Lynn was right when she wrote, "know that 'this too shall pass', and a solution will slowly come into view" in her reply when I told her about the hell that was my life at that point. That's right: it's over. And that solution is a good one.
Monday: As usual, I spent the day at NSCAD, working on my project. I met Adrian in the computer lab that afternoon, as I was having problems getting the white balance right in some of my photos. I also got the lowdown on what should be covered in the contextualizing statement, as I wanted to start it on Tuesday.
I went to the MFA group show, Daily Jumble, and then got back to work.
Tuesday: I officially entered crunch-time mode, as I wanted to finish editing my photos and be ready to start working in Premiere by the end of that day. It was a long slog, and sometimes I thought that I wouldn't make my (self-imposed) deadline, but somehow I managed to do so. **whew**
I met with the counsellor from Dal, Joan, that afternoon (although my problem has been resolved, I still plan to keep my appointment for this coming Tuesday, as the skills that I needed to deal with my situation would be good skills to have), which was awesome.
That evening, there was a GA, which was mostly an update session: there were two meetings with the school's interim president and the students to discuss the closure of the Seeds Gallery (one of which was scheduled during afternoon classes, which is typical of NSCAD's prez, unfortunately). I wasn't surprised that very little was accomplished: what Dan asks and what the students need are sometimes complete opposite things.
Wednesday: After two and a half weeks, the perpetrator of the hell that I've been going through apologized. I was barely awake at the time and was running on less than eight hours of sleep, but I sleepily accepted said apology, using as few words as possible because I didn't have the energy to put together a full sentence.
I want to publicly thank everyone who has helped me through this difficult time. Extra-special thanks goes to Lynn, Helen (both of whom are readers of this blog--hi!), Becky, Ken, Adrian, Christina, Jake and Alex.
This week's lecture was all about graduating: life after NSCAD and MFA possibilities. Also, apparently you can now do a Ph.D. in fine art at a few schools. Whoa--that's a little too intense for me (I'm calling it quits--at least for a while--after I finish my BFA).
During the latter part of the afternoon, we had open studio time, so I went over to the Academy Building and started working on the video part of my project in Premiere (which I refer to in my head as "phase two"--phase one being the photographing and editing in Photoshop that I've done up to this point. Phase three will be when I export to Adobe Encore and start putting together the final product, which will be a DVD--that will start on November twentieth.).
Thursday: That day, I didn't show my face at NSCAD until around five. I spent the day making a double batch of soup (cream of tomato--yum!) instead. My time at NSCAD was more of a hangout than anything else, as I didn't get any schoolwork done that day. I did start reading The Ocean at the End of the Lane, though, and I'm really liking it. Neil Gaiman is one of those people, like Itzhak Perlman, Scott Brubaker or Yo-Yo Ma: when I listen to (or, in Neil's case, read) their work, I can instantly tell that I'm listening to/reading something by someone who really knows what they're doing and has been at it for decades. As there's a School of Extended Studies class in the computer lab on Thursday evenings, I'm reserving Ocean for those times.
Friday: I spent the day doing homework, including starting the final(!) reading for class.
Saturday: Once again, I disappeared into the basement of the Academy Building (after making a not-so-brief stop in the Photo Dept. to add a vignette to some of my photos), where the computer lab is. By the time I emerged and headed back to the Photo Dept., I was glad to do so: the monitors at Academy are completely different: they're Samsung, and the screens have a blue tinge to them, meaning that the calibration is completely different than that of the Photo Dept. monitors (Dell), which have no detectable colour cast.
Sunday: Today, I finished the reading and the rough draft of the contextualizing statement (due Wednesday). The statement's supposed to be seven hundred and fifty words long--I wrote nine hundred and seventy-seven. I'm laughing as I write this. However, I'd rather be faced with the task of dumping two hundred and twenty-seven words than be scrambling to come up with more to say.
Showing posts with label video. Show all posts
Showing posts with label video. Show all posts
Sunday, November 10, 2013
Monday, October 14, 2013
I think my thesis project is starting to take over my life
This week was much better than the last couple.
Monday: I'd had enough of the situation that has been bothering me for the last two weeks, so I decided to take action and wrote a letter to the other person over the weekend. That day I printed it off with the intent of giving it to her on Wednesday. The printer that handles regular (non-photo) paper in the Photo Dept. is one of three in said department that are inaccessible to students, so you have to go to where the printer is housed (what is known as The Cage, where the studio techs are based, and where you can sign out or borrow some equipment). When I went to pick up and pay for the page that I printed (regular paper is 25¢ per sheet), the studio tech who retrieved it, Jake, asked about it, and I told him what was going on. He sympathized, as did Alex, who was about to start his shift in The Cage. They both encouraged me, which I appreciated as I needed all the support I could get my hands on.
The final product for my project for APC is going to be a video (a slideshow, to be exact). Because it's my thesis project and will be going in a gallery, I want to stay as far away as possible from programs that are geared toward the average consumer, e.g., iPhoto. Yes, they do the trick (and as far as photo organizers that are geared toward the average consumer go, iPhoto's pretty awesome), but when you consider the two things that I just mentioned (thesis project and gallery show), as well as where I am in terms of my skills and what I ask of a computer program, I need something a bit more powerful. I knew that the computers in the Photo Dept. computer lab don't have video editing software, so I decided to ask at OSAS to see if they knew who I could ask about which programs are on which computers at which campuses. I was directed to Multimedia in North Block, which is one of the more interesting places to try to get to, as you have to make sure to take the right set of stairs once you're on the second floor of said block. I took the wrong set, backtracked, took the correct set and found Multimedia's equivalent of The Cage. After pausing to catch my breath, I asked about the software that I needed. NSCAD has Final Cut Express (which is geared toward the passionate amateur) and Adobe Premiere Pro CS6 (a professional-grade program) at the Academy Building, and Premiere CC at Port. Creative Cloud (CC) isn't backward-compatible with CS6, so if I started working on the video component of my project there, I'd be limited to working only at Port.
Since I was in the area, I stopped in at the Dawson Print Shop, said "hi" to the studio tech, told him about my project and had a look around (nothing much has changed since I was in there last).
Tuesday: I ended up not needing the letter that I'd printed off the day before, as the other person decided to take matters into their own hands and talk.
That day was election day, and because I'd never been in an election office on election day before, I decided to pay another visit to Labi Kousoulis' election office. I asked about what was going on that day (mostly making sure people got to the right polls and answering questions), and was told that there would be an end-of-election party that evening and that I was welcome to come.
I spent the afternoon prepping for the next day's work-in-progress critique and then went to the party.
They had CBC on on a big-screen TV and a lot of the party-goers watched the results come in. By 10:00 PM it was all over (which amazed me, as I'm used to having to call it a night before the election has been called) and Darrell Dexter had lost spectacularly: Stephen McNeil (Liberal) is NS' next premier. Also, Labi won. I'll admit that when Labi showed up, I got a bit starstruck: although I met Greg Thompson when I was a kid, I'd never met anyone I'd voted for (although Greg was a good MP, I have never voted Conservative in a federal election). After we chanted his name, he spoke, thanking those who volunteered. I congratulated him on my way out.
Wednesday: We usually start the day by discussing the week's reading, but that didn't get done this week and we more or less went straight to the critiques after going over the plan for the afternoon (a field trip to the Mount Saint Vincent University Art Gallery). Mine wasn't until 11:15, so I spent some time in the Photo Dept. computer lab and, when I couldn't stand the chill anymore, visited the SUNSCAD office to ask whether Crit would be available at NSCAD (while the newspaper started out as a NSCAD student publication, due to various mistakes by the people running it, the paper is now published by the Khyber).
I then headed over to Adrian's office. My meeting with him went very well, and I was really glad that I'd copied the tracks that go with the photos that I've shot so far to my external hard drive.
After lunch, we took the bus to MSVU. Currently, the MSVU gallery is showing work by August Sander on the upper level of the gallery (work from the Canada Council Art Bank is being shown on the ground floor). A woman from the gallery spoke about Sander's work, and we were done a couple hours before class was officially over. I talked with Adrian about some course-related stuff, and he helped me get the right bus to go back downtown (I'll never forget the time I took the bus to get to the Halifax Shopping Centre--although I took the right bus, without realizing it I got the one going in the wrong direction). I had to wait awhile, but I didn't mind as it was a nice day. Once I finally got back downtown, I wended my way over to the Academy building, asked where the computer lab was and spent almost an hour playing around with Premiere.
Thursday: As mentioned last week, I've given up on getting homework done on Thursdays this semester. Instead, I visited Java Blend Coffee Roasters, which was a bit of a walk from my place (about an hour) and had an amazing decaf cappuccino. Java Blend supplies the coffee for my favourite café in St. Andrews, Honeybeans, and I found out that the coffee is also available at the Seaport Farmers' Market. Afterward, I headed to NSCAD and attended this week's Queer Collective meeting. One of the things they're going to be working on is posters raising awareness of bathroom accessibility for trans* people, and I volunteered to design the posters, as I have experience working with InDesign. This is an issue that I've never thought about, and although I'll admit that I know nothing about it, I want to learn.
Friday: I started the reading for APC and came up with a plan of action for this year's Nocturne.
Saturday: That day was so slow that I'm amazed I got any work done. I finished the reading for APC.
Sunday: I reshot a photo for my project, went through the resulting images at school and chatted with a fellow photo major.
Monday: I'd had enough of the situation that has been bothering me for the last two weeks, so I decided to take action and wrote a letter to the other person over the weekend. That day I printed it off with the intent of giving it to her on Wednesday. The printer that handles regular (non-photo) paper in the Photo Dept. is one of three in said department that are inaccessible to students, so you have to go to where the printer is housed (what is known as The Cage, where the studio techs are based, and where you can sign out or borrow some equipment). When I went to pick up and pay for the page that I printed (regular paper is 25¢ per sheet), the studio tech who retrieved it, Jake, asked about it, and I told him what was going on. He sympathized, as did Alex, who was about to start his shift in The Cage. They both encouraged me, which I appreciated as I needed all the support I could get my hands on.
The final product for my project for APC is going to be a video (a slideshow, to be exact). Because it's my thesis project and will be going in a gallery, I want to stay as far away as possible from programs that are geared toward the average consumer, e.g., iPhoto. Yes, they do the trick (and as far as photo organizers that are geared toward the average consumer go, iPhoto's pretty awesome), but when you consider the two things that I just mentioned (thesis project and gallery show), as well as where I am in terms of my skills and what I ask of a computer program, I need something a bit more powerful. I knew that the computers in the Photo Dept. computer lab don't have video editing software, so I decided to ask at OSAS to see if they knew who I could ask about which programs are on which computers at which campuses. I was directed to Multimedia in North Block, which is one of the more interesting places to try to get to, as you have to make sure to take the right set of stairs once you're on the second floor of said block. I took the wrong set, backtracked, took the correct set and found Multimedia's equivalent of The Cage. After pausing to catch my breath, I asked about the software that I needed. NSCAD has Final Cut Express (which is geared toward the passionate amateur) and Adobe Premiere Pro CS6 (a professional-grade program) at the Academy Building, and Premiere CC at Port. Creative Cloud (CC) isn't backward-compatible with CS6, so if I started working on the video component of my project there, I'd be limited to working only at Port.
Since I was in the area, I stopped in at the Dawson Print Shop, said "hi" to the studio tech, told him about my project and had a look around (nothing much has changed since I was in there last).
Tuesday: I ended up not needing the letter that I'd printed off the day before, as the other person decided to take matters into their own hands and talk.
That day was election day, and because I'd never been in an election office on election day before, I decided to pay another visit to Labi Kousoulis' election office. I asked about what was going on that day (mostly making sure people got to the right polls and answering questions), and was told that there would be an end-of-election party that evening and that I was welcome to come.
I spent the afternoon prepping for the next day's work-in-progress critique and then went to the party.
They had CBC on on a big-screen TV and a lot of the party-goers watched the results come in. By 10:00 PM it was all over (which amazed me, as I'm used to having to call it a night before the election has been called) and Darrell Dexter had lost spectacularly: Stephen McNeil (Liberal) is NS' next premier. Also, Labi won. I'll admit that when Labi showed up, I got a bit starstruck: although I met Greg Thompson when I was a kid, I'd never met anyone I'd voted for (although Greg was a good MP, I have never voted Conservative in a federal election). After we chanted his name, he spoke, thanking those who volunteered. I congratulated him on my way out.
Wednesday: We usually start the day by discussing the week's reading, but that didn't get done this week and we more or less went straight to the critiques after going over the plan for the afternoon (a field trip to the Mount Saint Vincent University Art Gallery). Mine wasn't until 11:15, so I spent some time in the Photo Dept. computer lab and, when I couldn't stand the chill anymore, visited the SUNSCAD office to ask whether Crit would be available at NSCAD (while the newspaper started out as a NSCAD student publication, due to various mistakes by the people running it, the paper is now published by the Khyber).
I then headed over to Adrian's office. My meeting with him went very well, and I was really glad that I'd copied the tracks that go with the photos that I've shot so far to my external hard drive.
After lunch, we took the bus to MSVU. Currently, the MSVU gallery is showing work by August Sander on the upper level of the gallery (work from the Canada Council Art Bank is being shown on the ground floor). A woman from the gallery spoke about Sander's work, and we were done a couple hours before class was officially over. I talked with Adrian about some course-related stuff, and he helped me get the right bus to go back downtown (I'll never forget the time I took the bus to get to the Halifax Shopping Centre--although I took the right bus, without realizing it I got the one going in the wrong direction). I had to wait awhile, but I didn't mind as it was a nice day. Once I finally got back downtown, I wended my way over to the Academy building, asked where the computer lab was and spent almost an hour playing around with Premiere.
Thursday: As mentioned last week, I've given up on getting homework done on Thursdays this semester. Instead, I visited Java Blend Coffee Roasters, which was a bit of a walk from my place (about an hour) and had an amazing decaf cappuccino. Java Blend supplies the coffee for my favourite café in St. Andrews, Honeybeans, and I found out that the coffee is also available at the Seaport Farmers' Market. Afterward, I headed to NSCAD and attended this week's Queer Collective meeting. One of the things they're going to be working on is posters raising awareness of bathroom accessibility for trans* people, and I volunteered to design the posters, as I have experience working with InDesign. This is an issue that I've never thought about, and although I'll admit that I know nothing about it, I want to learn.
Friday: I started the reading for APC and came up with a plan of action for this year's Nocturne.
Saturday: That day was so slow that I'm amazed I got any work done. I finished the reading for APC.
Sunday: I reshot a photo for my project, went through the resulting images at school and chatted with a fellow photo major.
Tuesday, April 23, 2013
they are the Class of, the Class of '13*
Home for four months!
Monday: My presentation day for Reconfigured. Initially I pinned my photos up in the classroom, but the pins wouldn't go all the way into the corkboard, which meant that the photos curled up and threatened to fall to the ground. I had a couple of friends helping me to put them up, and after a couple of close calls we decided to move the operation to the finishing room (which used to be NSCAD's colour darkroom, BTW) because that corkboard is thick enough that the pins will go all the way in (when using pushpins or thumbtacks to hold art in place, you position each pin so that the flat part is the only part of the pin that is in contact with the work--the pin itself doesn't go through the piece and make a hole). That crit was possibly my best/most thorough crit ever.
Tuesday: I finally mailed the photos that I shot for my piece for the WftA show. And I got my Graphics final printed (colour, double-sided, legal-size). Mom arrived in Halifax and called me when I made a quick stop at NSCAD to let SUNSCAD know that I wouldn't be at that evening's GA because I needed to pack (the union's resource coordinator, Tara, agreed that the meeting was poorly timed--if students weren't already headed home, they were prepping for the journey and doing their last finals. She told me to not worry about quorum, which the union had said was important for that GA.). Because it was such a nice day out, I took off my jacket for a few blocks--until the wind picked up again. We started packing shortly after I got home.
Wednesday: More packing and loading the car.
My crit for Graphics went well: although there were some mishaps with my project, I knew about them. When I folded my brochure/portfolio, I realized that the sides didn't line up and that I was short a bit of paper due to how the document was printed, which I didn't discover until I folded it Tuesday night (as everything was lined up perfectly in the InDesign file, I wouldn't have had any issues if it was printed properly). Other than that, the crit went extremely well.
Thursday: The Big Crit day. We started at the Port Campus, complete with potluck breakfast, and spent most of the day there. We moved over to Academy mid-afternoon and finished the crits there.
Afterward, I tried to track down Mom, which wasn't easy, as I had no idea where she was parked and thought she'd be able to pick me up around the area of the front door of Academy. After several calls on my cell, which ran out of minutes and a call on a classmate's cell, we eventually found each other--and I launched into a screaming fit. Not my finest moment. **cringe**
And yes, we continued packing.
Friday: We were a bit later leaving than we'd planned (by about a couple hours). Mom drove most of the way, with me taking over for the last hour or so--while discovering Eric Clapton (what rock have I been hiding under all these years?!). And yes, we stopped at a Big Stop along the way.
Saturday: I spent the day trying to be as lazy as possible while listening to Siegfried (not as awesome as Die Walküre).
Sunday: We unpacked the car. I also loaded the camera bag that I got for Christmas for the first time. I now have a camera bag for every camera (I did previously, but when I got the D7000, I was short a bag).
Monday: The beginning of Assessment Week at NBCCD--and the Class of '13's last week at the college. I have to admit that the fact that after this week the only people I'll know at NBCCD will be the faculty and staff makes me a bit sad. All my friends will have graduated and gone on to either careers (and paying off student loans) or more education at a different school (two or three students from the Photo studio are NSCAD-bound this fall).
This is a video of the Photo Studio's year-end, "last time we're going to be together as NBCCD students/thank you, teachers, for putting up with us for two years" party.
Video by James Walsh (Photo Class of '13).
CONGRATULATIONS, CLASS OF '13! And to those graduating from the Photo program, remember: once an NBCCD Photog, always an NBCCD Photog!
*A paraphrased version of a line from the title track from Green Day's album 21st Century Breakdown.
Monday: My presentation day for Reconfigured. Initially I pinned my photos up in the classroom, but the pins wouldn't go all the way into the corkboard, which meant that the photos curled up and threatened to fall to the ground. I had a couple of friends helping me to put them up, and after a couple of close calls we decided to move the operation to the finishing room (which used to be NSCAD's colour darkroom, BTW) because that corkboard is thick enough that the pins will go all the way in (when using pushpins or thumbtacks to hold art in place, you position each pin so that the flat part is the only part of the pin that is in contact with the work--the pin itself doesn't go through the piece and make a hole). That crit was possibly my best/most thorough crit ever.
Tuesday: I finally mailed the photos that I shot for my piece for the WftA show. And I got my Graphics final printed (colour, double-sided, legal-size). Mom arrived in Halifax and called me when I made a quick stop at NSCAD to let SUNSCAD know that I wouldn't be at that evening's GA because I needed to pack (the union's resource coordinator, Tara, agreed that the meeting was poorly timed--if students weren't already headed home, they were prepping for the journey and doing their last finals. She told me to not worry about quorum, which the union had said was important for that GA.). Because it was such a nice day out, I took off my jacket for a few blocks--until the wind picked up again. We started packing shortly after I got home.
Wednesday: More packing and loading the car.
My crit for Graphics went well: although there were some mishaps with my project, I knew about them. When I folded my brochure/portfolio, I realized that the sides didn't line up and that I was short a bit of paper due to how the document was printed, which I didn't discover until I folded it Tuesday night (as everything was lined up perfectly in the InDesign file, I wouldn't have had any issues if it was printed properly). Other than that, the crit went extremely well.
Thursday: The Big Crit day. We started at the Port Campus, complete with potluck breakfast, and spent most of the day there. We moved over to Academy mid-afternoon and finished the crits there.
Afterward, I tried to track down Mom, which wasn't easy, as I had no idea where she was parked and thought she'd be able to pick me up around the area of the front door of Academy. After several calls on my cell, which ran out of minutes and a call on a classmate's cell, we eventually found each other--and I launched into a screaming fit. Not my finest moment. **cringe**
And yes, we continued packing.
Friday: We were a bit later leaving than we'd planned (by about a couple hours). Mom drove most of the way, with me taking over for the last hour or so--while discovering Eric Clapton (what rock have I been hiding under all these years?!). And yes, we stopped at a Big Stop along the way.
Saturday: I spent the day trying to be as lazy as possible while listening to Siegfried (not as awesome as Die Walküre).
Sunday: We unpacked the car. I also loaded the camera bag that I got for Christmas for the first time. I now have a camera bag for every camera (I did previously, but when I got the D7000, I was short a bag).
 |
| The section in the middle closest to the handle is where my camera goes. This bag is a backpack-style bag. |
This is a video of the Photo Studio's year-end, "last time we're going to be together as NBCCD students/thank you, teachers, for putting up with us for two years" party.
Video by James Walsh (Photo Class of '13).
CONGRATULATIONS, CLASS OF '13! And to those graduating from the Photo program, remember: once an NBCCD Photog, always an NBCCD Photog!
*A paraphrased version of a line from the title track from Green Day's album 21st Century Breakdown.
Sunday, February 19, 2012
political art: one the awesomest things about being an artist
I've been feverishly working on prep for my next independent-study project for Peter's class for the last few days. This will be my last one, so my motto is "go big--or go home!"
Monday: This week's class was completely devoted to introducing us to the next project: Political/Personal. I'm used to new assignments being presented in fifteen minutes max, but this time Linda spent the entire three hours talking about it, giving us ideas, showing clips from a DVD, etc. We could choose either theme (political or personal), and I chose political: human rights, specifically Foxconn, which makes iPads and Kindles, among other gadgets--and does it all under conditions that horrify human-rights groups.
Tuesday: Another independent-study project in Photoshop. After several days of wondering what I wanted to do (although this is technically impossible because Photoshop is such a powerful tool, I'm starting to feel like there's nothing left to learn), I decided to work on designing a business card. I've wanted to design one that I could use in the "real world".
This week, Rod introduced us to the Røde directional mic and the BeachTek receiver. Although my shoot during the weekend when I was home gave me a leg up (Rod was surprised for some reason when I told him that I'd used a Zoom H2 mic--hey, he wanted good sound, so I used equipment that's better than your average built-in camera mic), I wanted to do the assignment because knowing how different systems/tools work is very important to me.
In the evening, we presented to Photo Fredericton. I went first, and I think I was more nervous than I thought I was at the time: I only really loosened up after the planned part of my presentation, when the PhotoFred members started firing questions at me. But as this was my first time in a long time being the first for something like this, that may have been what threw me off.
Wednesday: We had a guest this week: Joss Richer, who's a sculptor living in F'ton (originally from Montreal). Among other things, he volunteers at the Charlotte Glencross Gallery, where my class is having it's show in less than a month. He talked about the gallery, it's layout, and the ins and outs of showing there.
In Research, Drew ended up giving us another week to work on our projects. I used it to try out some plug-ins that I meant to try out earlier, but somehow never got around to. One of them still doesn't work (it's probably in the wrong location), so I'll ask Drew about that.
Thursday: Just before I started to write about this day yesterday, I kept asking myself, "what did we do that day? What did we talk about in class?" And then it came to me: I couldn't remember because there wasn't a class that day! All we had to do was meet with Peter. Naturally, I used that unexpected freedom to do homework.
During our meeting, Peter critiqued the PowerPoint that I'd put together: change this photo and this photo, add photos here, etc.
As usual, I skyped with Helen that evening. We talked about the independent-study project that I'm developing for Peter's class, and I think she's about as excited about it as I am. She even jumped in with ideas of her own. I'm picky about ideas from other people because sometimes those people take my idea and twist it around so that it ends up going in a different direction that I'm not intending to take: changing the subject, etc. But this time I actually added her ideas to the list of info that I've put together. Helen's ideas stayed within the realm of what I wanted to, but they also expanded it: I can add this subject, and that subject, etc. (And don't worry: I'll tell you what that idea is after I'm done talking about the week.)
Friday: I spent the afternoon working on homework, including my homework for Rod's class (I shot the FVA students as they went about the business of learning about film photography).
Saturday: Yesterday, the Met performed The Barber of Seville, and for the first time ever I wasn't late to that opera. I've seen the simulcast on PBS twice, but both times I was late to the broadcast. This time I was determined to listen to the whole thing: I really wanted to hear the MOO rock the overture. Though in a couple of sections, I expected to hear a good blast from the horn section, and I didn't. Whatever happened to "go big or go home," guys? But other than that, it was spectacular. Then again, I'm used to a specific version, and different orchestras play the music differently (like the BSO's October 23, '04 performance of Washington Post vs. André Rieu's recording of the same piece on his 2006 CD New York Memories: André's version is big and grand, whereas the BSO's has a clipped sound, and seems to bark, "up and at 'em! Feet on the floor! NOW!" Orchestra, yes, orchestra! I admit that I'm partial to the BSO's version, and have been for years.).
Sunday: I spent this morning being lazy, watching a couple of documentaries, and figuring out some shots for my next project. But eventually I ended up at the school, as I'm a lot more productive when I'm in the Photo Studio then when I'm in my dorm room.
Now, about that project that I'm prepping for.
First off, it's totally different from anything else I've ever done. Because many people still don't know what Harper has up his sleeve, and don't pay attention to the goings-on on Parliament Hill, I've decided to do a video about things like Bill C-30 (the Lawful Access Bill), Bill C-11 (which I talked about a couple weeks ago), and cuts to the arts and public services. And then I'll post it to YouTube and Vimeo--and hope that it'll go viral.
The video probably won't have much talking, letting the images speak for themselves. I'll probably have some text, though (probably some excerpts from the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, as well as short explanations of parts of the laws in question). I'll get music from a site that has Creative Commons-licensed tracks.
I'll also talk about how social programs are being cut, as are the arts, Environment Canada, and scientists are being asked to not publish parts of studies--or to not publish those studies altogether.
Even after the Orange Wave last election (which had the second-lowest turnout in Canadian history), most Canucks remain uninformed about Harper's plans for Canada. The prime minister is intent on moulding this country into one that's unrecognizable to it's citizens. I love Canada dearly, and I'm proud of what we've accomplished (universal health-care!)--but I'm not proud of Canada in it's current form. I'm not proud to be a Canadian--and I'm downright angry with the federal government.
I've spent the last few days compiling a Word document (notebook layout) filled with ideas, resources and topics that I might cover.
As is the case just about every time I contemplate an idea like this--something that's definitely outside the "safe" zone--I'm unsure about whether or not I should do whatever it is that I'm thinking of doing. I've had those thoughts about this project, but as Helen said on Thursday, by doing this project, I'm joining the long tradition of commenting on the political or current events of the day. If that isn't validation of my project, I don't know what is.
And besides: I've done political art before.
And because I can't resist:
Rabbit of Seville from TravisD on Vimeo.
Monday: This week's class was completely devoted to introducing us to the next project: Political/Personal. I'm used to new assignments being presented in fifteen minutes max, but this time Linda spent the entire three hours talking about it, giving us ideas, showing clips from a DVD, etc. We could choose either theme (political or personal), and I chose political: human rights, specifically Foxconn, which makes iPads and Kindles, among other gadgets--and does it all under conditions that horrify human-rights groups.
Tuesday: Another independent-study project in Photoshop. After several days of wondering what I wanted to do (although this is technically impossible because Photoshop is such a powerful tool, I'm starting to feel like there's nothing left to learn), I decided to work on designing a business card. I've wanted to design one that I could use in the "real world".
This week, Rod introduced us to the Røde directional mic and the BeachTek receiver. Although my shoot during the weekend when I was home gave me a leg up (Rod was surprised for some reason when I told him that I'd used a Zoom H2 mic--hey, he wanted good sound, so I used equipment that's better than your average built-in camera mic), I wanted to do the assignment because knowing how different systems/tools work is very important to me.
In the evening, we presented to Photo Fredericton. I went first, and I think I was more nervous than I thought I was at the time: I only really loosened up after the planned part of my presentation, when the PhotoFred members started firing questions at me. But as this was my first time in a long time being the first for something like this, that may have been what threw me off.
Wednesday: We had a guest this week: Joss Richer, who's a sculptor living in F'ton (originally from Montreal). Among other things, he volunteers at the Charlotte Glencross Gallery, where my class is having it's show in less than a month. He talked about the gallery, it's layout, and the ins and outs of showing there.
In Research, Drew ended up giving us another week to work on our projects. I used it to try out some plug-ins that I meant to try out earlier, but somehow never got around to. One of them still doesn't work (it's probably in the wrong location), so I'll ask Drew about that.
Thursday: Just before I started to write about this day yesterday, I kept asking myself, "what did we do that day? What did we talk about in class?" And then it came to me: I couldn't remember because there wasn't a class that day! All we had to do was meet with Peter. Naturally, I used that unexpected freedom to do homework.
During our meeting, Peter critiqued the PowerPoint that I'd put together: change this photo and this photo, add photos here, etc.
As usual, I skyped with Helen that evening. We talked about the independent-study project that I'm developing for Peter's class, and I think she's about as excited about it as I am. She even jumped in with ideas of her own. I'm picky about ideas from other people because sometimes those people take my idea and twist it around so that it ends up going in a different direction that I'm not intending to take: changing the subject, etc. But this time I actually added her ideas to the list of info that I've put together. Helen's ideas stayed within the realm of what I wanted to, but they also expanded it: I can add this subject, and that subject, etc. (And don't worry: I'll tell you what that idea is after I'm done talking about the week.)
Friday: I spent the afternoon working on homework, including my homework for Rod's class (I shot the FVA students as they went about the business of learning about film photography).
Saturday: Yesterday, the Met performed The Barber of Seville, and for the first time ever I wasn't late to that opera. I've seen the simulcast on PBS twice, but both times I was late to the broadcast. This time I was determined to listen to the whole thing: I really wanted to hear the MOO rock the overture. Though in a couple of sections, I expected to hear a good blast from the horn section, and I didn't. Whatever happened to "go big or go home," guys? But other than that, it was spectacular. Then again, I'm used to a specific version, and different orchestras play the music differently (like the BSO's October 23, '04 performance of Washington Post vs. André Rieu's recording of the same piece on his 2006 CD New York Memories: André's version is big and grand, whereas the BSO's has a clipped sound, and seems to bark, "up and at 'em! Feet on the floor! NOW!" Orchestra, yes, orchestra! I admit that I'm partial to the BSO's version, and have been for years.).
Sunday: I spent this morning being lazy, watching a couple of documentaries, and figuring out some shots for my next project. But eventually I ended up at the school, as I'm a lot more productive when I'm in the Photo Studio then when I'm in my dorm room.
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Now, about that project that I'm prepping for.
First off, it's totally different from anything else I've ever done. Because many people still don't know what Harper has up his sleeve, and don't pay attention to the goings-on on Parliament Hill, I've decided to do a video about things like Bill C-30 (the Lawful Access Bill), Bill C-11 (which I talked about a couple weeks ago), and cuts to the arts and public services. And then I'll post it to YouTube and Vimeo--and hope that it'll go viral.
The video probably won't have much talking, letting the images speak for themselves. I'll probably have some text, though (probably some excerpts from the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, as well as short explanations of parts of the laws in question). I'll get music from a site that has Creative Commons-licensed tracks.
I'll also talk about how social programs are being cut, as are the arts, Environment Canada, and scientists are being asked to not publish parts of studies--or to not publish those studies altogether.
Even after the Orange Wave last election (which had the second-lowest turnout in Canadian history), most Canucks remain uninformed about Harper's plans for Canada. The prime minister is intent on moulding this country into one that's unrecognizable to it's citizens. I love Canada dearly, and I'm proud of what we've accomplished (universal health-care!)--but I'm not proud of Canada in it's current form. I'm not proud to be a Canadian--and I'm downright angry with the federal government.
I've spent the last few days compiling a Word document (notebook layout) filled with ideas, resources and topics that I might cover.
As is the case just about every time I contemplate an idea like this--something that's definitely outside the "safe" zone--I'm unsure about whether or not I should do whatever it is that I'm thinking of doing. I've had those thoughts about this project, but as Helen said on Thursday, by doing this project, I'm joining the long tradition of commenting on the political or current events of the day. If that isn't validation of my project, I don't know what is.
And besides: I've done political art before.
And because I can't resist:
Rabbit of Seville from TravisD on Vimeo.
Wednesday, April 1, 2009
April Fool's Day 2009
These have gotta be the best April Fools' Day videos ever. I dare ya not to laugh!
First up: Swiss spaghetti trees (from 1957):
And now, flying penguins (from last year):
Here's one that I found about the making of the penguin "documentary":
Okay, that's enough videos for now. ;-) Enjoy the day!
Sunday, March 29, 2009
Earth Hour 2009
What a wonderful night last night was!
My observance of Earth Hour actually started at about 9:00 because my mom and I were at an open house to celebrate a family friend's ninetieth birthday (some of the stories told were extremely funny to the point that I was bent double with laughter). When we got home most of the lights had been turned off (thanks, Tom!).
I took some photos for the Earth Hour Global group on Flickr (I cranked the ISO up to 800 and made sure I used a tripod in case of long exposures. I also avoided candles at all costs because that subject had been done about a million times before.) and then I decided to grab my violin and play something in the dark. I started out with some easy pieces and then moved on to more difficult ones like Beethoven's Minuet and Trio in G, and The Two Grenadiers (once I got to the second half of that one I just blazed through it).
Some of these pieces I hadn't played in a while so it was wonderful to dig them out and dust them off. Sometimes I played in total darkness, but when I hit a piece that I had trouble with I turned the stand-light back on again.
We kept our lights off until about ten--half-way through Earth Hour in the Eastern time-zone (I have quite a few friends who live in that time-zone, including two in Toronto, so that was rather cool).
When I write it out here, it doesn't seem like I did much. But it felt like a lot last night.
Earlier I noticed that on the Earth Hour website it seemed as though there were more people who were using the forum to state how they were going to turn everything on in participation of a so-called Human Achievement Hour then there were people who were going to turn everything off. Hmmmmm........ What's wrong with this picture? If all our "achievements" (fossil fuels, clear-cutting, polluting the rivers and streams, etc.) end up destroying our home is it really an achievement? Yes, this species has done some wonderful things (the civil-rights movement, composing beautiful and moving music), but by turning everything on and calling it an "achievement" I think it's celebrating the worst of the species. Okay, I'm done.
From CBC.ca: Canadians douse lights to usher in Earth Hour 2009
Here's a video that really tells what Earth Hour about:
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