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.