finalll

I sold my soul to the darkroom today. i spent approx 233904823498 hours in there. i feel like i didnt get much accomplished but i am proud of my work.

i took my time and made an absurd amount of test strips which is why i think my prints came out pretty dece.

i thought i was going in one direction with this project... turns out im a metaphoric blind person without one of those seeing eye dogs. i keep on printing all these photos and im trying to decipher what im doing slash where im going w. this

i think i may already have ten prints but they are not THEEE ten prints, ya know?

im gonna go regain my sanity now haha.
cyaaa ;)

so i assisted kathy in a photo shoot on wed. it was some dinner in donahue in honor of this older gentleman who provides all these stonehill students with scholarships.

i didnt realize so much work is put into stuff like this. the students arrived a half an hour early so we could take a picture of them .

me and kathy got there two hours early. initially i was like "ummmm is this necessary??" [obviously only in my head] so we get there and she has all this equipment we lug into donahue. the set up wasn't too tedious. i actually learned a lot about lighting and much more. she was really great to work with.

it was the funniest thing. we just expected it to be the guy who provides the scholarship but then his wife decided she wanted to be in the photo. so how could we say no, right? so the woman is wearing sneakers and a fur coat... aaaand she totally rocked it, but kathy had to crop out the sneaks obvi

we had a few obstacles with lighting and the way they wanted the picture to be taken and the fact that we had to fit 25 people in a very tight space buuut where there is a will there is a way [mom says this a lot (haha apple doesnt fall far from the tree)]

anyways it was an awesome experience. it was hardly exciting but i enjoyed myself anyway. maybe that'll be me in the future

oh and i found out that kathy is originally from the dirty jerz...jersey girls aka soulmates haha

cya.

i was randomly browsing the internet, and i stumbled upon this photograph. i dont know the photographer or any information on it buuuut i thought it was awesome.

just the irony of having five men alive and then five dead and decomposed [i dont know if its irony really but pretty damn compelling id say]

for some reason even with all those skeletons chillen out in the photo, my eye wanders over to the man sitting next to them.

theres great depth of field, but honestly the content is what grabs my attention

i want to know who these people are and what the hell those skeletons are doing there... were they just dug from the ground? were they actually retrieved for the photo?

what are the men doing in the background?

...just thinking aloud

major

this past week i finalized my major, finallyyy. its such a relief.

i was thinking about just settling with an English major and a journalism minor. instead i decided to pursue a multidisciplinary major which was a lot of work but totally worth it. i combined fine arts [photography], journalism, and English in hopes of becoming a photojournalist

i met with Dean Favazza, and MJ decided to be my advisor, which is awesome!
so everything fell into place perfectly. looove it ;)

first photo shoot!

I met with Professor Crowe to strategize my life so to speak. She is really great.
Right off the bat, she set me up with a photographer friend of hers.

I will be assisting a photo shoot for some dinner. Sounds bland, but I'm pretty enthusiastic about it.

So this photographer I will be working with, she had this assignment to photograph an entire CVS [like every little detail of it]... yawn much???

Anyways, so I guess when Professor Crowe told me this story I realized that it all can't be fun and games.

prints

I developed my portrait and self portrait prints... they all came out just as I wanted them to. The pictures of Sam... I looooved how they turned out.

...Even my self portrait. I decided to print the ones of me talking with my hands. I think it says a lot about me, and I like that it tells a story in a sense.

the one frustrating thing: dust on my negatives --> PAIN

I think that the last class critique went the best so far out of all the ones we have had. The feedback was great. I love hearing other people's perceptions of my own work. It's so interesting to see how differently one photograph can be interpreted.

It is also fun creating your own story for someone else work.

Surprisingly I am actually looking forward to the final critique [nerd, i know].

anyways cyaaaa

portrait vs. self

so this was probably my favorite assignment everrr. while i was shooting, for the first time i actually felt like i was a photographer. i was in total control of what was being captured. i played director and model [which in some way was indescribably humbling...idk]

i wasnt really focused on the mechanics of the camera which made the assignment more enjoyable. i was outside. the weather was bomb. the sun worked magically alongside my artistic genius [haha just kidding].it was perfect.

the pictures came out phenomenal and i say this in the most humble way possible. seriously i give all the credit to the sun...and a great subject matter :)

i wanted to capture sam, not like 'say cheese' pictures but like actually capture who she is. i wanted people who see these pictures to think oh i feel like i know this girl. some of the pictures legit look heavenly. she is outlined by the sun in several pictures...glorious!!

then in others you have no idea what the hell she is doing which creates a really lame sense of mystery, but fun nonetheless. there is this one photo where she is staring out of the frame, and her facial expression is indefinable... like what is she thinking? what is she looking at? it seems really thought provoking.

then my self portrait... initially i was thinking oh what props can i use since my biggest one [my face] is off limits. then i thought no keep it simple, what makes up you without your ravishingly stunning face [again totally jokinggg]? so i threw on a black tee, my oh so skinny jeans, and my usual array of rings.

i like reading people, whether it is their body language or hand gestures/facial expressions. so i thought id let everyone do the same. basically my photos are of my hands. when i saw how they turned out i feel like im telling a story with no plot, but i like it. so wonderful, right?

<3>

photographer extraordinaire

this is Sebastiao Salgado's "Greater Burgan Oil Field" taken during the Gulf War.

the photo is so intense and rich. i was staring at it for a bit, and i felt like i was looking at a photograph taken in color.

the lighting is amazing. the oil soaked clothes on the technicians serve as a great contrast with the rough texture of the ground. the emotion depicted is goose bump inducing. the oil falling like rain is just crazy. i love it

its engaging. great depiction of motion. great subject matter. great depth of field.

when i think of devastation, spewing oil doesn't exactly come to mind, but when i look at this i feel it

no words can ever give Salgado's work the justice it deserves

Afghan girl

I remember being just a small girl when seeing this photograph on the cover of National Geographic. I remember thinking this was the most beautiful girl Ive ever seen, like completely natural in her element.

Her eyes are insanely piercing and engaging; they tell a story but one that she will only fully know. Like I look at this and wonder what she must have been thinking when a complete stranger took this of her. And whats crazy is how famous this one picture became in the US and meanwhile she is living in Afghanistan without a clue.

So years later they [Im assuming the writer(s) of the original article] found the girl. Its nuts, the picture of her now its like looking at another person. The life looks drained from her face [which is understandable taking into consideration the standard of living in a country with such turmoil.] Be that as it may, it was still disheartening.

so this is the kind of effect I want to have when people look at my photographs. In high school we had to choose a photographer and imitate their work. I chose Sebastiao Salgado. He is this incredibly talented photographer who concentrates on third world countries. His work is phenomenal- raw, real, absurdly honest. I aspire to be him [really only in the artistic sense (I dont want to be a dude lol)]

so we finally got to use our real cameras... ball buster --> my photos were about as good as my pinhole ones.

so.... thats that. hopefully i will have better luck w. the framing assignment.

the other day i was in the library [hardly working] in the computer lab on the third floor. for what was probably the majority of the time i was there, i was staring out of the window. these two cars which were facing each other were pulling out of their parking spots at the same time in opposite directions. ... and although this seems like completely useless information, it caught my attention. i immediately thought of the photo Sonia showed us in class--> the movement one with the little girls and the car turning in the background.
...my mind wanders [quote for garden state fans...anyone?]

on a much different note, i have to express my new found appreciation for blogging. recently the wb aired this new show gossip girl. the basis of the show is this anonymous girl who gossips [hence the name] via blogging. so i thought that was pretty cool...

i was browsing other people's blogs which i found to be slightly more interesting than mine due to the fact that they actually posted pictures. so next time i'll make sure to spice mine up.

orange crush

the gallery opening basically reaffirmed my love for photography. all the photos were just so real. real in the sense that they were completely unpretentious yet naturally provocative.

each photo told a story that was completely up to interpretation. one of the artists Amy Montali revealed her tactic of deliberately telling the viewers nothing about the subject. i thought this was pretty brilliant. it makes it much more personal and then not at all at the same time. like you can create your own take on the photo creating some sort of meaning. and then not personal at all leaving blanks for the viewers to fill in.

as soon as i entered the gallery i immediately gravitated to Thomas Gustainis's "Orange Crush." the photo is bold and loud. it definitely agitated my senses [in a good way].

Ri Anderson's photograph "Natural Bridge State Park" also caught my attention. there is something serene about it. the woman lying down radiates gracefulness. the photo has a great depiction of motion. overall this photograph is inviting. one look and you want to enter in.