Sunday, January 30, 2011

time to play catch-up

This is the first time that I've fallen behind with my blog this year (breaks don't count). Let's see...

First and foremost, the photography studio has decided on the theme and title of it's Spring show, which will be held at Fredericton's City Hall. The name escapes me, though. We're also going to have a show in Saint John next Fall called "Shallow," and we can interpret the word however we like, e.g., shallow depth of field. All this was decided by Karen this past Thursday, which made for a very exciting morning, as she was coming up with ideas left, right, and centre.

I've been working on my application for the ArtsNB scholarship (the submission deadline is Tuesday). If I win, the scholarship would cover all but a hundred bucks of my tuition for next year. Unlike the other scholarships that I've applied for, this one is juried, which means that I have to submit samples of my work and get two people to write recommendations. I've been working on it almost nonstop for the last week--I even chose to stay in F'ton this weekend instead of going home, which was the original plan. I will be so glad when the whole thing's over with (dance party, anyone? How about the Hunter's Chorus as performed by the MOO's horn section?). However, I've had a lot of help and encouragement from my teachers, especially Peter (who's one of my references), which is wonderful because at times I've been unbelievably stressed--to the point where this past week could challenge my stress levels in FVA. Yikes.

Speaking of Peter, in Re-Presenting Ideas (my Wednesday morning class) we're having a competition: a week and a half ago the class was split into several groups, given a list of words, and told to brainstorm three and shoot two. My group shot mystery and discovery with one of the Surface Design students at the Old Government House. During the shoot we bracketed each photo (mine were -1, 0, +1) and then opened them in PhotoMatix Pro, which is an application that makes HDR images (Photoshop does HDR, too, but apparently it sucks). This past week we submitted our first set of photos. ...and after we looked at all the photos from all the groups during class, my group has the best chances of winning. Yippeee!!! We did a second shoot this past week, again at Old Government House. We've offered to give the staff a copy of the final photos.

Oh, yeah: the prize. It's a really good point-'n'-shoot film camera (35mm) (and again the name escapes me--grrrrr). Yes, you read that right: a FILM camera. And yes, that was me swooning. It's up to the winning group to decide what to do with the camera (who gets it/how we're going to share it, etc.).

On Friday I found out that I've officially been switched to the morning Design: Shaping Space class. Previously I was in the afternoon class, but that class was huge, so some students moved to different classes on Tuesdays and Thursdays. However, some of us (including me) wanted a Friday morning class. And although I knew that I would eventually be switched, I didn't hear about it until I sat down in the Design Studio that afternoon. Greg was cool about it, though.

I spent this weekend studying up a storm because due to all the time that I spent working on the scholarship application, I hadn't done as much homework as I usually do. So I was stressed out about that, too. Though I think listening to Tosca helped--there's nothing quite like a weekly routine to remind me to take a deep breath and relax--and get 'er done. Thank you/grazie, Metropolitan Opera!!!! And BRAVISSIMO (this particular performance was incredibly beautiful)!

Earlier this evening I had a look at my planner--and found out that I'm ahead in my assignments. All I have to do for the stuff due Monday through Wednesday is (get ready for this) submit it!!! (Though the stuff for Lighting: Professional Lighting Studio--due Tuesday morning--has to be made into a web gallery in Adobe Lightroom and then submitted. But these days I could do that in my sleep.) Hello, FREEDOM!!!!!

Personally, I think this calls for a little celebration. Here are two versions of one of my favourite pieces: Franz von Suppé's Light Cavalry Overture. Enjoy. And I dare you to not dance during the speccatto parts.

First, the not-so-traditional version (Adya Classic):



And now, the traditional way:

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