This afternoon I listened to Das Rheingold--the same opera that I saw via simulcast last October. I definitely prefer listening to it rather than watching it: the music is absolutely spectacular, but in performance the whole thing has a tendency to drag. And while I'm not much of a Wagner fan, I can never get enough of the Prelude. Those darn French horns (once again, I cried when they started their part)...
Monday: For the first time this semester I got all my Photoshop homework done and submitted during class. Not only that, but it was a blast. This week's class was about making photos look old: digital daguerreotypes and Polaroids, film strips and medium-format (complete with the edge of the "negative") being the techniques that I chose. We were given several other options, but we had to choose four to do and submit.
Tuesday: Due to a death in Rod's family, my morning classes on Tuesday and Thursday got shifted around: instead of having my lighting class, which is usually on Tuesday morning, I had Lab Techniques. Most of the class was devoted to discussing upcoming assignments for both L.T. and History.
Since Rachael was having a potluck on Thursday, and the potluck would also be a photo-swap, I decided to develop my photo after class. Yes, you read that right: develop. My photo was from a roll I shot for an assignment using a Holga camera during the first-semester Creativity in Photography class. Because the photo was so small (4"x4") and the enlarger was really close to the paper, doing the test strips (to find the right exposure time) was rather interesting. I ended up doing test-strips at half-second intervals (normal is five seconds), and the final photo was exposed for four seconds.
Wednesday: That morning, instead of class Peter met with each of us to discuss our independent projects. And for some reason I had been giving the impression that I wasn't into my project (I straightened that out). I've actually been having a lot of fun. Yes, it's frustrating at times, but I'm cool with that and I accept it as part of the process. Ditto for the fact that I have a tendency to come up with an idea--and then the final product is a lot different from what I'd originally planned, which also happened (in this case, the project got whittled wayyy down, and some things were changed based on discoveries and "mistakes" made during the project).
This past week, the assignment for Pro Practice was to do stock photography (Skype visitor: Hiep Vu, a stock and commercial photographer based in Toronto). I did the assignment three times: once in my room (I found a way to simultaneously clean up and make a mess: take everything off your desk and put it on your bed. And yes, I took a photo for posterity.), once in the hallway outside said room--and once in the NBCCD lighting studio (which is where I should've done it in the first place).
Rachael had planned a potluck for Thursday evening, and my contribution was cheese sticks. They were supposed to be twists, but after trying to twist one and failing, I gave up and made them as sticks. After class I went over to the Sobeys, grabbed the few things I needed to get (parmesan, sour cream and butter), went home, and got busy. Four hours(!) later, I was done. I don't make pastry that often, but this time I think I nailed it: good taste, heavenly texture... **swoons**
Thursday: My morning classes usually start at nine, but this time we started at ten. The class consisted mainly of going over the last assignment that we did a couple of weeks ago (they were due on the twenty-second, but class was cancelled due to panel assessment), some info about another assignment that we're doing in two parts (part one was done several weeks ago, but the guy who's in charge of the whole thing has yet to get back to us), and then we were free.
That afternoon I did my final set of cyanotypes, and experimented with intentionally leaving them in the water too long (about five minutes is ideal), as well as soaking some of the ones that I did a few weeks ago in tea. I'm really happy with the results. Next week I'm going to print some photos on fabric, and since I've never done that before, Jan showed me how it's done: the important things that I better not skip--or I risk screwing up the printer (and printing on fabric costs 80¢ a pop).
After leaving the college, I ran home, dumped my backpack, changed my coat, grabbed my cheese sticks and photo, and flew back out the door (thankfully, Rachael's apartment is only about three blocks away from my place).
The party/potluck/photo-swap was awesome: plenty of jokes and general photo-studio awesomeness, good food (but note to Peter: please make some of your pasta thing without shrimp next time--this is the second time I've been tempted by it--it looks so. darn. good--but because I'm a vegetarian, I've had to admire from afar), and I walked away with a photo by Anne-Marie (one of my classmates). Jeff, our studio tech, got my photo.
Friday: I was supposed to go home this weekend, but due to a huge snowstorm, I had to stay in F'ton. And just when we thought Spring was on it's way...
My Design class was mostly a work period, and if all goes well, we could have our final project (cardboard chairs) done next week.
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