Ever wanted to trace your family’s roots? Take better photos on your iPhone? Get the most out of travel?
This month, the office of Student Activities and Leadership Development is hosting a Try It Tuesdays initiative to introduce students to new hobbies that can be practiced safely during and after the pandemic.
Try It Tuesdays highlight skills that connect to campus offices and organizations, in partnership with experts in certain fields. The series kicked off Feb. 2 with a session on photography; the next sessions will be genealogy on Feb. 9, travel hacking on Feb. 16, and palmistry (with tarot card readings) on Feb. 23. All sessions begin at 7PM on Zoom.
The activities don’t stop when this month ends. Starting in March, SALD will feature a new club every Tuesday at 7PM that students can try by attending a meeting or an open practice.
“We want students to be bold and try new, fun activities while staying safe and stopping the spread of COVID. The goal is that during the spring semester, students are introduced to a new skill or hobby that develops into a passion."
Emily Rocha, assistant director of SALD
Check out SALD’s calendar of events or email activities@siena.edu for more information. Registration is required only for the tarot card readings because there is a limited number of spots.
Passion was a key word in the photography class taught by Andy Murphy ’17, assistant director of digital strategy. His first question to the class: “What are you passionate about photographing?”
Most said animals, travel sites or landscapes, so he used those subjects to help them explore features and settings on their iPhones that will make images and colors pop. They talked about the importance of lighting, and the “exposure triangle” of aperture, iso and shutter to help turn their shots from meh to memorable.
Zariyah Fowler '21 enjoys snapping photos of her dog and two cats - when she can get them to hold still.
“I tend to simply snap an image I want to capture and don’t think twice about it. Andy’s photography class focused on some unique features that iPhone cameras have that I never knew about!”
One of the tips the class touched on was the use of portrait mode, which offers photo enhancement. Fowler said she has been taking more pictures of her pets in this mode to really bring out their features. They also covered posing subjects, getting good expressions, and editing photos.
