A woman walks across the stage, painfully slow. Her skin is a stark, pale white that is characteristic of ghosts. The sound of her footsteps echoes throughout the theater, creating an ominous allusion that she is walking to her death. But she instead ends up at a dinner table, along with an innocent young woman, a sullen old man, a salacious boy, and a conflicted gentleman. The old man wields a gun, using it to shoot the indecent boy that sits across from him at the table, his young counterpart.

As a New Yorker, I must regretfully state that before Monday night, I had never been to Carnegie Hall. It had always been something I heard about, something enigmatic and profound that represented the pinnacle of success in the music world. If you had performed at Carnegie Hall, you were somebody worth listening to. After walking around the whole building and entering 2 out of the 3 entrances, I finally found my way to where I was supposed to be. The Ensemble ACJW event was being held in the Weill Recital Hall.

The most prominent art form in my life is music. Being raised in a Spanish home amidst a white neighborhood played a large role in my music taste. I would hear salsa and merengue playing every night while my mom cooked, but still learned about American classic rock and listened to anything spanning in between those two opposites. I can honestly say I give any type of music a chance. That is not to say that I like EVERYTHING within the different groups, but that I don't like to discriminate based on genre or artist.

 Capturing an image of a place where you feel comfortable, at home, and shows a piece of you is a difficult task. All these feelings, while real in the heart of the photographer, are intangible, things not so easily captured in a photograph. Me, being inexperienced as a photographer, found this especially hard. Despite the difficulty, this assignment was one of my favorites.

On Thursday night, I had the pleasure of viewing a presentation by Thomas Neff consisting of photographs he took of the devastation caused by Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans. We all have heard of the tragedy, but it is an entirely different experience to see it right in front of you, uncensored and without someone sugar-coating it. It's unlike the news, which is a series of cold hard facts. It's more bare than that. It makes you feel, rather than just know. By being a photographer, Neff opened a window into these people's lives.