Independent One

I spent my time today working on researching some different types of photography to work off of. I spent some time looking up things that could help me thematically (like fairy tale fashion, photography, make up, etc.) in order to get inspiration for the shoot. Then I looked into specific photographers, and I fell into the work of Mario Testino and Terry Richardson. The two both have very different approaches to their photography, but they both essentially do the same thing - photograph fashion and people. I'm currently trying to see which route I feel I want to take. If I was to take inspiration from Mario Testino, I would most likely create some sort of spread of seven to eight photos following one theme or story line. If I was to follow a model closer to Terry Richardson's work, I would end up with something a little less structured and more portrait like (and somehow even more fun looking). 

photo by Mario Testino 

photo by Terry Richardson 

The Terry Richardson work is a lot like the photos we took as a class about two years back (my sophomore year) in hopes of creating a photography magazine. I remember working on that and those shoots as being incredibly fun and the idea of working on something like that again seems to be most appealing to me right now.

Also, I came across this site while I was doing my research. Personal note to keep this always in the back of my mind for future references: http://guessthelighting.com/ 

Q3

I worked along with Ashley, Michelle, Matt, and Anika in the photography intensive (or more specifically, the lighting intensive). We spent time learning the different types of studio lighting through research and application. While some techniques were harder to master than others, as a group we managed to get a good understanding of all the lighting, and a confidence in creating many of the lighting.

As a group the two lighting techniques we used the most were hatchet and butterfly. Holding a light slightly to the side and high above the subject’s face creates the hatchet look. Holding a light directly in front of and above the subject’s face creates the butterfly look.

Examples of hatchet:

Examples of paramount:

These two looks have two very different intended purposes - the hatchet is primarily used for men in order to create a harsh, masculine look, and the paramount is commonly used for women in order to create a “glamour shot.”

While these two lighting techniques were the easiest to get a grasp of and start working with, the other aspects of lighting that we researched were not lost on us. We also understood the differences between a key light and a fill light, experimented with background lighting, and utilized tools like umbrellas and boxes that helped adjust lighting to how we wanted it to be.

As the intensive progressed we also learned the value of incorporating ones personality and emotions into the photos. Unfortunately, once we learned that we need to capture the personality in order to create a great picture, we began putting too much emphasis onto trying to draw out character from our subjects, and not enough effort into creating great lighting.

Ultimately what I learned from this workshop is the basic tools and knowledge of studio lighting, the importance of personality in a photo, and the even more important fact that you can’t be willing to give up or loose technical foundations for creativity. Any great piece of art is a mix between the fundamentals and the fun.

Expressionism

It seems to me that Expressionism is about expressing core human emotions in an overbearing manner so that the audience feels completely overwhelmed by the emotions. While it is a movement that speaks directly to basic human feelings, it is ironically a movement that is hard to fully grasp at first.

Expressionism deals with a lot of ideas, mostly dark and leading to the emotions like anger, sadness, regret, or betrayal. Concepts like death, war, and love all seem to be constant topics for Expressionist work.

Expressionism is completely emotionally driven, which is evident in its lack of traditional structure. Emotions are not neatly organized and understood, and Expressionist art is the same way. There is no formula for creating and understanding emotion, and therefore there is no formula for creating and understanding Expressionist art.

The outcome of Expressionist work guarantees a rush of emotion for the viewer, and only suggests that the viewer thinks. Emotion comes first, and thoughtfulness is merely an afterthought.

Perception

Something about the way you see things is always changing. It's terrible, but great at the same time. I don't think I'm making much sense.

What I'm talking about is those times when you think of some one as incredibly ugly, but the longer you stare at them the prettier they become. And then suddenly, on a random moment, you're hit by their new found beauty and think them to be one of the most beautiful people you've ever met. I'm not talking about learning about the person and thinking them to be pretty because of their personality. I'm talking about just staring at some ones face and noticing that the strangeness in his nose is quite cute because of how it falls in the rest of his face, or the mole in the center of her face is actually adorable because of how it frames her mouth. Random things like that, that hit you at completely random times.

Or opposite to that, when you stare at something so long it becomes ugly. This is one that comes commonly with clothes. Like, when you buy a sweater on sale. The whole time in the store you were staring at this sweater in your hands and in your head you've agreed its the world's perfect sweater. Somewhere between the car ride home and placing the sweater on a hanger, you've noticed that the stitching is tacky and the cut is unflattering. Then your stuck with a sweater that was overpriced even when on sale and is non-returnable.

So what is it about noticing these details that changes are view of things so completely? For whatever reason, the small things seem to overpower the big picture until the details themselves become the big picture. They become all you see, all you know, all you think of. Is this what makes "detail-oriented" such a great thing to write on job applications? Is it the looming truth that eventually the details becomes all a person sees, regardless of how a finished product looks? Or is it just all-together impossible for something to look good without immaculate details to begin with?

Blockbuster Syndrome

Every now and then everyone gets a big old hit of blockbuster syndrome, but as I sit here staring at my common apps I wonder if there's ever a time where blockbuster syndrome is necessary.

The questions are simple - Why do you want to apply for your major? What makes you want to go to this school? What do you like about our program? Nothing really too difficult, so it shouldn't take me a week and a half to give 100 word answer for each question.

But it does take me a week and a half to write a paragraph, and the reason is fairly obvious. It's blockbuster syndrome. I want every idea to be my greatest ever, every sentence to be the best ever written, and every comma to be the most beautifully placed comma that the admissions officer has ever seen.

So now the question is, is blockbuster syndrome hurting or helping me?

While the writing may be really thought out, it might be worse than a casually written blog post. Less from the heart and more from a robot. And who wants a robot attending their top tier school?

Then there's also the whole time thing. (Especially when you're applying to 15 schools, with 8 of them being early action with november deadlines.)

I guess I'll go back to figuring out things to tell my safety schools when they ask me why I'm applying...

Stac Wide Web

When STAC was initially given the mural assignment, I couldn't of cared less about the meaning of it. I was sure Luke had something great and meaningful to tie it all together with, but I was so engulfed by the image of the project that the value of it had become completely secondary. I had envisioned this beautiful, huge, web of words that was completely neat but completely messy at the same time. I imagined the words to be much larger, and to be planned out better and more uniformly. In my head it was this gorgeous thing of epic proportions that at first overwhelmed the viewer so much that it seemed impossible to read, but once the reading would actually begin it would become a simple task. I imagined something that you would see as a museum display.

Reality was far from imagination. Reality was chaos in differently sized and spaced words. Reality was writing that overwhelmed you not only as you look at it but also as you plunged into reading it. But I think reality might of been a lot more fulfilling.

If we really did spend the time to make it perfect - to use the stencils, and organize our thoughts, and create the layout - it may of not had the same affect. The way we did it allowed us to go into ourselves to see why we like the things we like, find connections, reasons, and more connections, and then some connections with other STACies. It was satisfying.

My imagination would of brought another kind of satisfaction - the kind of satisfaction that would of been more "factory" driven. The satisfaction of something beautiful. Reality brought the satisfaction of discovery.

Writing Workshop #5

It's funny how you spend your whole high school career learning how to not write the way you talk and then have a published author tell you that the best writing is the kind where it sounds like the writer talking.

And it seems like school does this all the time, especially when it comes to arts education. They focus on one thing, one thing thats really one one-millionth of the subject as a whole, until you almost forget whatever God given talent you had to begin with. They focus on the tiny little technical aspects until the only good thing left in your writing is your ability to place commas.

While schools won't ever be able to "teach" talent per-say, they're doing a really sucky job at letting their students know the importance of following your gut. Not only have they mixed in the talentless with the prodigies, but they've failed at letting the prodigies know that it's okay to go with your intuition sometimes when you really think it's going to work. School's just mixed everyone into a big melting pot of prison food. I would like no more, sir.

That's one of the best things about Reed's workshop. He's not pretending that he can teach you how to write. He knows that writing well is something that comes from within. He teaches you ways to work on letting yourself get to the point where your writing becomes you. (Or where you become your writing.) He gives time and prompts to work on becoming creatively free, and he gives you critiques to let you know when you've just gotten a bit too creative. It's that delicate balance that makes for a good workshop.