Photography

This past semester I took a photography class.  We shot exclusively with black and white film and did all of the developing and printing ourselves.  The class was literally one of the best I've ever taken.  I learned a ton.

I meant to have this blog set up a while back and so then I could make postings of each assignment, but seeing as I didn't get around to getting the blog up until like a week ago, you are now just going to get blasted with all my pics.  Here are just some of the highlights.  Click on any of the pictures to get to my flickr page where you can see pretty much all of the pictures I took this semester.

These first couple photos are from the very beginning of the semester.  I like these pictures a lot, but in comparison to my later pictures, you can tell that I still was really finding my feet.  I was shooting a lot of what my teacher would call "found objects."

Barbed wire.  Not very exciting, but I thought it was a really well-developed shot.

Heather's majestic Golf

Roque (my roommate) and Oliver.  We were out on a bike ride.

One of the highlights of this class for me was the legendary "Jim's woods" (pronounced jee-im's wuuds) shoot.  I had to shoot people that I knew, and so some friends and I went out to Dieter's neighbor's land to shoot some photos.  This is the result:

Me in a field.  This shot makes me think of Sigur Ròs.

Dieter with a feather.

Mopsie!

Rocks make good chairs.

Our final project was to intentionally communicate something with ten top-quality prints.  This was hard for me because pretty much all of my photography up to that point had been shot very organically without much intent to communicate any particular idea.  The following is the artist's statement that I had to compose as part of the project:

In Friday, I attempt to depict the anticipation that one has towards the end of completing a long period of work and the subsequent feelings of liberation and fun.  It includes two narratives of young people working, having a moment of epiphany, and finally doing things that they love.

This project evolved quite a bit as I was conceptualizing and shooting it.  Initially, I was going to depict how people grow up, focusing on how even when we are old and doing “adult” things, we still have a desire to return to the ways of our youth.  To have fun.  I still think that Friday depicts this feeling.

De-molding.

Beanie in his element.  Reminds me of when they find Karl in LOST...

The All-Trac.

Now that the class is over, I miss it terribly.  Maybe this blog can be a good reason for me to get out there and shoot some more projects.

This post wouldn't be complete without a mention of my beloved A-Team.  You guys are awesome.  Photogs forever.

Fight Club and reading in general

Whoa, first real post already?

I feel like reading is ruined for a lot of people by their being forced to read so-called "classics" in high school.  Not to demerit the value of classic novels, but we must look at what the consequences are.  Forcing 9th graders to read Great Expectations is hardly a way to instill the joy of reading to young people.  I don't mean to say that required reading in high school is inherently bad, it's just that the book choice of some schools is questionable at best.  Not knowing how schools go about selecting required readings for their students, I cannot speak with authority on this.

A friend of mine recently loaned me Fight Club by Chuck Palahniuk.  Having never seen the popular movie, I didn't entirely know what to expect from the novel.  It was an exciting book that delved into the psyche of the unnamed narrator.  I enjoyed it very much and would give it a solid 8 out of 10.

Now, I wouldn't consider myself to be the worst casualty of the aforementioned plague of required reading, but the 208-page book did take me almost an entire semester to read.  I've always had the desire to be more of a reader, but when push comes to shove, reading has hardly ever been at the top of my daily priority list.  There are many reasons for this, only a very minor one being high school required reading killing my desire to read.  One can make as many excuses they want, but 9 times out of 10, it all comes down to your personal priorities.

How would I receive Fight Club if I had read it for a high school English course?  It would certainly keep me more interested than Great Expectations, and one could argue that it would give me a much better taste for reading in general.  But don't hold your breath for Fight Club to become part of the reading curriculum for high schoolers, as it is full of vivid language, violence, and sex.

Then how do we teach high school English in a way that doesn't kill reading?  I suggest a full transition to a curriculum of books by author John Green.  But that's just my two cents.  What do you think?

Post #1

Hello, blogging world!  This blog has been a long time coming for me, but here I am now.  I'm not sure how this blog will take shape, as I really don't plan on blogging about one particular thing.  Regardless, I'm excited to see what comes of this.

Blog on.