The Imaging Science Show: I thought I was the Big Shot around here.

I have just returned from the first official CIS participation in the RIT Big Shot! For those who are unfamiliar, each year the RIT School of Photographic Arts and Sciences coordinates and produces a long-exposure photograph whose only source of illumination is handheld light (flashlights, camera flashes, etc.) provided by volunteers. The process is called "painting with light", since volunteers move their lights around like paintbrushes to illuminate the whole object evenly over the length of the exposure. The resulting photo is striking and rather eerie, and achieves and effect otherwise not possible at night or with a typical long exposure. You can view a few past examples and read more of the history here.

Although the Center for Imaging Science (now housed in the College of Science) grew out of the school of Graphic Arts and Photography (now Photographic Arts and Sciences) way back when, there has never been an "official" CIS component to the annual Big Shot tradition. Various CIS'ers have participated as volunteers, sure; but the show really belongs to CIAS. This year, it was decided to get more involved - and so CIS was going to add a 3-D reconstruction to the Big Shot repertoire, something that (to our knowledge) had never been attempted before. And what a year to do it, as Big Shot #28 was to be of the biggest subject yet attempted by RIT: Cowboys Stadium!!

I first heard about this a few months ago when I was asked whether I thought there would be value in going for outreach purposes. There was the potential for interaction with high schools, presenting to a photo society filled with high school-age photographers, and other various avenues to reach out to prospective students in an area not very familiar with RIT. Besides, there is always a huge media machine surrounding the Big Shot, especially for #28 since it was to be in an unfamiliar area yet would require the greatest number of volunteers so far. With all this press for photography at RIT, we could hope to attract those science and math-minded photogs through the Imaging Science 3-D component. That sounded good to me, and hey it was worth a try (it was about time, in fact), so I was on board.

So, how did it turn out? Well, I have to say I have mixed feelings about my personal participation. I flew down last Thursday morning, in preparation for a seminar to be given to high school students. The presentation was to consist of history and information about the Big Shot, with a brief introduction to the 3-D reconstruction theory and an even briefer introduction to CIS. I must admit, I was hoping for a little more stage time than that, but it didn't matter anyways. Why? Because nobody. showed. up. Nobody. Letters were sent out to 150 schools. Arlington Camera (a store that apparently has a lot of pull in the area schools) also had an announcement to help promote the talk. Plus whatever other media whirlwind the organizers had going on.... Nobody showed. Wow. This was a major blow to me, as this seminar seemed like the most relevant event for me to be there for. This was the only educational component that ended up materializing, out of all the outreach I was hoping for, and even it didn't actually materialize. (Maybe because it was buried in an auditorium that was difficult to find on a college campus within what seemed to be their athletic center? But that's besides the point.) At this point I started to feel an overwhelming sense of guilt - why was I there? What useful function would I be serving? I couldn't help feeling like I was going to result in a disappointing return on investment, and I started blaming myself. Maybe I should have looked up some schools to try to visit on my own (though getting into schools is hard enough to do around here with schools I actually have a relationship with). Maybe I should have tried to help with the organization and promotion of the talk (though I have no idea how I could have done that - but maybe if I pushed the organizers harder?).

At this low point, I decided it would be my role to promote the heck out of CIS's participation in the Big Shot. The remainder of my week/end was to be spent following the 360 Team (as the 3D CIS folks dubbed themselves) around and documenting their every relevant move. The CIS Twitter and Facebook were going to see a rate of updates unlike any they had ever experienced. Anybody who cared to follow would get a detailed play-by-play as if they were there and part of the action. And that is what I, Senior Associate of Outreach and Communications, was going to bring to the table. That's enough to make the expense of sending me to Texas all worth it.... Right....? :-\

You never would have known no one was at our talk. Unlike my brutally honest blog, I make sure to only highlight the positive when I'm posing as CIS online.

And the Tweeting frenzy begins.

Friday was basically a free day (thus intensifying my guilt even more), though I had been told we were invited to tour Cowboys Stadium in the afternoon along with the RIT CIAS crew that was arriving that morning. Matt and I (oh yeah, did I mention Matt was there too? He tagged along- on our own dime, for the record) went off and did our own thing, but around 4:30 I cleverly posted a status about being a part of the tour, since I assumed the rest of the 360 team did go....

The infamous update... You'll see why.

6:30PM rolls around and there is a "planning dinner" scheduled that we were definitely supposed to be a part of, so we rendezvous there but no one had shown up yet. A bus-load of who was obviously RIT art students (no, I'm not reinforcing stereotypes... they were all wearing matching shirts) started spilling in, but I still didn't see my fellow CIS'ers. Eventually they showed, and the first thing I hear is, "Well, we hope you enjoyed the stadium!" To which I scoffed because I didn't want to go, anyways. Turns out they saw the status update and thought that Matt and I were there (a-ha! My plan worked!) - and they were jealous because they were told that they were not actually allowed to go due to space constraints, and they were wondering how I weaseled my way in. Now, this story is different depending on who tells it, and I have no idea what the real story is since I was not a part of it nor was I very privy to any of the organization - I am only repeating what I heard. But that was pretty awkward. Are we welcomed to be a part of this, or not? I already felt like enough of an outsider, since my role had been reduced to following the 360 team around; but now they were feeling like outsiders, too. Were we even supposed to be at this dinner? Jury's still out on that one, since it did turn out there weren't enough seats for everyone...

Anyways, at this dinner they had something like 50 or 100 or what seemed like an endless stack of posters, which we were supposed to each sign and pass along assembly line-style so that at the end of the Big Shot we'd all receive a souvenir poster with everyone's signature on it. This made me feel like even more of an outsider - nobody knows who I am, or why I'm there, and why would they care about my signature? I'm not a part of their crew... I can only imagine how Matt felt. We started out each only signing every other one and using the name "Mathany" to encompass us both - who would know the difference, anyways - and that way we each only had to do half as much work. The exercise was tedious, and the insignificance of our participation did not escape us, so our signatures dwindled down to instead saying "That Guy", and then eventually to nothing as we stopped signing altogether. So if you happen to see one of these posters and wonder who "Mathany" or "That Guy" was, the secret's out. I can tell you, though, one place you will not be seeing one of those posters is in my office. I never ended up receiving one. Guess that serves me right.

At any rate, the dinner was delicious, and the venue was interesting and seemingly authentic. There was a cowboy band that would play at regular intervals, and people would go out on the dance floor. The Big Shot crew of course took advantage of this many times, and also made sure to publicly embarrass various CIAS heavy-hitters as often as possible. They also snagged the microphone at one point to promote the Big Shot and encourage everyone to come out the next day. (I don't think the wedding reception also present was very happy about having to share the spotlight.) Meanwhile, Carl went down a slide.

On top of feeling like a loser outsider, I was disconnected from pretty much everything as I was trying to keep the tweets coming and also to get the video of Carl on the slide posted to the Facebook page (which you would think would be easy, but it's not. How many Imaging Scientists does it take....). I found a respite from my discomfort in that the 360 team was peacing out to go do a final nighttime test shot, so obviously I had to go with them to document this on social media. However, I was presented with a new discomfort in that, despite being in Texas, it was only like 45º and none of us had brought appropriate clothing for the surprisingly chilly weather. Not only that, but I didn't have a whole lot to contribute besides the status updates, which was killing me inside because I wanted to be a more useful part of the team. I am an imaging scientist too, of course.... Sigh. Is this what it feels like to be a Roadie?

Saturday was to be the big day. There was some promo event in the morning at Arlington Camera, but although I was told about it I wasn't really invited... so I guess it was just a Big Shot show, and I didn't want to step on anyone's toes. In the afternoon I was slated to man a booth at the Art on the Greene festival, who had donated table space to us. The weather this day was particularly unattractive... Misty rain in the morning, chilly temperatures, and incessant wind to boot. Oh, and did I mention that Art on the Greene is an outdoor festival? Great...

At least our booth had a wind screen.

Throughout my 3 hour shift, I was only visited by a handful of people, and they weren't really that interested in hearing what I had to say about the Big Shot, much less RIT and even less so Imaging Science. Whenever I asked, "So, will we see you tonight?" every single person said no. Every. One. Excuses ranged from blaming the weather to saying they already had plans. We did at least get some attention from a well-intended, seemingly homeless guy who kept bringing various vendors from the food trucks over to the booth to tell them about how cool the Big Shot was; but they were all working the festival until 9PM so they couldn't come out to participate anyways (but they did keep offering us discounts on their food....). Adding to my frustration was the fact that a plea for help had been sent out to many people to volunteer for this event, and only three people (and that's including me) stepped up. So not only did we not have multiple people at the booth at once, we had to each take longer shifts. And the most miserable part of all was that it was SO COLD. Thank goodness there was a U2 cover band that seemed to play endlessly so that I could dance around in place to keep myself warm without looking totally insane. Meanwhile, could you really blame people for not wanting to come out for the festival (or the Big Shot that night, for that matter)?

At the conclusion of my shift, I went to rendezvous with the 360 team in case they needed anything. They didn't, so I took what spare time was left to go to a store and pick up some leggings to wear under my jeans and a blanket to snuggle in for later. After sitting out in the cold wind at the festival for three hours, I was chilled to the bone and didn't want to take any chances later when we were going to have to be outside again. I tried to also buy gloves (which seems so silly, coming from the cold white north... I should have brought some with me to begin with) but apparently no one in the entire state of Texas sells any (why would they need them?). We returned to Cowboys stadium with a bag stocked full of flashlights, blankets, cameras, and various gear (including a solar-charged battery that did indeed end up coming in handy when my phone started dying - Can't let the tweeting stop!!!!) and headed in for the Alumni Reception.

Welcome to the STAR CLUB

The Reception was pretty cool - we had the whole stadium to ourselves, and the main event was in the swanky "AT&T Star Club". I realize this is probably the only opportunity I will ever have to be in such a place, especially with no one else around, but... meh. I don't care about football in the least, so, this wasn't really my bag. (Apologies to all the football fans out there who are no doubt infuriated about my lack of appreciation.) The food was very, very excellent, though. To my knowledge there were no ImSci alumni there; in fact, the reception seemed to be mostly the groups who came down from RIT, with just a few TX alumni sprinkled here and there... So the 360 team sat at a table by ourselves in the back like the high school outcasts at lunch, and just like the night before I made my escape by joining them for early setup. However I again felt awkward as I did not have much to do, so I spent my time posting pictures and wandering around looking for something interesting to take pictures of. I spotted this guy walking in with a ridiculously over-the-top setup, so I followed him in to take his picture. Well, turns out he wasn't all set up yet, and since I was polite enough to ask if I could take his picture he roped me in to helping him get all his rigging together and equipment hooked up and on and on, which took upwards of 20 minutes or more. You're welcome... Finally, I snapped a picture -

What can I possibly even say about this.

- and although it was blurry, someone else started asking him about his setup so I had to seize my chance to skeedaddle out of there. At this point it wasn't long before the first shot was supposed to go off, so I headed over to, well somewhere; really I wandered around among the select 12 photographers helping out the 360 team like a lost puppy, in case someone wanted me. I settled near one who used to be an imsci student (hooray! someone I know!) and readied for the first shot. I already gave a pretty detailed play-by-play on Facebook/Twitter, so I won't bother repeating myself...

For complete coverage, visit https://www.facebook.com/RITimagingsci

During the first shot, I hid behind a transformer in the parking lot and took pictures backwards of the crowd painting the stadium with light. These pictures didn't come out that well, though, so for the remainder of the shots I joined the crowd and did my part to illuminate. This was a pretty funny experience - we had to wave our flashlights around while shuffling to the left throughout the duration of the exposure. It was a little disorganized, and not everyone was successful at waving their lights around randomly enough while avoiding the 360 team photographers in front of us and while shuffling, but whatever. There would be more chances to get it right, and in the digital age, there isn't really any possibility of failure...

During one of the shots, we left a camera standing to capture video of the stadium being painted with light - you can watch it here. (By the way, those 2-3 bright lights you see going perfectly vertically straight up and down the side of the stadium? Yeah, they're doing it wrong. Not to mention they kept going well after the "Lights off!" command was yelled several times...)

After 5 attempts, we were done! Or, at least, I was. The Big Shot team and 360 team all went to the Cowboys press room to scramble to get the images processed, while I went back to my hotel room to relax before catching my early morning flight home and to catch my breath after orchestrating the CIS social media frenzy. You wouldn't think it would be that hard, but it was exhausting. And, a little annoying - I was so distracted by constantly having to take and post pictures and updates, and felt so frazzled having to constantly predict and think of what to post next, that I hardly felt like I got to experience and enjoy the whole event. Anybody reading my updates was experiencing it just as much as I was, regardless of their geographical location.

Anyways, let's cut to the chase: without further ado, here they are, Big Shot 2013 and its 3-D reconstruction!