Working in the print studio- or rather, crouching under a desk shooting photographs when I ought to have been working.
Monday, May 31, 2010
Newspace
Working in the print studio- or rather, crouching under a desk shooting photographs when I ought to have been working.
Sunday, May 30, 2010
Timeliest Fortune-Cookie Fortune Ever
"If you don't finish your work on time, blame the computer."
I'm giving it to my Dreamweaver/XHTML teacher on Wednesday.
Tuesday, May 18, 2010
Monday, May 17, 2010
Tastes like Damnation!
No one tell my mom about this post. Mom, if you're reading this... don't tell you.
I'm not considering any other ideas; concept B has delivered an astonishing victory by being the thing that currently consumes my brain. The packaging is less obvious, so I need to come up with a subtle but clear method of linking the images into a cohesive statement, but the images themselves have crystallized to absolute perfection. Six pictures... six views of the Devil. I want to explore the evolution of man's ideas towards this ultimate incarnation of evil, to show in precise terms how society has long applied the Satanic label to the things they fear, but can't control.
1: The Biblical view: not the cloven-hoofed monstrosity of Revelations, but the fallen angel, the Morning Star.
2: Fear of Nature: bestial, horned, forked tail and tongue. Manimal.
3: Fear of the Feminine, Sexuality: exemplified by the Salem Witch Trials and the near-total eradication of goddess-centric religion.
4: Fear of Authority: Beelzebub as King of Hell. Stand-in for the oppressive regime.
5: Fear of Youth: best demonstrated during the infamous "Satanic Panic" of the '80s. The Devil's in the tape deck!
6: Fear of Technology: the new view, currently popular in books such as "Good Omens" and "Only Begotten Daughter." The slick character in the immaculately tailored business suit, finger poised above the button that looses the atom bomb, the anthrax, and the designer computer virus.
I'm not considering any other ideas; concept B has delivered an astonishing victory by being the thing that currently consumes my brain. The packaging is less obvious, so I need to come up with a subtle but clear method of linking the images into a cohesive statement, but the images themselves have crystallized to absolute perfection. Six pictures... six views of the Devil. I want to explore the evolution of man's ideas towards this ultimate incarnation of evil, to show in precise terms how society has long applied the Satanic label to the things they fear, but can't control.
1: The Biblical view: not the cloven-hoofed monstrosity of Revelations, but the fallen angel, the Morning Star.
2: Fear of Nature: bestial, horned, forked tail and tongue. Manimal.
3: Fear of the Feminine, Sexuality: exemplified by the Salem Witch Trials and the near-total eradication of goddess-centric religion.
4: Fear of Authority: Beelzebub as King of Hell. Stand-in for the oppressive regime.
5: Fear of Youth: best demonstrated during the infamous "Satanic Panic" of the '80s. The Devil's in the tape deck!
6: Fear of Technology: the new view, currently popular in books such as "Good Omens" and "Only Begotten Daughter." The slick character in the immaculately tailored business suit, finger poised above the button that looses the atom bomb, the anthrax, and the designer computer virus.
Sunday, May 16, 2010
Vote for Your Favorite Final Project!
My Introductory Digital Photography class is winding to a close, and the Final Project is officially assigned. We're expected to turn in a minimum of six images, topic and technique at our discretion. I have quite a few ideas, but I'm waffling- and this where you good people come in!
IDEA A: (and the one I'd most like to accomplish; simultaneously the one that presents the greatest difficulties) A narrative with three pages, six images to a page. Originally, this was a concept dreamed up to accompany the Radiohead song "Black Star." It would be bound comic book style with a front and back cover, possibly accompanied by a burnt copy of the song (I like the idea of engaging as many of the senses as possible. My professor will be lucky if it's not scented as well...).
As the story opens, a full moon is shadowed by a bizarre, orb-like satellite, pinwheeling across the sky over a peaceful rural farmhouse. We zoom down to see a small boy, faced pressed to his bedroom window. As he watches the "black star," he notices what he thinks is a fly buzzing against the glass, but as he looks closer he realizes it actually has the body of a woman. He clambers onto the windowsill and strains to reach it. He loses his balance and pitches forward, knocking the window open. The strange creature quickly escapes, and spirals towards the sky as the boy looks on, longingly.
Years later- the same boy is on some sort of camping expedition, like the Boy Scouts, roasting marshmallows at the edge of a lake. He sneaks from his tent after everyone has gone to sleep. On a large rock in the center of the water, he sees the same woman- fish-tailed this time- but as he plunges towards her, she vanishes once again. The "black star" is high overhead.
A young man now, he stands patiently on a subway platform, waiting for the train. A sliver of sky is visible through the doorway at the top of a short flight on stairs. Through the bustling crowd, he sees the woman staring at him from the opposite platform. He drops his coat and bags and races to the edge of the tracks, then, without hesitation, makes the flying leap across. The lights of the oncoming train silhouette him for an instant, before the scene goes wholly white..... The "camera" pans upward, towards the open air, and, as a horrified crowd gathers below, two tiny, winged figures sail together towards the satellite.
PROBLEMS: Egad, eighteen images, at least. Also, where am I gonna find three fellas of the appropriate age who look enough like one another to pass as the same person? I could collage images from external sources, merging them by hand and then lighting the scene and photographing the results- that could work, and be interesting... but it's not exactly the story as I see it.
IDEA B: Six images, also using collage techniques, illustrating the evolution of man's ideas about the Devil. Starting from biblical sources and moving forward through the many different fears man has embodied and tagged with this diabolical label.
Got a few more, but this post is already faaaaar too long....
IDEA A: (and the one I'd most like to accomplish; simultaneously the one that presents the greatest difficulties) A narrative with three pages, six images to a page. Originally, this was a concept dreamed up to accompany the Radiohead song "Black Star." It would be bound comic book style with a front and back cover, possibly accompanied by a burnt copy of the song (I like the idea of engaging as many of the senses as possible. My professor will be lucky if it's not scented as well...).
As the story opens, a full moon is shadowed by a bizarre, orb-like satellite, pinwheeling across the sky over a peaceful rural farmhouse. We zoom down to see a small boy, faced pressed to his bedroom window. As he watches the "black star," he notices what he thinks is a fly buzzing against the glass, but as he looks closer he realizes it actually has the body of a woman. He clambers onto the windowsill and strains to reach it. He loses his balance and pitches forward, knocking the window open. The strange creature quickly escapes, and spirals towards the sky as the boy looks on, longingly.
Years later- the same boy is on some sort of camping expedition, like the Boy Scouts, roasting marshmallows at the edge of a lake. He sneaks from his tent after everyone has gone to sleep. On a large rock in the center of the water, he sees the same woman- fish-tailed this time- but as he plunges towards her, she vanishes once again. The "black star" is high overhead.
A young man now, he stands patiently on a subway platform, waiting for the train. A sliver of sky is visible through the doorway at the top of a short flight on stairs. Through the bustling crowd, he sees the woman staring at him from the opposite platform. He drops his coat and bags and races to the edge of the tracks, then, without hesitation, makes the flying leap across. The lights of the oncoming train silhouette him for an instant, before the scene goes wholly white..... The "camera" pans upward, towards the open air, and, as a horrified crowd gathers below, two tiny, winged figures sail together towards the satellite.
PROBLEMS: Egad, eighteen images, at least. Also, where am I gonna find three fellas of the appropriate age who look enough like one another to pass as the same person? I could collage images from external sources, merging them by hand and then lighting the scene and photographing the results- that could work, and be interesting... but it's not exactly the story as I see it.
IDEA B: Six images, also using collage techniques, illustrating the evolution of man's ideas about the Devil. Starting from biblical sources and moving forward through the many different fears man has embodied and tagged with this diabolical label.
Got a few more, but this post is already faaaaar too long....
Friday, May 14, 2010
On the Road Again
SCENE: a sparsely populated stretch of highway between Sandy and Portland. A car glides swiftly through the night, carrying JOE and KATIE home from an evening's joyride.
JOE: (maintaining a steady 60mph, in flagrant violation of the posted 55mph speed limit) Wha?
(Behind his BMW, an aggressive driver flashes his brights, strobing a violent stacatto.)
JOE: (slows down)
TAILGATER: (continues his incandescent assault)
KATIE: Oh, just let him over; he's only going to get more belligerent.
JOE: (jams on the brakes, swerving into the other lane. He rolls the driver side window down and jabs a defiant finger into the air.)
KATIE: Don't do- (she dissolves into hysterical laughter as the car pulls alongside) You flipped off a SHERIFF!!! Hahahahahhahahahha......................
(Red and blue lights flash.)
END SCENE
JOE: (maintaining a steady 60mph, in flagrant violation of the posted 55mph speed limit) Wha?
(Behind his BMW, an aggressive driver flashes his brights, strobing a violent stacatto.)
JOE: (slows down)
TAILGATER: (continues his incandescent assault)
KATIE: Oh, just let him over; he's only going to get more belligerent.
JOE: (jams on the brakes, swerving into the other lane. He rolls the driver side window down and jabs a defiant finger into the air.)
KATIE: Don't do- (she dissolves into hysterical laughter as the car pulls alongside) You flipped off a SHERIFF!!! Hahahahahhahahahha......................
(Red and blue lights flash.)
END SCENE
Saturday, May 8, 2010
Gathering Materials / A Zooish Interlude
Elefanny!
This fish was madly in love with me. You think I'm being whimsical, but I'm not.
The otter, on the other hand, was not impressed.
The ZooMommies were convinced that this guy wasn't real.
I was convinced that the next child to step on my feet would be testing that theory.
(SERIOUSLY, I don't mind other people's children so long as they walk on THEIR OWN FEET. And refrain from shoving me. Or speaking too loud. Or touching me with anything sticky.)((Just kidding, BB/BS! See, I told you I was funny!))
Thursday, May 6, 2010
Making Monsters, Part I
Our digital photography assignment this week involves blending an assortment of images to create an animal-human hybrid. Ordinarily, I put off my ART140 homework until roughly 10pm on Monday (it's due Tuesday at 9), but this week I'm like an original metaphor for a thing that's fillable, filled to the brim with an original metaphor for inspiration! I've snapped 75 of the required 50 photographs already, and I'm not even a third of the way to capturing all the bits and pieces I see in my head. I'm doing a sort of "Sirens of the Willamette" thing- strange clockwork mer-children grown to adulthood in the highly toxic waters of the river. I know I want rust and gears and scales, tentacles and tubing... reds and blacks and shiny, serpentine metallics.
Thus I spent ten minutes photographing a dessicated frog corpse. For the rib cage- I'll edit the guts out later.
Thus I spent ten minutes photographing a dessicated frog corpse. For the rib cage- I'll edit the guts out later.
Tuesday, May 4, 2010
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