Blog Prompts #9, 10, 11

9. I really like the spinning cube in Ann Arbor because it looks pretty simple, but every time I come back from a visit there I look through my pictures only to discover much of my memory card is devoted to pictures and videos of us spinning the cube. If I were to make something in Photoshop I think I would make an animation where the cube spins and each side is a different picture.

10. An impossible scenario would be a person reading Deathly Hallows before the release date that does not work for Scholastic or Bloomsbury. This is actually not too simple a scenario to recreate because you could easily put a calender in the picture to place the time, but maybe the calender is old, how does the viewer know? So one would have to have a image of something very specific that could only have happened on or before a certain date, like international news or a picture of somebody alive that died before the book came out. This simple concept could actually be quite hard to recreate a scenario for because you would have to depend on images already taken.

11. When I think of combination I think of a bike lock, an outfit of several pieces, a mixed media piece, a brain, a person maturing into a grown-up, a dream where people keep changing form, a film set, a collaboration, companies merging, inspiration.

Cannon Ball Projections

I recorded my sister walking and jumping into a pool of shiny blue material. How? Projecting her image onto that piece of cloth! I shot a stop-motion video of her jumping, masked her images in photoshop and created an animation that I projected. I do not have the recording of the projection yet, but once I do I will post the image. The idea was the I wanted to project something falling or jumping into water. I thought of my sister jumping in because she's a swimmer and we have plenty of swim gear around the apartment. I shot her walking and then seperately had her do the cannonball motion while sitting on a stool because she obviously could not do a cannonball in the studio (She could have, but it would have hurt).
After the critique, I think that people enjoyed the real-time aspect of it. You have to be there to see the piece, it's not just an image, although I can take a picture or video of it, it's a motion piece that changes once made digital.
I think if I were to use this piece as a jumping-off point (haha), I would try and find a way to use fabric as other objects that people encounter in their lives, like tables or  trees that the projected figure can interact with.

High Dynamic Range is like fudge.

HDR is good in little amounts.

My use of framing in the first image is very symmetrical. I wanted to emphasize how the stove looks like it is used frequently. The only lighting is the kitchen light on the camera's axis, and then the light above the stove. I took about four shots of different shutter speeds, and the resultant image has more even lightning than any of the four images. I don't much care for heavily HDRed images, so I intentionally toned down all the the options. I'm happy with the result, however, and will probably use the feature in the future, but only subtly.

I like that the highlight on the wall is not too bright, but I do feel the white stove-top could be brighter. I'm very happy with the shadows in the image. If I were to use this as a jumping off point for a series, I'd probably photograph people's kitchens (I'm interested in how other people eat) or maybe just the most used part of the living space. That would be interesting to see how people use their spaces to fit their personalities.

My second image is of my sister, who sat very still for me as I took about six or seven images of different shutter-speeds. I do feel the light is still overexposed, but the HDR was still effective with most of it. This image was difficult in using HDR becuase it either looked over-done or under-done. I played around with it or a while before I decided it looked normal.

I don't think I'd use this image as a jumping-off point for anything, because I don't think this image has much value. Maybe if it were the only image of my sister, but there are so many images of my sister, that this one does not stand out at all. I think my favorite part is the bird on top of the fruit bowl because of the way it's balanced and because it's a bird.

Blog Prompts #5, 6, 7, and 8

Because I'm a Harry Potter fan, I have to mention (have to) the Harry Potter books use of the word "dark" to basically mean "not the good guys".The evil wizards are called "Dark wizards" that use "Dark magic". I never really thought about why anybody ever uses the word dark rather than evil when the Dark wizards are so clearly evil (but is it?). Sometimes dark is another word for misguided. Whenever a character is called 'dark', then the story pretty much has to explain how the character became that way. When a dark loner character comes into play, the reader is instantly interested in the dramatic history that obviously led to that characters current characteristics.

Seeing in the dark is not as easy as seeing in the light. People are generally more comfortable in the light because they know what is happening. I think the metaphors for light and dark work the same way as light or lack of light. When a photograph is dark, it is harder to see and the viewer questions what is in the darkness. With light, they are comforted because there are no surprises.

Today I was riding my bike on the sidewalk on campus. I always, or at least usually, ride my bike on the sidewalk. I do so because cars are big and scary and I don't trust them. Two people I know have gotten hit by cars while riding their bicycles in the past year (luckily both wear helmets and because of that are okay). I've ridden my bike around campus for years. I always have. It's come to my attention that apparently one isn't supposed to ride a bike on the sidewalk. It's not a law, as far as I can tell, but just a courtesy because pedestrians only like looking straight. I don't ride fast past people, I intentionally try not to alarm them if I feel like they don't hear my coming (the ones wearing headphones), and nobody ever glares at me or anything. I pass tons of other bicyclists and pedestrians and everyone seems fine. Today I was riding my bike past a set of parents on campus and the woman crossed to the other side of the sidewalk without looking. There had been plenty of room to pass, but not anymore and I squeezed the breaks and said, "oooo, watch out!"

"Bikes are for roads, not sidewalks," the man said.

I wasn't very far ahead, but I turned around and said, "I find cars scarier." I guess both of the things I said could be taken as giving attitude. I guess. I didn't intend it that way.

I was already away when I heard the guy yell, "So don't tell us to watch out!"

This is one of those situations where I can tell that no matter who I tell this story to (besides Zach Colman, opinion writer for the State News two years ago), they're going to disagree with me. Everybody I know walks and probably doesn't like bicyclists, or they're bicyclists who use the road. I'm alone. But cars go at least 25 mps if they're following the speed limit and pedestrians go 3 mps and I probably go around 10 mps (I looked up average speed, which is 13-15, and I ride really slow, not necessarily by choice, but because my bike is a piece of junk and sometimes the pedals just stop and I have to walk the rest of the way). If my speed were closer to that of a car, then heck yes, I would ride in the street, and I do sometimes when I want to go fast. But when I it's rainy or it's snowy or I'm carrying stuff then I don't really feel like going in the street with the cars that are probably not obeying the speed limit.

So I feel in the dark because I know no one will agree with me and I don't know why.

However, ten minutes after whizzing past the sincere and friendly parents, I saw a boy with a Gryffindor scarf and I told him I liked his scarf and he smiled really widely and thanked me and I felt super light! I smiled to myself and suddenly felt like I could ride my bike faster, which I did because there were no pedestrians ahead of me for at least a quarter of a mile. There were lots and lots of cars in the street, I might add.

To completely change the subject for prompt #8, the artist within the required reading that I find interesting is Henry Peach Robinson. I feel like we share many of the same interests in photography. We both like to create scenes that never actually happened. I like to do it in the form of posters and a "key art" type of feel. His were photographs of people, acting as if they were real. And example of one is title Bringing Home the May.

Bringing Home the May is comprised of nine negatives! I can tell there's someone not quite real-looking about it, but it's still an amazing image! The fact that he did this with negatives and no feather tool!

When the Days Work is Done is also an amazing image made up of five negatives, shot on different days.

People really despised the way he put together his images. They felt it was a lie and false. People felt that photography told the truth, and if it didn't, then it wasn't good photography. Robinson's images did not tell a direct truth, and thereful he lived through much criticism of his work. But I feel he was very talented.

Vision Alterations: digital pinhole camera = very very cool

I was scared to make my digital camera into a pinhole camera because a lot of students were getting dust on their sensors. Another student said there was a simple device one could use to get it off (very simple device). But I don't own that device, so I was still very very careful. I read online to poke a hole in tinfoil because then it would be a super tiny hole whereas a super tiny hole in cardboard would be more difficult to create. However, I taped my cardboard with a needles-width hole in it to my camera and took a picture. At first it came out completely black, so did the next couple. I'd spent a long time package-taping this board to my camera, so I was determined to have a blurry picture! I pointed it at the ceiling light and voila! And image! And it was relatively in focus too, so I decided to not even add tin foil yet.
After that my pictures became less and less pinhole-y-type pictures (except they were still a bit out of focus). I took several pictures of myself because that was more interesting that pictures of pumpkins and old artwork to me. I had to shine a light very close to my face for the shoot because the lens is so tiny, not a lot of light passed through. I was amazed at how clear my pictures were until I removed the pinhole lens and replaced with my normal lens and took a picture of my nose. I was so amazed at the detail!

I covered the lens with torn up tin foil just to see if the shiny material would affect the way light enters the pinhole. It didn't really affect it the way I thought it would, but it did cover up a lot of the frame in a very interesting way. I took several images and when the exposure was longer, you could see the texture of hte tin foil, but when the exposure was shorter, the tin foil was just a black area. Both ways were interesting to me.

Time to Think About the Future

I forgot to bring the Windex, and didn't notice when the scanner would become dirty. However, my sweater proved to be a crucial friend whenever I would notice the smudges.

Regardless, for not coming as prepared as I would have liked (not only did I forget my wallet (I was going to buy transparent sheets in the art store), but I forgot my card to get into the room (luckily people were all over the building and I got in just fine). I live just to darned far away (not really) to go back to get these things. Part laziness, part I have a dinner party to go to tonight and I don't want to be late, but mostly it was that I can't stand a wasted trip - using up the gasoline and time - when it was very likely I could use the ingredients I brought with me.






So when I set up the scanner to prepare my project, I only had a CD case (transparent), petroleum jelly, dusting powder, and my time-turner. I'm surprised that I actually like a lot of the pieces I made. I brought the CD case because when I go into interviews, I often bring a CD with my digital portfolio on it (although a hard copy is better, I hear), so to be a jewel case, or what goes in it, is my work, which represents me, or rather, what I can do for an employer. But I don't know what the future is going to be like at all. Despite what hopefully is a well-rounded background, I don't know what I'm doing.

I didn't have the transparency paper to smear the petroleum jelly on, I instead put it into the CD case, which worked about wonderfully because it really shows how I have no idea if the piece that represents me to a potential employer is clear or not, if it really shows me, or if it just kind of shows me. Another way of looking at it is that the portfolio is my gateway to my future, but I can't really see what my future is. Whatever my future is, however, my portfolio is a major factor in getting me there.

The time-turner, along with of course representing my somewhat unnatural love of the Harry Potter story, represents my preoccupation with time. Like most people, I calculate how much time I should spend on this project, and then this project, and then this project. The time-turner also represents how my time at college is ending very soon. I'm looking forward to getting a job, but I love college and I know I will miss it. So the time-turner represents my diminishing time of college, but also the amount of time I devoting my preparing for my future.

The last one is when I realized I still hadn't used the baby powder. I sprinkled it on there and did a scan with my face over the powder, but I'm reading A Million Little Pieces, and the powder reminded me too strongly of drugs. But when I started cleaning off the powder, I thought it looks really cool, so I did a scan of that with my hand in it.

Blog Prompt # 1, 2, 3, 4

The way we see the world seems like it should stay consistent, but I think what we see changes all the time. It can change from what we put over our eyes, on our eyes, or behind our eyes (and by that I mean, what we consume that affects our brains). Although we nearly always see something, we often see that something differently every time. Our brain compensates for differences in lighting and perspective flawlessly, so even if we pass the same bench from left to right every single day, if we should ever pass it from right to left, we would recognize it as the same bench. If one day we pass the bench wearing contacts, and the next glasses, we will still recognize the bench. If we're carrying a large cardboard box passed the bench and only see a portion of it, we still recognize the bench. Depending on how drunk we are passing the bench, we'll still recognize it. I suppose if one is high on drugs, depending on the drug, he or she may not recognize the bench anymore.

I wear both contacts and glasses (I've recently taken to wearing glasses more, but I still wear my contacts because of a conversation in my Comics and Visual Narrative class in which my professor, Ryan Claytor, explained that if you wear glasses often, the character you design of yourself should be wearing glasses. After that conversation, I wore contacts to his class 90% of the time just to be safe), but over Christmas break I forgot to bring extra sets of contacts, and the ones I had been wearing were overdue to be thrown away, so they were highly uncomfortable. I spent nearly a month in glasses save a few days when I attempted to wear the contacts. When I did wear them, it felt that nothing was obstructing my view, but everything was... sharper? Cleaner? I wasn't quite sure. It gave me a headache and I took ibuprofen on the first day.

But to me, when I wear glasses, the slight obstruction of the blurry frames in my field of view, and the less-than-clean lenses make me feel like it's lazy time. Like I should still be in my pajamas. As I'm wearing them more, this feeling is going away, but because for years I wore glasses only at night and in the morning, I don't feel the need to be as productive or energetic while wearing glasses.

I also find that alcohol has a similar effect except that instead of getting clearer, things seem less clear (and the headache is also present) but you can't exactly pinpoint where. The illusion, if that is what it is, is seamless. After having a drink or two I spend a lot of time staring around my field of view trying to find the seams.

My friend also suffers from Who-Knows-What-To-Call-It, a condition where he wakes up paralyzed and hallucinates. Apparently it's an actual thing. I only know of one instance specifically, though he's said it's happened occasionally throughout his life, where he woke up and his ceiling fan turned into hundreds of monsters that zoomed down at him, about to attack, and he can't do anything about it because he's paralyzed. Then a minute later he's okay, but thoroughly freaked out.

I used to consider the idea that blue to me may be pink to someone else, or even something I wouldn't recognize. How strange that way of seeing, but to that person, my way of seeing would be so foreign. I don't actually think this is the case, but it is interesting to think that maybe we do all see differently. Maybe my eyes are closer together than my friend's eyes and she can see a wider field of view than I can. Some people can see farther things clearer and some people can see closer things clearer. I am so near-sighted I can't see clearly beyond four inches from my face. My brother, on the other hand, has one near-sighted eye and one far-sighted eye, so that when others try on his glasses, they can't stand to wear them for too long. Before I had glasses, but my eyesight was worsening, I just assumed that everybody saw things the way I did. I was so confused when I could read the blackboard in class and had to sit in the front row just to follow along in class. Even today neither my glasses nor my contacts ever seem to be as clear as I'd like them to be and I have trouble recognizing faces at a certain distance so that when approaching people wave to me and I don't know how they are until a few awkward seconds later.

And I can't write the prompt without mentioning the woes of watching a movie or T.V. show late at night with the intention of maybe falling asleep during it. Impossible with both glasses and contacts! (Although apparently there are contacts you can sleep in, but just not mine). The glasses completely hinder the ability to lie down one's head on a pillow (I've tried, and as "flexible" as your glasses may seem, they will never be as sturdy afterwords). And sure, I've napped with contacts, but it dries them out and they become suctioned to one's eye and depending on the length of the nap, painful to remove for remoistening. I never wear my contacts all day because they also dry out, so I plan when to wear them depending on how "clearly" I want to see the world (my optometrist insists I can see more clearly with my glasses because it corrects my astigmatism, so I can't understand why I'm more comfortable going to the movies in contacts).

Perhaps I should consider other ways in which one's visual perception is altered. I concentrated mostly on glasses and contacts, but it was still highly relevant to the prompt question (which I know I didn't provide).