The Best Photo Journalism Project

At our school a huge focus is on the wintertime, it dominates all the other seasons because we all are here to play a winter sport. However when all the students come back from break the school transforms the ski and hockey rooms close and the activities are hung. 

 For our project we wanted to emphasize the time where we aren’t training, the time where we are aloud to “let loose” and have a little fun… THE SPRING!!!!!!

Compost

The concept of composting was newly introduced to NSA’s community this spring by the SSC.  We like this picture because of the wonderful detail in all the fruit.  The composition used in this photo is the “get close” theme.  We like the close up better than the whole picture of all the food in the bucket.

Rock Climbing           

Rock Climbing is a way for the NSA students to get out and clear their heads on the Rocks.  This is a good photo because of the different values.  The green goes from a yellow green on the log to a deep green on the thistles of the tree.  The leaves on the ground surrounding the harness draw the eyes in.  The log with the harness looped on it take up the right 2/3^rd of the photo, which helps give it composition.  The shutter speed is low, which abled it to let in lots of light in the forest.  We think this is a good photo because it says what the activity is (rock climbing) without over doing it.  

Gardening

We like this photo for the entire composition.  Annie is in the right 1/3^rd of the picture and the sheers are in the right 2/3^rd , also the small tree occupies the left 1/3^rd. Also the sheers are in the bottom 1/3^rd.  The sheers do a good job of pointing out the important focal point of the picture.  The Gardening in front of the sign symbolizes how NSA has a strong knack towards service and community.

 The Forest

Hitting the trail with Randy you notice things you don’t notice on a day to day basis

I love this photo because it really shows the great height of the coniferous forests.  The darkness keeps it sort of mysterious and the wide frame gives it a sense of being vast.  For this picture I used a small aperture for this (high number) so I could have a wider depth of field.  The composition concept of leading lines is very prominent with the trees leading the eyes to the sky.  I did not like the brightness of the sky in the photo because I did not capture the true moment, I figured it would have been a gloomy dark dray and blue.

Earth Day

  Preserving our Earth for the Future.  May 11 this year was NSA’s Earth Day! For this activity we picked two pictures.  Both of the pictures use the concept of Get close, for composition. 

The First photo we like because it captures the animals unique personality as it baaa’s at all the students walking by.  Another reason we love this photo is because it causes a curiosity among the viewers, as to what is going on that is making the animal baa. We were however  angry with the poor lighting that day even slowing the shutter speed and widening the aperture did not seem to help.

I like the Second picture of the day because the detail is so good on the animal: the dirt on its fur, the muscle in its cheek, and even the little colic swirls on its face. The light was better in this picture, slowing the shutter speed helped.

YOGA

  This was our group’s first picture, and favorite.  The photo is composed with the subject (NIKKI) in the left 2/3^rd of the photo and her reflection in the right 1/3.  One of the reasons we love this photo so much is that the reflection allows the viewer to see beyond the limits of the 2-dimensional photo.  We used a slightly longer shutter speed to allow a longer exposure, which helped due to the fact the light was so poor.  We also increased our aperture to help with the low light situation.  To make sure the picture didn’t shake we propped it on a chair.  Another reason we love this picture is because there are many different values and strong hues.  Also there is a good amount of contrast.  Another aspect of composition we used in the photo framing, the mirror frames Nikki’s reflection.

CYCLING

  The most popular spring activity at NSA is Cycling. The reason we chose this photo was because the colors on his outfit draw the eye to the focal point of the picture…him!  We used the rule of thirds, putting Jim in the left 1/3^rd and the bike in the right 2/3^rd.  We also used the bike on the right to somewhat frame the photo.  The light was really strong this day, which made it really hard to get a good picture that didn’t look over exposed/flushed out.  The reason we ended up choosing this photo over the other ones is because the background and the middle ground were in good focus.

BY: Carmen Aguirre, Fred Halle, and John Wilkens

Athletes in other Sports

A few weeks ago, we were completely clueless as to how to go about capturing photographs and using computer programs to digitally enhance them. With a few days of hands on learning and practice, we were able to learn the trade fairly quickly. After pondering a few different themes, we decided that we wanted our photos to define the people at National Sports Academy. The photographs, as you will see, show the students of NSA doing things other than their everyday sport. Our point was to show that our school is more than just a skiing, hockey, and luge community. We are a community that supports the diversity in each and every one of us and that has a tremendous amount of respect and admiration for the talents within us. More importantly, we don't allow our sports and interests to define us, rather we define them.

We think this is a great photograph because there are shadows, such as the one cast from Annie as well as the one from the fence. Also, the trees make a nice frame and the ball is caught above the mountains, which catches the eye. We also liked the angle that we captured the photo from. Rather than a side view or front

view, we were lucky to capture the behind view.

We liked this picture because it was framed with the trees and the background is composed of beautiful mountains. Even though it's a still photograph, there is a sense of movement and action. We utilized the color balance tool to make the red on the court pop making for an interesting photo.

I really liked the framing of the trees in the background of this picture and the way the faded crosswalk almost leads to it. I picked this picture because I catches wilkins riding the like between falling and pulling the slide off. 

Uhhhhh is what I thought when I saw the out come of this picture, with the same framing as with Wilkins, this picture caught a little moment of what us long boarders would call steezy.

Peach was more then ecstatic when he heard our group was going to take pictures of him on his bike, which is understandable because im sure he will get plenty of likes from his pears for these artsy pictures. I really appreciated the setting of this picture, the symmetry seemed to be set up perfectly for a trials biker with the two rocks side by side, the framing of the trees in the back round and mountain that seem to be point right at peach while he makes the hope from one rock to the next

Although I was not a big fan of the buildings in the back round and pete fish didn’t approve of having a student on a power box I felt like the framing of the trees drew my attention towards peach on the top of the box. I thought the little bit of graffiti helped the arts part of the picture as well.

My favorite picture of the day, this abandoned lakeside building created what seems to me a European setting. At this particular moment I was able to catch the focus and strength that goes into manipulating his bike off the ledge.-peach in building

Dude back flip, little Chewpas face says it all in this picture. The framing of the trees and perfect blue Skye in the background really made the power and strength that went into Adens gutsy flip show.

Photography Project

When our teacher asked us to create a photo-essay with some sort of theme behind it, we were at a bit of a loss. But then we realized that one thing that was unique to each person here was his or her possessions. So, even though each one of us eats off of the same 9” plate each day and falls asleep in rooms that have almost identical dimensions, the spaces that we take up are still wildly different and reflective of the people who live there. So, we took some pictures. A lot of pictures. Mostly a lot of bad pictures, but we think we found some pictures that are both aesthetically pleasing and germane to the topic at hand. Some pictures definitely show the personalities of the residents of the room, while others may simply identify the owner of the objects in the room, while (we hope) others are simply just cool to look at.

In short, three photographers set off on a quest to capture the essence of a person through an image of their possessions, and we think we found success.  

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We thought this was an intriguing combination of items of the dresser that showed the personality of a goalie.

This picture we thought was unique because you don't find many roommates that decide to push their beds together into one big bed. We messed around with the color saturations to make the colors of the bedspreads pop, and otherwise just let the picture be.  

This pictures was taken in probably the coolest dorm room at National Sports Academy. The guitar looked artistic so we placed it against a messy dresser, and we also threw our room pet into the equation (see if you can spot him). Otherwise, despite some struggles with the photo editing, we managed to keep the guitar in color with the rest of the room in black and white. Cool, right?

Ah yes, two essential components of the NSA dorm room: fruit and movies. We brought in an expert to help us with a highly technical photo-editing skill, known to the photography community as the "supernova." We think it really made the picture.

Take a trip into Mountain House with this picture. We liked the set-up symmetry of the room, as well as the speaker so nicely taped up on the wall. Oh yeah, and the lovely Maxim poster. 

And now we return to the girls dorm with this collection of sparkly items on the dresser. 

Check it out. 

When we started with this picture, we thought it was an interesting perspective but it didn't seem like there was a lot we could do with it. In the end, we went with a clearly “faked” picture, and it looks kind of cool.  

To end our photo journey, we leave you with this picture of a bouquet of flowers that we found in the girls dorm. The flowers weren't the prettiest but we like that in the midst of our busy academic and athletic activities we still have time to remember the other things that are important in our lives. 

-NSA's Period 2 Journalism Class: Gwen Schultz, Kathyn Dawson, and Milan Bubic

T.E.N.N.I.S

By: Frédérick Hallé

People playing tennis. 

The spring fest activities started Last Tuesday after a two weeks spring break. Student came back fresh and ready to start something new, different then their sports. There are many activities that students can do, like cycling, yoga, yearbook, rock climbing, tennis and many others.

Tennis is a sport that everyone knows about, but not everyone has played it. Here at NSA Luke Hudak, who played high level of tennis in college, is responsible for all tennis blocks, since it has started 3 years ago.  

He played at St-Michael’s on the varsity tennis team. He was the third best player out of 9 and on the first double team. He played a year of hockey and 4 of tennis and when I ask him why tennis, he said: ‘’It’s a two season sports where hockey is only one’’ and he went on and added, ‘’ I was better at tennis and it was more fun’’. We can see how true that can be with being captain for 3 years with a season of 22 wins and 4 lost, being 3 times part of the 12 all conference players out of approximately 15 teams for a total of 150 players. We understand that students that chose to play tennis will listen to him because he knows how to make you better.

There are around 20 students who took tennis as a spring fest activities and I little bit more girls seemed interested.

Tennis is only 3 days a week so students had to choose a second activity that they wanted to do to complete the 6 mandatory blocks per week. Hudak said that in case of bad weather, students would have to go the next day, unless they have another activity already chosen for that block. Since it started, the rain made it impossible to move the activity to the next day so these blocks had just been canceled. Hopefully the weather will allowed them to practice to be ready to play Northwood.

Students that want to, have a change to compete in matches against NSA biggest rivalry, Northwood. No date as been decided but it should be soon since the end of the year is coming fast.

Having 4 tennis courts, gives a chance to students that decided to choose another activity to play at lunchtime or during their free time. I have noticed that a lot of students find tennis a fun game, because it is totally different than hockey or skiing.

All that students’ need for tennis is a racquets because the school as balls, and most of people that have a racquet leave it in front of students mail box, which allowed someone that does not have a racquet to be able to play. 

Spring Electives: Cycling

By Brittany Moorehead

As the winter sports come to an end, it’s time to gear up for spring electives at NSA. Every year NSA offers multiple electives to the students. They have a wide variety to choose from including yoga, rock art, rock climbing, bouldering, gardening, tennis and many more that make it very easy to fill up their seven weekly blocks with. Cycling is also offered at the school which is a very popular sport in the Adirondack region.

This course is offered by NSA’s own, Jim Williams who is a Math and Exercise Physiology teacher. This program is made possible by Williams as well as Allen Rego and Dave McCahill. Williams has years of experience with biking. He has worked with a variety of professional cycling teams such as Rona and Colavita and started riding as a kid as cross training for hockey.

“Eric Heiden inspired me,” said Williams “I figured if he could win five gold medals[in speed skating] with biking, it could help me as well.”

Cycling is a great way to stay in shape during the off season because there is far less impact when compared to running. Running can be very demanding on the body, especially the knees. This year NSA welcomes its largest group to the cycling community with 9 boys and 8 girls. It appears that young athletes are starting to realize how beneficial biking is in their sport.

“Cycling builds a tremendous aerobic base,” stated Williams, “that all athletes competing in sports here can benefit from.”

This is a great program to have at NSA because it introduces kids to something new and unfamiliar from their one sport. Lake Placid is also the perfect place for biking with all the hills and picturesque views in the surrounding. Every bend in the road leads to a new scene which beats riding a stationary bike in a gym any day.

The cycling crew is scheduled to meet every day, Monday through Friday but with weather and other factors that is impossible to do. On average, they probably end up meeting three times a week which is plenty of biking when out for two hours. Biking is also very flexible if students had to sign up for another elective that consumes most of their time, they are welcome to come whenever they are free.

For the kids who don’t get enough biking in with the Spring program, they hold Thursday night worlds. This is a race that brings the competiveness out in everyone. The route loops around River Road twice. A variety of bikers come to compete in this fun race that are out to push themselves as well as one another.

Also, every Wednesday night there is a time trial which consists of 16 to 20 minutes of intense effort. This is demanding but shows the kids how they are improving and building a better aerobic base.

Transitioning from working with professional athletes to students who are new to the sport can be frustrating, but Williams seems to love helping out.

“Working with this program is completely different,” said Williams “it’s much more relaxed and fun working with the students here.”

With the help of Williams, Rego, and McCahill, the NSA biking squad should have no problem tearing up the roads of Lake Placid.

Fiber Arts Class

By: John Wilkins

Spring Fest at National Sports Academy kicked off this week on Tuesday afternoon after the 8a.m.-2p.m. class’s finished.   One new class in the Spring Fest curriculum is Fiber Arts.

            Fiber Arts is a class made to teach students how to create their own clothing and accessories out of yarns and felts to their own preference.  It’s a class that helps bring out everyone’s originality and gives people the knowledge on how to make your owns hats, scarfs, shirts, and more.

            In week one’s class last Tuesday students went the Adirondack Yarns in Lake Placid to check out different colors and patterns of yarn that they may use for knitting and crocheting.  They also got to see some final products that were hand made by some of the workers and how well you can make them.  If you didn’t know any better one might think some were made in a factory.

            This yesterday was day two of the  Fiber Arts class.  Students were given the option to crochet a hat or head band, or knit a hat or scarf.  Andrea St.John tought students how to knit while Cathrine Dawson and John Wilkins taught the crocheting.    John brought his and Matty Saehrigs collection of hats and head bands to show the class some examples of what to make and most people decided they wanted to crochet.

            The class was entertained with a guest appearance by Luke Hudak while he tried to teach some of the class how to juggle three tenis balls.  Steph Lawee was struggling on her hat for a while but then impressed the class with her juggling skills.  Nicole Gianano Started on her grey hat and made a lot of progress while also helping Fred Halle start his first hat.  Kathryn Masson made a lot of progress on a really cool sick red head band then unfortunately ran out of red yarn right before she finished.  It seemed like everyone was exited to learn how to make there own hats and head bands and I think a lot of them will continue making them,

            Week three’s class will continue crocheting, while also getting the option of learning how to knit as well.  The difference between knitting and crocheting is the patterns of loops you make as well as the tool you are using.  While crocheting you use a singal hook, but while knitting you use two needles.  Also the most common item knitted would be scarfs while it would be hats for crocheting.

            Week four students will be felting, where we will be taking pieces of felt, cutting them into the shapes and designs , then sewing them onto articles of clothing such as sweaters, hats, neck gators, or bassiclly anything that the students have made in class.

            Week five will be about finishing up and getting help on any projects we have had so that everyone will be able to finish a few different things and be able to continue making them on there own.

            It is not definite but the class is going to try to have a day where they can bring in two or more of there own shirts, cut them up, and sew them together to make one unique shirt that is the exact size and fit you like.   

Rock Climbing by Zach Stein

At NSA spring fest just started and the majority of the students signed up for Rock Climbing.  I had the chance to talk two students at NSA that take this elective.  Sam Bloom has been doing rock climbing for years and has been showing Scott Wood his techniques, and equipment they have to use.  “There are two different types of rock climbing: belaying and bouldering” said Scott Wood.  “Bouldering is a style of rock climbing undertaken without a rope.  There are very short climbs with a crash pad underneath so if anyone falls there will be no serious injury.  Bouldering is usually done in a gym, but it can be done outdoors.  During the hockey season Sam and I would go to the open gym to do bouldering.  Now that there is Rock Climbing as a spring elective I don’t have to do that.  “Belaying involves knowing all the techniques, safety hazards, how to tie your rope, and hook in” said Sam Bloom.

 “There are several different techniques” said Sam Bloom.  I asked Bloom if he could describe the techniques in more depth. “ There is an arm bar/elbow bar technique.  This is when you jam your arm into a crack and lock it into place.  The bridging, or stemming technique is when you climb a corner with your legs spread wide apart, and your feet relying on friction or very small holds.  The third technique is called campusing.  This is when you use only your arms to pull yourself up.  The fourth technique I use is the chest jam.  The chest jam is when you jam the torso into a wide crack, to rest.  The Chimneying technique is a little difficult than the others.  This technique involves climbing between opposing rock faces, with the back and hand against one face and the feet against the other face, or alternating between both.  The last technique I use is called Dyno.  This is when you take your momentum and jump and reach the rock and hold beyond your reach.

“In conclusion around ten people attend this rock climbing activity said Scott Wood”. “As of right now NSA students are banned from the climbing gym.  The owner said the NSA students are disrespectful and don’t pick up when they are done.  Some of the students tried picking up and helping them out so they weren’t banned.  He was demanding obscured tasks to be done, a lot of the students left.  As I was leaving the owner threw an empty bottle that I left.  He told me to recycle it along with my brain.  He also said none of us have a worth ethic.  I personally got annoyed with this statement and walked out of there.”  I asked Bloom and Wood if they think this ban will be permanent or temporary.  “I think this situation will just be temporary until we clear things up with the owner.  The kids at NSA are really respectful at the climbing gym, and always pick up after themselves.  There had to been a misunderstanding.  I really enjoy rock climbing and the climbing gym, like I said before I used to go during the hockey season.  If we are banned permanently I won’t be that upset because im am not coming back next year, but for the next couple weeks I would have to find some other activities to keep busy.”

                I did some research and thru my conversations with Sam and Scott have come up with the following list for rock climbing.  Equipment-rope, cord, webbing, carabineers, quick draws, harness, belay devices, ascenders, Slings, Daisy Chain, Protection devices, nuts, hexes, spring loaded camming devices, tricams, training equipment’s-, grip savers, fingerboards, campus boards, bachar ladder, Specialized Clothing-, helmet, climbing shoes, belay gloves, Miscellaneous Equipment-tape, Haul bag, Gear Sling, Bouldering Mat, Chalk, Chalk Bag, Resin, Nut tool, Rope bag Webbing