Blog time!
Halloween blog time!
Happy Halloween to everyone!
I love Halloween, it's just so magically delicious
(seriously, this time of year is just so sugary good)
I don't think I ever eat as much candy as I do in the weeks immediately preceding and immediately following Halloween...there is just always candy around
which is a magical thing
So, anyways, pre-photo posting, I guess I'm just gonna chatter a bit...feel free to scroll ahead to the actual photo.
Wednesday I got up at 7:50 a.m.
I went to bed Friday at 2 a.m.
That's a long fucking day...mostly because that is actually almost two days
I had a test Thursday and in my frantic stress-mode (as usual when it comes to tests) I decided I should just stay up until the test...that way there would be no way for me to sleep through the test and I wouldn't be groggy...why bother getting a solid two hours of sleep anyways, right?
And then AFTER the test I figured why not just stay up? I didn't feel THAT tired
And then stuff piled up, blah blah etc etc somehow I had ended up being awake for a solid 42 hours
Anyways, my window in my room is lovely...except at (depending on when the sun rises) between 7-9 a.m. when the sunlight comes pounding through my window directly into my eyeball when I'm sleeping. Okay okay, so it's helpful because it starts to wake me up, I know...but it doesn't make me any less resentful of it in my sleepy/groggy/grumpy state in the morning...not a morning person...seriously
But since I was already awake at 8 on Thursday morning...awake and chipper...I finally got to see the light in a way that wasn't intensely irritating and oh my fricken Jesus was it gorgeous! I was flipping out about how nice the light was by myself for about twenty minutes...possibly in part due to the fact that I had been awake for twenty-four hours at that point...but seriously, FLIPPING OUT. I think when I'm over-exhausted I get into a very "Oh my god! Life is so beautiful! Look at all the wonders of the world!" states which is very very strange for me because I'd say I'm generally a fairly cynical, bitter, sarcastic person with very little appreciation for the world...for fuck's sake, I'm taking three courses this semester about mass murder and persecution of peoples based on their religious/"racial" affiliations...I'm not generally in a very "love the world" kind of state, I'm usually in a "people are awful, I hate everyone" state.
This relates to photography, I swear. Point being, I really hope I can convince my lazy ass to wake up early one day this weekend and take some pictures in this light. I managed to distract myself from studying by deciding I "simply had to" take some pictures in the light. I even thought all the papers/books strewn across my bed were suddenly very beautiful when minutes before I had been resenting them pretty strongly. I'd like to actually have something I planned to photograph ready to be shot in that light, rather than whatever I happened to find enchanting in my half-crazed, semi-delusional, cracked-out-on-lack-of-sleep state.
WHOA, off topic, back to my photo for this week. This one I did not take yesterday morning. I decided to revisit the pear...I had done another pear photo a couple of weeks ago and I wanted to try it again because the original wasn't particularly satisfying. I suppose you could say I was feeling a little soap opera-y with my pear, the poor dear...As the Pear Turns...
Scene: Pear-l is returning home early from her business trip to Peru. Hoping to surprise her husband, Mirror-angelo, she doesn't call him ahead of time to let him know she's coming home. She walks into the house, expecting him to be at his desk, reflecting on life like he often does...only to find him with another woman in his arms! That young twig from next door with the perfect smooth skin and long flowy hair! Dun dun duuuuun
Well, I think you get the idea...really you can make up whatever story you like with it. I took a lot of photos, trying to figure out what I wanted...and as with everything in life I actually had no idea what I wanted...(directionless, headless mannequin that I am ;) )
I enjoy this photo, I like the dramatic light, the dramatic shadow of the mirror on the left side of the photo dominating over the pear, the dramatic sweep of the curtains in the background (Annie pointed that out to me while I was working on it)
In working with pears I was trying to play off this "pear-shaped" idea. As usual, I picked up an object one day and said "Hey! I want to shoot this...what's my concept?" I do that too much, maybe I should try concept first...object later.
But honestly, everytime I see a celebrity magazine or article or photo or whatever, I just can't believe how fuckng prevalent all these "way skinnier than can possibly be healthy" women are. And they're everywhere! I already mentioned this but I'm taking three out of my four classes in the Holocaust and Genocide study stream...if you've never seen photos from the Armenian Genocide, look them up. It's absoultely incredible and totally sickening. I see these photos all the time in my classes and I get a much stronger feeling of resemblance between models/actors/actresses/etc and the victims in these photos than I do between models/actors/actresses and the people I see walking down the street everyday. So I brought the celery into it...sorry, total rant...I just feel like this vanity and obsession with the image of being "the celery" instead of "the pear" is really a problem...not that the pear shouldn't eat right and exercise, you know, but there's a range...obesity isn't good either but, guess what? There is a totally healthy middle ground! A love handle, "thunder thigh"-filled middle ground that is perfectly beautiful. Crazy!
I'm making this sound far stupider than I intended to...I hate pretentiousness and now I feel like I'm being pretentious...lame! I'm not trying to be, promise, I'm just soap-boxing because it's election season and everyone is soap-boxing, it's in the air!
Whoa, next time I post we're going to have a new president elected, that's weird.
Jesus, I've done it again, posted far more than I intended to...I'm really sorry guys, I hope you skim this sucker because I would keep writing until my hands fell off if I could
OH! And A Quick (like you believe me) Treatise on the Defense of My Friend, the Lamp
So I have my lamp photo somewhere on this blog and I love my lamp friend. At midterm critique Frank said he knows I love the lamp but that, when posted up on the wall with my other photos it just didn't seem as vibrant and my other photos seemed to have this deeper quality.
And I completely understand that, Frank, I really do. Honestly, even when I was working on lampy not next to really bright, colorful peppers or mannequins I was thinking that the color just was not what the photo was about at all. I had thought of making it a black and white actually (I'm not sure, looking back now, why I decided against it). But anyways, yeah, definitely up with those other ones it seemed to pale a bit.
At the same time, for me, and this is definitely not true for everyone, the feeling I get from the photo is a lot more striking than the feeling I get from say the pepper photos. I love love love my peppers, I'm a proud mama, but for whatever reason I just feel this real connection to my lamp. And I thought about it alot, because I wanted to understand what I was getting out of it that maybe other people weren't.
The conclusion I came to was that I am truly madly deeply a very shy/awkward/introverted person. And I think that is the feeling I connect with that photo. That anxious/excited/butterflies in your stomach feeling of interacting with someone you don't know is something I feel a lot. My freshmen year I didn't have a single friend all of first semester because that feeling overwhelmed me and I was just too damn scared to actually approach anyone and say "Hey! Let's be friends!" I have friends now but it took me time to finally suck it up and make the approach.
And for me, that is what I relate to the lamp. And it struck me that there are a lot of people in the world who maybe don't know that feeling very well. I am constantly amazed at how easily some people can meet new people and just talk to a total stranger. There are a lot of people who are really outgoing and totally confident in meeting new people. I think that the lamp photo may not resonate really strongly with people like that.
Maybe I'm completely off with this, but I think that is why I really love the lamp. Maybe other people, even outgoing people, like it for other reasons, maybe introverts don't like it at all but that was my conclusion for my own love of it.
Okay, I'm DONE! Sorry sorry sorry for the super long entry! Frank, I expect you to read every single word of it! I want a three page summary of it on Monday morning, double-spaced, twelve point font, one inch margins.
Happy Halloween everyone! I hope you all have a great one! Don't get too crazy!
Halloween blog time!
Happy Halloween to everyone!
I love Halloween, it's just so magically delicious
(seriously, this time of year is just so sugary good)
I don't think I ever eat as much candy as I do in the weeks immediately preceding and immediately following Halloween...there is just always candy around
which is a magical thing
So, anyways, pre-photo posting, I guess I'm just gonna chatter a bit...feel free to scroll ahead to the actual photo.
Wednesday I got up at 7:50 a.m.
I went to bed Friday at 2 a.m.
That's a long fucking day...mostly because that is actually almost two days
I had a test Thursday and in my frantic stress-mode (as usual when it comes to tests) I decided I should just stay up until the test...that way there would be no way for me to sleep through the test and I wouldn't be groggy...why bother getting a solid two hours of sleep anyways, right?
And then AFTER the test I figured why not just stay up? I didn't feel THAT tired
And then stuff piled up, blah blah etc etc somehow I had ended up being awake for a solid 42 hours
Anyways, my window in my room is lovely...except at (depending on when the sun rises) between 7-9 a.m. when the sunlight comes pounding through my window directly into my eyeball when I'm sleeping. Okay okay, so it's helpful because it starts to wake me up, I know...but it doesn't make me any less resentful of it in my sleepy/groggy/grumpy state in the morning...not a morning person...seriously
But since I was already awake at 8 on Thursday morning...awake and chipper...I finally got to see the light in a way that wasn't intensely irritating and oh my fricken Jesus was it gorgeous! I was flipping out about how nice the light was by myself for about twenty minutes...possibly in part due to the fact that I had been awake for twenty-four hours at that point...but seriously, FLIPPING OUT. I think when I'm over-exhausted I get into a very "Oh my god! Life is so beautiful! Look at all the wonders of the world!" states which is very very strange for me because I'd say I'm generally a fairly cynical, bitter, sarcastic person with very little appreciation for the world...for fuck's sake, I'm taking three courses this semester about mass murder and persecution of peoples based on their religious/"racial" affiliations...I'm not generally in a very "love the world" kind of state, I'm usually in a "people are awful, I hate everyone" state.
This relates to photography, I swear. Point being, I really hope I can convince my lazy ass to wake up early one day this weekend and take some pictures in this light. I managed to distract myself from studying by deciding I "simply had to" take some pictures in the light. I even thought all the papers/books strewn across my bed were suddenly very beautiful when minutes before I had been resenting them pretty strongly. I'd like to actually have something I planned to photograph ready to be shot in that light, rather than whatever I happened to find enchanting in my half-crazed, semi-delusional, cracked-out-on-lack-of-sleep state.
WHOA, off topic, back to my photo for this week. This one I did not take yesterday morning. I decided to revisit the pear...I had done another pear photo a couple of weeks ago and I wanted to try it again because the original wasn't particularly satisfying. I suppose you could say I was feeling a little soap opera-y with my pear, the poor dear...As the Pear Turns...
Scene: Pear-l is returning home early from her business trip to Peru. Hoping to surprise her husband, Mirror-angelo, she doesn't call him ahead of time to let him know she's coming home. She walks into the house, expecting him to be at his desk, reflecting on life like he often does...only to find him with another woman in his arms! That young twig from next door with the perfect smooth skin and long flowy hair! Dun dun duuuuun
Well, I think you get the idea...really you can make up whatever story you like with it. I took a lot of photos, trying to figure out what I wanted...and as with everything in life I actually had no idea what I wanted...(directionless, headless mannequin that I am ;) )
I enjoy this photo, I like the dramatic light, the dramatic shadow of the mirror on the left side of the photo dominating over the pear, the dramatic sweep of the curtains in the background (Annie pointed that out to me while I was working on it)
In working with pears I was trying to play off this "pear-shaped" idea. As usual, I picked up an object one day and said "Hey! I want to shoot this...what's my concept?" I do that too much, maybe I should try concept first...object later.
But honestly, everytime I see a celebrity magazine or article or photo or whatever, I just can't believe how fuckng prevalent all these "way skinnier than can possibly be healthy" women are. And they're everywhere! I already mentioned this but I'm taking three out of my four classes in the Holocaust and Genocide study stream...if you've never seen photos from the Armenian Genocide, look them up. It's absoultely incredible and totally sickening. I see these photos all the time in my classes and I get a much stronger feeling of resemblance between models/actors/actresses/etc and the victims in these photos than I do between models/actors/actresses and the people I see walking down the street everyday. So I brought the celery into it...sorry, total rant...I just feel like this vanity and obsession with the image of being "the celery" instead of "the pear" is really a problem...not that the pear shouldn't eat right and exercise, you know, but there's a range...obesity isn't good either but, guess what? There is a totally healthy middle ground! A love handle, "thunder thigh"-filled middle ground that is perfectly beautiful. Crazy!
I'm making this sound far stupider than I intended to...I hate pretentiousness and now I feel like I'm being pretentious...lame! I'm not trying to be, promise, I'm just soap-boxing because it's election season and everyone is soap-boxing, it's in the air!
Whoa, next time I post we're going to have a new president elected, that's weird.
Jesus, I've done it again, posted far more than I intended to...I'm really sorry guys, I hope you skim this sucker because I would keep writing until my hands fell off if I could
OH! And A Quick (like you believe me) Treatise on the Defense of My Friend, the Lamp
So I have my lamp photo somewhere on this blog and I love my lamp friend. At midterm critique Frank said he knows I love the lamp but that, when posted up on the wall with my other photos it just didn't seem as vibrant and my other photos seemed to have this deeper quality.
And I completely understand that, Frank, I really do. Honestly, even when I was working on lampy not next to really bright, colorful peppers or mannequins I was thinking that the color just was not what the photo was about at all. I had thought of making it a black and white actually (I'm not sure, looking back now, why I decided against it). But anyways, yeah, definitely up with those other ones it seemed to pale a bit.
At the same time, for me, and this is definitely not true for everyone, the feeling I get from the photo is a lot more striking than the feeling I get from say the pepper photos. I love love love my peppers, I'm a proud mama, but for whatever reason I just feel this real connection to my lamp. And I thought about it alot, because I wanted to understand what I was getting out of it that maybe other people weren't.
The conclusion I came to was that I am truly madly deeply a very shy/awkward/introverted person. And I think that is the feeling I connect with that photo. That anxious/excited/butterflies in your stomach feeling of interacting with someone you don't know is something I feel a lot. My freshmen year I didn't have a single friend all of first semester because that feeling overwhelmed me and I was just too damn scared to actually approach anyone and say "Hey! Let's be friends!" I have friends now but it took me time to finally suck it up and make the approach.
And for me, that is what I relate to the lamp. And it struck me that there are a lot of people in the world who maybe don't know that feeling very well. I am constantly amazed at how easily some people can meet new people and just talk to a total stranger. There are a lot of people who are really outgoing and totally confident in meeting new people. I think that the lamp photo may not resonate really strongly with people like that.
Maybe I'm completely off with this, but I think that is why I really love the lamp. Maybe other people, even outgoing people, like it for other reasons, maybe introverts don't like it at all but that was my conclusion for my own love of it.
Okay, I'm DONE! Sorry sorry sorry for the super long entry! Frank, I expect you to read every single word of it! I want a three page summary of it on Monday morning, double-spaced, twelve point font, one inch margins.
Happy Halloween everyone! I hope you all have a great one! Don't get too crazy!
3 comments:
Ummmmmm....seems all that Halloween candy you've consumed has had its effect on you. My-my, wordy this week aren't we. I think it's time "Lampy" meet "Pear" and/or "Pepper", but not that skinny green stalk from next door. Ya' know?
P'takerruene
i really connected to the lamp. i think i said in class that i still really love that shot. the more you add to this project, the more range of pale and vibrant color schemes you will have. the less colorful lampy will be less obvious at that point. i read your whole post and loved it!
Hey Shaylyn, just wanted to add that I don't think you should worry about picking your object first and then the concept after. I am taking collage and mixed media, and all we do is go out and look for inspiring objects and then figure out what to do with them! I would like to see you keep finding cool fruits/vegetables and going from there. I like the photo/story behind it btw
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