FInal Project

           My thought process before the project was to make a narrative that is important to me, or something that was sort of a tradition. Since it was Thanksgiving break I thought about videoing the cooking process that demonstrated all of the steps put in to get the final project. I also thought about videoing our family grace before our Thanksgiving dinner because grace is very important to my family we have so much to be thankful for; and lastly I thought about videoing the madness of Black Friday because every year I go with my sister and it is chaotic especially at 4 in the morning.  

            For my final project, I settled on filming my family’s Thanksgiving grace and adding pictures to show my family and holiday celebration. The pictures that I captured were ones I thought really represented the day. I had the picture of the day on the calendar, a stuffed animal turkey, our harvest fall decorations, of course the plate of amazing food, some of my family eating, and lastly the two most important people in my life which is my mom and sister. Using Garage Band I added a sort of soulful instrumental over the grace so that it really added to the religious and emotional aspect.

            Overall, I am happy with how the piece turned out. My grandma is older and not in her best health so having her in one of the pictures while grace is being said means a lot to me because I am thankful for every bit of time I get to spend with her especially since this could be her last Thanksgiving. Every family goes through their own struggles, and my family has definitely been through a lot and to express to everyone our thankfulness and giving thanks to God means the world to me.

Brianstorming

1) Starting next Wednesday my starts preparing thanksgiving food. I thought about videotaping the process; the ingredients being out, preparing the food, the end product, then the next day snapping pictures of the family enjoying the food just to tie the project all together.

2) Since it is the holiday season my sister and I always go black Friday shopping super early in the morning, so I thought I could take my video camera to the stores and videotape different people on their hunt for their items. I figured it could be sort of a Lord of The Flies type film, with people salvaging, fighting, and waiting over the items they came to purchase. People get crazy, the only downfall is it isn't always super crazy every year so it would by chance if I got good footage.

3) My grandma is pretty old an not in the best health, so I will be spending time next week just us two helping her prepare thanksgiving food. I thought maybe I could just do an audio recording and take a few pictures as we bond and share our time together making memories enjoying whatever time she has left.

4) Since we always have turkey before thanksgiving I figured I could do a picture documentary of preparing the turkey from start to finish. Pulling whatever junk out that stuffed inside, rubbing it with seasoning, the cooking process, the person struggling to carry it, stuffing it with dressing, carving it, then serving it on a beautiful platter.

Whatever I do, I want to involve the holidays and my family because that's whats important to me and any narrative with that is something I will enjoy working on and can put my whole heart and creativity in it.

Failure Paper

   This class has been a very pleasent class; in all my years of school there have been only a handful of classes I can say I actually enjoyed, and this is one that I really enjoyed! I don't know as though I can really pinpoint this as my biggest failure in the class, but I will say my personal failure and biggest downfall would be just having the lack of knowledge for the technology and software programs that we used. I have to say I struggled quite a bit trying to make the visions I had, just because I was so unfamiliar and dumbfounded by the software. Although it took time, I really feel that I got more comfortable with the software and was able to use it more afficiently since having a little practice. By micro project 5 I definitely feel like I have gained the knowledge needed for these software programs but I am certainly not a master and will never be done learning! My biggest success in this class would definitely be finding my creativity and using it in my work. I have always known I was creative and had interesting and unique ideas, but this class really allowed me to push myself and think outside the box to really bring that creativity to life! This class really made me learn and understand that no idea is ever too crazy or too out there. Being creative is what art and photography is all about, pushing your limits and doing what others would never think of. I think if I could redo one project it would be the map project. This project being one of our first photoshop projects and me not being familiar with the software I really struggled. I think that I was so concerned with understanding the software and trying to figure out what to do I didn't allow myself to be creative and I just went with the easiest way out in doing the MapQuest map and photo-shopping pictures over top. If I could change things now, I think I would definitely use the software to create my map instead of using MapQuest. My approach was just too original.

Micro Project 5

The object that I chose for this project was a light bulb. My words were gather and scatter, I had the hardest time coming up with an object that I felt would make sense to everyone without having to go into deep explanation but at the same time I wanted it to be creative. One night I got up in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom and the light was shining so bright in my eyes after being asleep for so long, and I began to think it is truly amazing how with just the flick of a switch electricity just shoots out of the light bulb. It was at that moment I realized light bulbs gather electricity to then scatter light throughout whatever room or place you are in. I chose to make a video going through different rooms in my house starting in the dark then videoing the from beginning to end with the flip of the switch, to the light scattering around the room, to the electricity and light being gathered back up in the light bulb, to the turning off flick of the switch. I used several lights and even a lamp just to demonstrate that even though the object may look different it works in the same magnificent way, to gather electricity and to scatter the light.

Micro Project 4

      This video soundtrack takes place in my car. I spend a lot of my time in my car between commuting to school, going to work, and whatever leisurely activities I go to in my free time. I love country music so I always have my radio on 92.3 WCOL, which is the reason why I have one of my favorite country singers Tim Mcgraw driving a truck as my soundtrack picture. It was interesting doing this project because it really allowed me to focus on the sounds I heard in my car rather than just the music blaring through my speakers. My turn signal was a really prominent sound that stood out to me, I also had my windshield wipers on which created a squeaking sound depending on how fast they were going, and lastly the sound of my car when I would break and accelerate really stood out to me. I have never focused on any of these sounds before, so now when I get in my car they are all I can hear!

Carver Cathedral

        Carver's writing was very interesting. It really demonstrated how the senses are so powerfully used when one sense is missing. The blind man compensated his lack of vision with his hearing, taste, and touch to get through his life and understand the environment around him. It was really cool to read the part of them drawing the Cathedral and the blind man holding on to feel the trace of the drawing so he could understand what the Cathedral looks like. I have never done something like that before so I think it would be interesting to see what I could do and if I could function normally with my eyes closed. I just really liked the end of the writing when the husband closed his eyes and didn't want to open them because he had never felt a feeling like that before, it was like he was amazed and that is really nice to read especially after he made such a fuss about being around the blind man and not knowing how to act.
       Overall I really liked this piece, it was a little hard to get into but once it carried on I really liked the objective it had about how people with deficiencies can sometimes enjoy life and things in life better than people without the deficiencies. This piece really did focus on the senses and how they get you through life; it was really interesting.

Wallace This Is Water

          Wallace's writing This is Water was over all pretty good. It manly focused on how many people walk around oblivious to life and the situations they are put through. In a sense I agree with the writing, but I don't think everyone is this way. Like he said, it is the mindset that the person has. When the example was given about the men in the bar with the atheist that was a little crazy, I feel like that man was sort of oblivious to what was going on around him but not completely. I am religious, so based off of my religious values I believe that God can get you through any obstacle especially with prayer; but I have to look at the standpoint of maybe the man wasn't oblivious maybe atheist and no beliefs was how he was raised, so he wouldn't know if his prayers were answered or not.
        Overall, this writing was pretty interesting, the only thing that I have to disagree with is that everyone has their own life story which could be the reason they seem oblivious to Which is why we can't judge them based on whether we think they are walking clueless through life or whether they have just been brought up in a different way. My feelings are that whatever you are accustom to in life is the objective you will live by whether onlookers don't understand or not.