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Today's Photography Merit Badge Workshop


We just concluded today's in-house Photography Merit Badge Workshop. We had 11 Boy Scouts in attendance. Thank you to Mr. Latimer and Mr. Roldan for assistance.
Although we talked about camera equipment, we see the camera simply as a tool for our creative efforts. The camera--whether it costs $180 or $5000--lets us control shutter speed and aperture size. But the real focus (pun intended) was being creative & purposeful with types of light, motion, depth of field, color temperature, angle of view, rule of thirds, and other concepts. The Scouts' projects were an impressive collection of photographs. Their completed worksheets documented a great amount of pre-work.
Finally, we collaborated together as a team of photographers, lighting specialist, artistic directors, background grips, key grips, and talent to showcase what we learned. Even when we experienced an unforeseen technical glitch with the lighting equipment, we remained calm and leveraged our training to adjust & execute the shot. Our resulting image, after the digital darkroom, is above.
Congratulations to all of our class graduates!

Fortunato Eagle Project

Boy scouts from Troop 122 based in Overland Park, Kansas today worked an Eagle Scout service project organized by Eagle Scout candidate Xander Fortunato at Elmwood Cemetery in Kansas City, MO. The focus was the civil war-era tombstones that needed to be reset and cleaned. Xander used an innovative homemade tripod system to help lift the tombstones, which weigh in access of 250 pounds. The scouts placed new foundations using a sand & mortar mix.

Watch the video:

Elmwood board member Bruce Mathews has said, “I think this is the most historic place in Kansas City. Anybody who was anybody in the early days of Kansas City is buried here.” 36,000 people are buried among the 43 acres. Graves of 12 former mayors, 800 Civil War veterans (700 Union, 100 Confederate), 15 founders of the Kansas City Board of Trade and 12 relatives of Harry Truman (including his grandfather) are found in Elmwood.

Photos from Day 2:







A View From The Adult Side.

The troop camped Friday & Saturday night at the Red Tail Hawk Camporee. While the boys were out earning first places trophies & ribbons in weather 20 degrees lower than normal, the men kept the home fires burning. Here's a "behind the scenes" look.

Eagle Project: Daniel Flurer and Crew!


Here's a video showing some highlights from "stage 1" of the Daniel Flurer "Eagle Scout Project" located at Bentwood Elementary in Overland Park, KS.  The project includes producing the United States map on the playground as well as re-painting the yellow lines in the parking lot.  Wind and lower than usual temperatures added to the fun!

Flintstone Cars!



"The Wright Brothers had Kity Hawk...we have Robertson's Farm."

One of the highlights of the May 2009 Robertson's Farm Camp-out was making & racing "Flintstone Cars." I didn't know what that meant...until I saw the parts & pieces. Wow - they're huge! They take quite a bit of engineering to build them. Lots of fun! We took over a country road & raced the two cars up and down hills against the clock. Here's a highlight video that I pieced together.

"That's how we roll here at Troop 122."