R. Chase Tralka Photography » Penn State

Bin Laden Celebration

Chase — Sun, 01 May 2011 18:26:42 +0000

Last night, President Obama addressed the nation to announce that US Special Forces had found and killed Osama bin Laden. Having grown up just outside New York City, the devastation bin Laden caused on 9/11 was felt throughout my town. My father’s office building at the time stood immediately next to the Twin Towers, but thankfully he was in Princeton that day.

Following President Obama’s announcement, thousands of Penn State students rushed to Beaver Avenue to celebrate the event. The celebration was incredibly peaceful and happy, police involvement was minimal beyond them putting out a small fine and redirecting traffic. It was an enjoyable and emotional event, with some pretty cool photos just waiting to be taken.

MIT Open

Chase — Tue, 05 Apr 2011 15:56:51 +0000

Ballroom has started to become a true passion for me. I’ve been spending more and more time out of class working on my technique and have started helping out with some of the intro classes, which has been a lot of fun. This past weekend the team traveled to Cambridge, MA to compete in the MIT Open. The MIT Open is one of the largest collegiate dance competitions on the East Coast, with several hundred competitors. It was quite intimidating, but also an unbelievable experience. Getting to see the top dancers in the Northeast was awesome, and the showcase couple was unbelievable. Anywho, pics below.

Keystone Classic

Chase — Sun, 27 Mar 2011 16:31:40 +0000

I’m back with more ballroom pictures, this time from Penn State. Yesterday the Penn State Ballroom Dance Club hosted the Keystone Classic, a small competition, in the Intramural Building on campus. The competitors were mostly from Penn State, but there were a few other schools in attendance. It was a fun, informal competition that really helped give me an idea of where I stood amongst my classmates. As usual, I had my camera in hand when I wasn’t on the floor, so enjoy the shots.

Penn State Wrestling vs Illinois

Chase — Sat, 12 Feb 2011 23:23:01 +0000

Interestingly, my most recent post was about Penn State versus Illinois, but in basketball. Last night I went to the Penn State – Illinois wrestling match. This was a completely new experience for me, having never been to a wrestling match, let alone photographed one. So I went into this with a lot of trepidation, I had no idea where to shoot from, didn’t have a press pass, and had no idea how the scoring worked. Not surprisingly, I didn’t come out of the event with many keepers, but I did get the one above, which I like as well as a pretty sweet shot of our coach, Cael Sanderson, looking completely badass. I’m told this is a relatively common occurrence though. The dude is a 4-time national champion wrestler and Olympic gold medal winner.

Penn State – Illinois Basketball

Chase — Wed, 12 Jan 2011 19:52:36 +0000

Penn State played Illinois yesterday in the Bryce Jordan Center. The Illini were ranked 16th in the nation and the Nittany Lions were looking to knock off their second straight top-25 opponent. The crowd was really into the game, despite being rather small (around 8,000). In the end Penn State took home the victory 57-55. The fans rushed the court, not sure how I feel about that, but whatever. Shooting wasn’t great, but I did get the above shot of Andrew Jones, which I’m really happy with.

I’ve still got a lot of basketball ahead of me, so we’ll see what we end up with.