the challenges of art school

Technology: wonderful when it works, aggravating when it doesn't--especially when your schoolwork and career plans require it.

Monday: I spent the afternoon shooting my stereotype project in the NSCAD lighting studio, using a cable release and a school camera (a Pentax SLR).

Tuesday: I printed stuff off for the scholarships that I'm applying for (two internal NSCAD scholarships and one external award) and handed it all into the Office of Student and Academic Services (OSAS). I can't remember the last time an hour disappeared so fast.

Once again, we watched a movie, discussed it--and then disappeared into the darkroom. I developed my negatives, but I don't think the film was wound properly when I loaded the camera because when I unwound the film from the reel, it was clear, meaning that it hadn't been exposed. I told Adrian what had happened, and we discussed what I'd done for the first shoot because I hadn't gone as far with the project as I could have. Just when I thought I was done reshooting projects...

Wednesday: We finished the Coptic binding book, and some of us started on the Japanese box, which I'll start next week.

After class, I reshot my Intro assignment, using my own Nikon SLR. Because the lighting studio was completely booked all day (if NSCAD had some extra cash floating around--which they don't right now--I'd suggest that they add a second lighting studio because the current one is almost always booked due to the fact that there are about three hundred students in the photo dept.--roughly a third of the entire NSCAD student population), I did the shoot in the student lounge, using a portable backdrop.

When I got home, I checked my school email: I am now the Students Living in Residence rep for SUNSCAD!

Thursday: Bob had a prior commitment that day, so last week he asked us whether we wanted to either come to class and watch a photography-related movie, or use the day to work on our projects. Us being third- or fourth-year students, we all chose to use the day to work on our projects. I spent the morning and afternoon shooting for the assignment, and the evening over at NSCAD, processing the roll I'd shot for Intro the day before.

Friday: Yet another working class. I spent much of it wrestling with one print. And then in the work-in-progress critique I found out that I had to reshoot the assignment again. Ugh. I can't remember the last time I struggled so much with a project, though I am learning from the experience and know that I'll be a better photographer because of it.

Saturday: Ever since I migrated my stuff from my old computer to my new one, the FireWire 800 cable that I use to connect my external hard drive--and used to do the migration--has been rather temperamental. But that day, it refused to work no matter what I did. When I tried using the USB 2.0 cable to connect the hard drive to my computer, a warning popped up saying that one of the USB ports was using too much power and both ports had been shut down until the device was removed. When that happened, there were no sounds from the hard drive (I could hear the disk spinning when I plugged it in with the FireWire). So either the FireWire cable has died, or my computer doesn't like FireWire--which is a common problem with OS X Lion, which I'm running.

So when I went to NSCAD that afternoon to buy film and sign out a light meter, I also went to Scotia Square and bought an 8GB flash drive. I then transferred all the stuff on my hard drive that I need to be able to access on my computer onto the flash drive.

I spent the evening finishing my project for Beyond the Frame.

Sunday: I did the reshoot in my room (which is a good way to make myself clean my desk), but other than that I was rather lazy. Though I did send an ecard to my friend Lynn, as today's her birthday.