Self-Photography - Works #4-8

Self-Photograph #4: “Real Astronomy Research”
(Summer, 1998)



I took this one because I wanted some photos of me working at the Observatory that summer. I was going to (and did) use them in my student portfolio to show my experience with research and “real” science. I’m setting up the computer program attached to the telescope. Every night, we were recorded data from a quasar. We were just one research data collection site for a much bigger research project on this quasar.

You'll notice no telescope in the picture. That's because I'm in the tiny work room (closet) beside it. Most "professional" astronomers actually look at computers and spreadsheets more than they do through an actual telescope. It's the hobby astronomers who usually discover new stuff in the sky (Hale-Bopp Comet, for example), and that's why most of these objects are named after the hobbyists who find them.

Back to my adventures in professional (or academic) astronomy: Eventually, I had to ask a fellow student aide/volunteer to take some of me working with the big reflecting telescope. As it turns out, that student was Tina from my hometown O’Neill. Last I heard, she’s a graduate student at the University of Chicago studying physics and anatomy or some kind of combination like that. She’s very smart.





Self-Photograph #5: "Glasses and Might" (October, 1998)



In my dorm room. One advantage of having my own dorm room to myself (during my last college year), besides having a flexible "lights-out" time, is that the dorm room became my own private studio. Mom and Dad probably didn't expect all that $$ to get extra in return.






Self-Photograph #6: "Polo Might and Wisdom" (October, 1998)



Must have been a slow month. Me in my dorm room again. A double feature (“ooooh”).





Self-Photograph #7: "Nerf Stud" (October, 1998)



Slow month. Dorm room.

Me and my Nerf gun. I bought it on our UNL band trip to Kansas City. For our free time, we shopped around the downtown area. I had to get something to remember the trip and for fun on the bus, so the answer, of course, was “Nerf.” I used this when we stretched for the game that night (and ticked some people off). I also used it when I dressed up as a Man in Black for Halloween that year.

Notice in the top photo, you see the profile of the Nerf gun and the front of me. In the second photo, however, you see the front of the Nerf gun and my profile. There’s symbolism in this somewhere.



Self-Photograph #8: "Trumpet Skit" (October, 1998)



These two pictures are from the trumpet skit we did before the game that day (on Halloween against Texas and Ricky Williams. We lost. But my Dad went to the game and then afterwards, my parents, Cathlina, and I all went to “The Wizard of Oz on Ice” at the Pershing Auditorium. It was a fun time.).

For the skit, I was pretending to be one of the drum majors (Jeremy, a great guy – always positive and fun; that’s him with me in the bottom photo) who would take pictures of the band in the stands while he stood in front of us on the directing ladder. During the skit, I’d take pictures of the band in the band room watching us, then I ran out into the crowd and took some photos with me in them.

I guess October was just a busy month, too. And this was in the band room, not my dorm room.


More Self-Photography on its way! (Hopefully sooner than last time :')