.)

[Left to right] Emily, Connor, and Austin carry our banner while Tyler poses next to them during the annual RIT Tiger Walk.

The first weekend back had a Ritchie's night and a Tilt night. Many floor members went with some of our alumni to dance at Tilt. That tradition is still going strong in Photo House! Our first Ritchie's night was a great success as well. There was pool, ping-pong, DDR, Rock Band, air hockey, and more, for the whole floor to enjoy.

Coming Up:

• We'll be going Apple Picking on Sunday the 19th. I'll be sending an e-mail with information on location and time.
• Mud Tug is happening again this year, and this time, we want to have at least 2 teams. If anyone is interested, shoot me an e-mail! It'll be on Sunday, September 25.
• The SIH BBQ will be next Sunday as well. We're still working out the details, so a time and location will also be in my upcoming e-mail.

This new year is starting off with a bang!

Ben Lubin
Photo House Historian 10-11

School's out, but we're hard at work!

It's been about a month since finals finished and people handed in their room keys to head out. Since then, the new Photo House executive board has been hard at work preparing for the fall. I thought I'd take some time to share some of those things.

Our new president, Kenna Lindsay, is hard at work organizing and planning all that is going to happen next year. The e-mail chain going around the executive board is busy with ideas and suggestions. Our Social Chair, Katie Lachut (2nd year), is working on planning the first week of school, which for most members of the floor, will be their first week of college. Barbecues, movie nights, and more are all on her list.

Maggie Stockman, our Academic Enrichment Chair already has two photographers booked to give lectures during the year. Many new and exciting fundraisers are being planned by our Fundraising Chair, Jacob Sachs. Our Labbie, Jackson Roland is planning to update our computer systems and improve our printing process in the Print Finishing Room, as well as work with the Facilities Manager, Drew Swantak and others to clean up and organize the darkrooms. I have also been hard at work, sorting through and organizing all of the Photo House archives. There's not much to go through, which is kind of sad, but what I have found so far, I've organized into a timeline that can be seen here.

Jackson and I have also taken on restoring the old Photo House group pictures. Before we left, Jackson scanned all the pictures and negatives we could find, and I've been slowly restoring them so that by the fall, we can print and frame them, to be displayed on floor.

Now, you may be thinking, "Wow! That's a lot of work to be doing over the summer!". But before you go any further, consider all the other things the executive board has been up to: Jackson Roland is currently in the middle of a Co-Op, in which I'm not sure I can say more. Drew Swantak is currently in Croatia on RIT's study abroad program. He's been keeping us up to date on his blog, and is having an amazing time!

So there's your summer update. I'll be back with a more news when September comes nearer!

Photo House: We're Going Places

President William Marsh in the last meeting of the year. Credit: Liam Storrings

The end of the year is drawing near, with it being week 10 and all. Photo House is in an exciting place right now, as the executive boards transition from this year's to next. All of the new board members are extremely excited to get started and begin implementing their great ideas. Before we move on to next year, though, we can't forget about the rest of this year!

This weekend is going to be action packed with events! Coming up Saturday night is the Tim Burton movie night, while on Sunday, we're throwing the Moustache Party at 1 PM. This is a Photo House tradition where every year, when we hand out yearbooks, everybody attends the party wearing a moustache. After everyone gets their yearbooks and signs them, we'll head outside at 3 to enjoy a kickball barbeque. We're all looking forward to this last harrah!

Finally, I'd like to take some time to thank this year's e-board for everything they've done. Photo House this year has truly been an amazing place to live, and I'd like to personally thank each and every executive board member for making my first year here at RIT as enjoyable as it has been, and I look forward to doing the same next year.

Sincerely,

Ben Lubin

Photo House Historian

Photo House @ Imagine RIT

Amazing things happened this Saturday, May 1st on the RIT campus. It was Imagine RIT 2010, and students and faculty from all backgrounds presented the latest and greatest of their studies and interests. If one were to wander into the Kodak Quad they would be hard pressed to miss the big black box outside of building 7.

Photo House presented the Camera Obscura, also known as a pinhole camera. People were allowed inside of the camera, and after a few minutes to let their eyes adjust, they were amazed by the image projected onto the wall. There was no technology or magic behind it. A small hole in one wall, about 2mm in diameter created a picture projected at over 7 feet and upside-down on the opposite wall. Visitors left the exhibit both excited and in awe of how simple the basic principles behind a camera actually are!

Vincent DiCairano explains how a lens work to some curious visitors.

Jasmine Mosby, leader of Photo House's exhibit, talks about SLRs and lenses.

Many of our members worked hard to make this day a great success for Photo House. We look forward to improving our work for next year!

Photo House wins 2 awards!

After this year's SIH Formal Photo House President William Marsh stepped out of the elevators onto the floor with two awards in hand. The first is for Highest GPA, which is truly an amazing feat to have a higher GPA than all of the other Special Interest Houses.

The second award was the "Focus on Collaboration" award, which was awarded to us for the work we did in conjunction with some CIAS faculty in bringing two lecturers to RIT and more, including also the "Pie your Professor" event that's coming up!

So congratulations Photo House, it's a great time to be a part of something this special!

NYC Trip 2010

"Look! There's stuff and things going on in the stuff! and things!" Exclaimed an excited Kenna (E-board 2010-11 President-elect) as the bus emerged from the Lincoln Tunnel and into a brightly lit night scene of NYC.

We just got back from the 2010 Photo House trip to NYC. After a 7 hour bus ride to the hotel on Friday, we all rested until the big day. Saturday morning we groggily (but at the same time, excitedly) boarded the bus and rode into the heart of the city, many of us for the first time.

Using the buddy system, everyone was accounted for at all times, and the first order of business was to visit the International Center of Photography. All Photo House members that went on the trip visited the ICP, and enjoyed the exhibits and galleries that it offered. After a while, everybody broke off into smaller groups to roam the city!

Some of the many, many things that we did include:

• Visit the Museum of Modern Art, as well as many other museums and art galleries
• Look up in awe of Times Square
• Take a stroll through Central Park
• Watch The Lion King on Broadway
• Eat at many of New York City's many great dining establishments including Planet Hollywood
• Visit old friends from around the area

Tell us what you did on the trip in the comments!

A really bad shot of everyone on the bus outside the hotel.

Check out the Facebook Group (Photo House 09-10) for more pictures!

The Kitchen is Painted!

Before we say anything, we'd just like to welcome all of you who are reading this! This is the official Photo House blog, and we promise that we'll post updates about all things Photo House at least once a week.

Anyway, last Saturday (April 10) a bunch of us got together and painted the kitchen. Throughout the day about 15 different people helped out, and even some alumni stopped by! So that ugly green that's been in there is now gone, and two nice oranges now inhabit the walls instead. The colors go great with the new furniture that was added over break, too.

As I type this, we are in the process of painting the Photo House logo onto the left wall, and it is looking great so far. I'll update later with some more pictures!

*Update - Here's some pictures!