Oh By the Way...

I'm done with the grant!

The Smallest Things Can Make A Person Happy

I picked up the April issue of American Photo On Campus today in the lab at school. I didn't even bother to read the cover but one of the featured stories is called Plastic Factastic: Why cheap cameras can be so precious. A classmate of mine is currently using a Holga to shoot work for this course. Having used a Holga before (and loving it) and even writing about it earlier this quarter I would've totally opened up to that page and read immediately. But instead I just started flipping through the short magazine doing what I do best and just looking at the images. Then I saw this:

I recognized this image IMMEDIATELY and got super excited. This is the work of Jennifer Shaw
( Jennifershaw.net ) which I have loved since the first day I saw it. She shot with a Holga and created a series she calls Hurricane Story. She placed a magnifying glass over her Holga lens to create this familiar effect that carries on through all of the images. I immediately looked over at my classmate Hannah and said "Have you seen this!" She responded with "Yeah" looking at me like a crazy person because for some reason I assumed she would know who's work it was. She did not...I got way excited and told her to look at Jennifer Shaw's work and went on and on, pulled up her portfolio web site and all.

The reason I got so excited is when I participated in the Visual Narratives and Photographic Essay course one of the instructors introduced me to Jennifer Shaw and her son was my subject for one day while we were in New Orleans. So in seeing her work I made that personal connection remembering the day we spent at the park and I was super excited to talk about my experience. That class was such a different experience, at least once a week I think we bring up something about it or something that happened while we were there. Money well spent. :)

Assignment #2 15 Photos

Developing The Ability To Describe My Work

I'm going to take a stab at this. I definitely need a lot of assistance in this department! I don't even feel like I have a solid style to my work yet. Here goes to developing that over the rest of the year.

For class the instructor gave us a sheet with the following questions for us to answer about our work. I will try to answer them....

1.  Thoroughly describe the content of your work. This is not about intention or motivation - just the end product. What, specifically is in the photograph? Complete this exercise for one specific photograph. Then after you complete one photograph, describe a body of work or series of images - still just the description of what is in the work.

 This is an image of my little sister. She is in the bathroom looking at her up-do in the mirror. The focus is on the top of her head while the rest of the image remains out of focus. The image is fairly neutral with the exception of the blue shirt she is wearing and the blue light coming from the  hallway.

2.  What is the purpose or intention of the work? Are you trying to inform? Evaluate? Entertain? Sell? Illustrate?

       a. What are the components of the photograph(s) that you feel support this intention?

       b. Are there components of the process (planning, shooting, printing, etc.) that supports this intention?

3.  List 10 adjectives that describe your work.

4.  Imagine for a moment that you meet a prospective client in an elevator. This may be a gallery owner, an art director, a magazine editor, etc. You don't have your book with you and he or she wants to know what type of photography you do. In 1-2 sentences, how do you answer?

5. After receiving a business card from your contact in the elevator, you wish to follow up with an email and a link to your online portfolio. In 50 words, expand your elevator speech to further describe your work.

6.  Select a few samples of images you feel are representative of your 'style'.

       a.   Have a classmate describe these images  (take notes)

       b.   Have a friend or relative without a photography/media arts background describe them.

       c.   Have a stranger describe them.

       d.   What are the similarities and/or differences in their descriptions? Did you learn anything new?

              Was anything surprising?

7. In summary, in 1-2 sentences, describe your photographic style.

More Shots.

Here is a detail shot of the textures in Erinn's clothes that day. Hannah described Erinn's look as "Country Chic". I have both color and black and white. I think the black and white version abstracts the image even more than it already is.

Como Park Shoot

Yesterday I did a shoot with two friends who were kind enough to model for me. This is one image I've edited I decided to post both color and black and white because I really do like both of them.

Here they are:

Found A Blog

I found this blog today. It's one of the more recent ones I've found. In researching I found a lot that haven't been updated for months and this is pretty current. The cute thing is that it has the same little item that Gavin has in my previous post. The 'daddy pillow'.

I'm considering just emailing her and seeing if she's willing to talk to me.

http://offthebase.wordpress.com/2011/01/13/five-years-two-kids-and-four-deployments-later/

You HAVE To See This...!

So the whole thing that inspired this project was a military image I saw of a woman holding a baby in front of a laptop and on the laptop was her husband. They were skyping until the baby fell asleep. And the caption said something along the lines of "although my daddy is far away he's still here in my heart" because they got to see each other. I can't find the image but I am still looking.

Today I logged onto my Facebook and saw this picture. This is Gavin, his daddy is away on a 400 day deployment. He has a 1 year old brother and they miss their daddy soooo much. I love this image. This is exactly the types of things I want to photograph. I couldn't think of how to explain it before but it's coming along. I want to show the little things (and larger scale things) that these families do in times like this. In this case, just making a little pillow with the father's picture on it so Gavin can see him when he goes to sleep. It's such a small thing, but it helps this little guy.

* Just to verify again. This is not my image but an image my friend and Military Wife Kymber took of her son.

Researching Away!

I'm super excited I just ordered two books to continue my research on my project about Military Wives/Fiances/Girlfriends.

1. "Married to the Military: A Survival Guide for Military Wives, Girlfriends, and Women in Uniform"
Meredith Leyva

2. "CONFESSIONS OF A MILITARY WIFE"
Mollie Gross

Super excited to get these and start reading them. I have also tried to look for military spouse support groups in the area. I haven't found anything yet but I also have put the word out that I am looking. I started a group on facebook and added the few girls that I know that fit this project.

Done!

I finished my 2nd draft of my grant but it's a lot shorter than my first and rough draft. I feel like I should add something but I have no idea what to add. Hopefully today in class I can get some feedback. I cut out a lot of things to make it really seem feasible.

Also, since I don't have any new images of this specific project and found three from my essay project that I really like that I think emulate the style that I want to go for in the essay about military spouses etc.

Here they are:

Grant Re-write...

Finishing up my second draft of my grant and Becky was totally right, I am already sick of this! Just because I don't know what to write or how to write it...frustrating. I think I'm also just confused. I feel like I know what's going on but when it gets down to doing it I'm confused again. I don't even know if that makes sense. I'm not even sure what types of images to turn in because I haven't lined up any models yet. But I have been making contact and put up an event on facebook as an easy way to keep track of the people that I do make contact with. I do however want to continue this Military Wives/Girlfriends/Fiances project because I am really interested in it.

"You don't want to just drop your resume out like leaflets from a helicopter."

A task ahead of me now is writing out my resume to be included in our mock grant in class. We went over many things that should be on a resume in class today. Ranging from personal information to "Special things" that is totally a technical term by the way, for sure using it as a heading on my resume.

I have no idea how to word some of the things I've done into one little line on a resume. But over the weekend I will be working on these things due Tuesday:
    
     -2nd draft of grant
     -Resume
     -9 Images for submission

"Good luck with that."

Guess what I forgot....

Super bummed when I realized today my rough draft for the grant application was due. Good thing I was sick on Tuesday. Not. Awesome. I will have to work on it today because even though it is late it still has to be done!

I did however find most of my informational interview prospects, I'm having trouble finding one more that I like!

1. Buena Farrell Photography
www.beunafarrellphotography.com

2. Judd Sather Photography
www.studiojphoto.com

3. Couture 13
www.couture13.com

4. Images of the Past - Photo Restoration
www.imagesofthepast.com

5. ???????? Coming Soon

First Critique!

I received what I believe to be fairly good feed back from class today. It really helps when you get to actually hear what other people think. I like that the further along you are in the program the more genuine it feels during critiques. It's not just about who "likes" your photo. It's more than that, whether or not it's actually working. I know there's photos I like but they're not perfect.

I really do agree that some of them could have benefited from some form of supplemental lighting. I wished I would've had a speedlight at the gym. I think it would've made things just a little bit easier too since some of the images I shot had some heavy motion blur and on some I missed the focus.

I want to try to set up a shoot with a military wife/girlfriend to just get that project started and see where it goes. I also want to do some fashion style shooting with models and really get it done. I find it hard to get models who are actually willing to commit to a time and day but I want to broaden my search and get people to commit to concrete appointments.

Here are 3 photos from the first assignment I converted them back to color:

Informational Interviews

For class we have to set up an informational interview with a photographer that does work that we are interested in. By next week we have to have a list of 5 photographers that we might like to contact. I'm putting Buena Farrell on my list but after that I'm really not sure who else to attempt to contact.


Possibilities for Interviews:

* Buena Farell Photography  - http://www.facebook.com/home.php#!/pages/Buena-Farrell-Photography/240170857457
        -Specifically for the collaborative projects between Buena and Pam ( boudoir )

First Critique and Some Frustrations

We had our first critique today and we didn't get through everyone but we will finish the rest on Thursday. I'm a little bummed but we'll see what happens. I shot this work that I really like and it seems like as time goes on I start to dislike the pictures... Here are a few photos from my first project for specialization.

I also have a lot of things that I really want to do but haven't really had the time or things that I just didn't think fit into the description of a certain assignment. In my first post I expressed interest in boudoir photography and how I have a recent obsession with it after seeing the work of a local photographer.  (  http://www.facebook.com/home.php#!/media/set/fbx/?set=a.485769087457.268787.240170857457 )

Also, I have a huge interest in working with a Holga and 120mm film. The holga and 120mm film I've worked with before and love the whole idea of it. The reason for revisiting the Holga came from Digi Photo Production when I did my final on Landscape and used my friends Hannah and Katie as models. I used gradients in the images and my instructor, Brett, had said that it really looks like images that used to be taken with Holga cameras. The light leaks and color leaks were every similar to what happens on Holga film and images. Here are the images from that assignment:

So I really want to revisit something like this, Fashion with a Holga and film. Just to play with the idea of the perfection that goes into Fashion style shooting and the imperfection in the Holga and film with the light and color leaks that can happen.

With the boudoir photography, I really want to approach it in a classy very professional sort of way. I'm not sure if it's something I will even attempt this quarter but it is on my mind for sure. I have always been interested in lingerie photography and have a strong interest in the images that Victoria's Secret uses. I also get a lot of inspiration from the brand. My frustration is I think of these things or I have these ideas that I want to do and as soon as I express interest in them so does someone else. So how do I make sure that I approach the subject in my own way as well as proving to the faculty that I really did come up with this idea and I'm not just taking this idea from the other students in my class. I'm getting really, really frustrated! It's happened like three times in the last few weeks and I don't want anyone to think I'm not thinking for myself! Done ranting..... Hope you like the images!

First Attempt At Grant Writing....

So I attempted our first rough draft of our mock grant that we are doing in this class and I'm still lost but now I have like 6 pages of notes from class today about everything I ever wanted to know about grant writing I think...

I want to really get a hold on this and write a good grant but I'm not a Minnesota resident and I think that puts a huge damper in my plan. Bummer. I did research North Dakota grants but the sad part is North Dakota Art grants are essentially non-existent. Sad day.

More on my shooting progress of the next assignment soon! For the most part I think that I want to focus on people and creating a better sense of intimacy within my portraits.

Second Day and So Much Information!

Today was only the second day of class and we learned so much information that is definitely helpful for students who are nearing the end. We spent an hour learning about grants and how to start to write a grant which I think is really, really important and I hadn't even begun to think about anything like that yet.
On the other hand I've been thinking a lot about what I want to do with photography as a career and I'm still all over the place. What do I want to do??? The other day when I was cleaning off my desk I found a little note that I wrote while at work and a contact I made. I was completely surprised when I made a sort of contact at work, yes Victoria's Secret. But things do happen. I'm considering contacting this person and seeing what can happen in the mean time here's a link to the project that this contact worked on.

http://www.pointlakepictures.com/

First Day of Class

After a rough quarter last quarter I'm trying to go into this next one by staying as positive as I possibly can. So far so good.

I'm taking a class this quarter called Specialization. It's the first class where we are not told exactly what to do for all of our assignments. We get to work on things that interest us. I haven't been this excited for a class since I took Alternative Photo Processes or Digi Photo. It's not quite beating the excitement around the essay class and going to New Orleans but it's close. Just knowing I only have 4 quarters left is a really good feeling!

What I like to shoot:

People/Portraits: I like to shoot documentary style work. I also have a huge interest in Senior Portraits, Baby Pictures, Weddings and my very recent obsession is Boudoir Photography. I just love the whole idea of it and helping other women is a passion that I have discovered while working at Victoria's Secret.

Landscapes: I just love the outdoors and capturing a beautiful moment.   

Alternative Processes: I really enjoy working with alternative photography processes and I'm looking forward to maybe doing some of that work in this class. I especially love really dark blue cyanotypes and salt prints.

I've also been thinking lately about doing some sort of photographic essay on military wives, specifically in the Midwest. It's in the early stages so nothing is decided yet. But I'm really interested in the subject after seeing a specific image.  (Link coming soon because I can't find it right now.)

Overall, I am so excited about this class and I hope I do really well.
 

"I just care that they're prints and you love them."