Paige Nicole's gallery struck me as impressive- one medium, 365 different gorgeous pictures. The way she captures people is stunning, the fact that they are all self-portraits makes it all the more treasurable. I suggest you visit her Flickr stream (click on her name under the photo) and view her work. . . it's ever-changing and wonderful.
Thursday, September 24, 2009
Featured Artist, pt. 1
My featured artist for this week is Miss Paige Nicole. I was browsing Flickr when I stumbled upon this picture, it immediately caught my attention. After today's lesson in photography, I was on the look out for the 'sparkle' in the eye and how you get it. In this picture you can see that the source of light appears to be the shades on a window. Feeling all proud that I noticed this and that I found a beautiful example of it, I clicked on her gallery to see what was up. I couldn't find much information on her as a person, but after a while I began to notice that she posted a picture everyday. . . of herself. Miss Paige calls it her '365', a picture every day to show progress- a form of art in itself. What's more is that every picture was a beautiful capture and had something uniquely different about it.. . . (to be continued on part II)
Tuesday, September 22, 2009
Stand still!
I like this photo because of is simplicity. When I was walking, I noticed how beautiful the brick on the floor was- but the question was how to capture the texture in a unique way. As I said below, I was lucky to have my sister with me to help me out by modeling her feet haha. I played with the lighting a bit both on site and at home on Photoshop, I believe the result was satisfying. The picture leaves a lot to the interpreter's eye- Who is the girl? What is she doing? What is she feeling? I added the title to give more emotion to the picture, making you think that the feet belong to someone who is anxious or excited to get somewhere. The open ended-ness of the capture makes this photo one of may favorites of the day.
City of Red Wing
This is one of my favorite shots from my photowalk that I took on Sunday. I like this photo for a number of reasons; the most prominant being my philosophy of beauty. On a photowalk, it seems as if the most obvious thing to take a picture of is nature, it is beautiful in its natural way- something that cannot be copied. I adore nature in that respect, but I think that it takes something more to find beauty in the unnatural world. In the city, there is so much junk and metal clouding up the world's natural beauty. But if I can find a way to make that artificial material look unique if not beautiful, then that is truely an accomplishement. The composition of this photo presents something as ugly as a orange road work sign that was blocking a hole in the cement where a tree used to grow in a creative way, simple in its own beauty. There is a story behind where it has been, but the angle with which I shot it eliminates the hole of sand. As a result it looks brighter, more positive, than it is. I beleive that is something to be proud of, and a shot to respect.
Sunday, September 20, 2009
A Lesson in Photography
Today I completed my first ever photography class homework- something called a 'photowalk'. The idea is fairly simple, you just take your camera and walk with it for about 45 minutes to an hour. The idea is to get used to using your own camera as well as explore the rules of composition that our class read about earlier this week. For my experience, I was lucky enough to have my sister, Amy Jo, who is planning on majoring in graphic design and minoring in photography, come along with me. The camera that I am going to be using for this course used to be hers, so having her along was a very helpful experience, she gave me the very basics of the camera and was there for support (a.k.a. made me feel like less of a creeper for walking around and taking pictures haha).
For my walk, I decided to go into Red Wing, the very beautiful city that borders mine, and simply enjoy the scenery and take pictures of the things I thought were beautiful. Immediately, I started thinking too hard, I was too focused on forcing my pictures to follow the rules of composition. This frustrated me, my pictures looked like they were taken not made. However, after walking for a while, I began to settle into the groove of things, being more carefree and less critical. I took pictures whenever the fancy struck me from different angles and such. Slowly but surely, my pictures took on a more creative feel. Though I know I have a lot to learn, and that my pictures are no where near masterpieces, I think that it was a good start. I am looking forward to learning even more about making photography from my teacher and I hope I can watch myself visibly improve during each of these 'photowalks' that we will be doing. Above this blog are two of my favorite shots from the photowalk.
Feel free to stop by myFlickr account.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/kelleymann/
For my walk, I decided to go into Red Wing, the very beautiful city that borders mine, and simply enjoy the scenery and take pictures of the things I thought were beautiful. Immediately, I started thinking too hard, I was too focused on forcing my pictures to follow the rules of composition. This frustrated me, my pictures looked like they were taken not made. However, after walking for a while, I began to settle into the groove of things, being more carefree and less critical. I took pictures whenever the fancy struck me from different angles and such. Slowly but surely, my pictures took on a more creative feel. Though I know I have a lot to learn, and that my pictures are no where near masterpieces, I think that it was a good start. I am looking forward to learning even more about making photography from my teacher and I hope I can watch myself visibly improve during each of these 'photowalks' that we will be doing. Above this blog are two of my favorite shots from the photowalk.
Feel free to stop by myFlickr account.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/kelleymann/
The Great Train Robbery
As part of Digital Media, it is the students' job to analyze different types of media. Since we are starting the class with making videos, it only made sense that we start analyzing other picture shows at the same time. And when learning how to make a video, what better way to start than at the beginning when other people were creating movies for the very first time. For our first blog assignment, we were given a select few silent films to watch and then critique, focusing on similarities and differences between the film we chose and movies today, differences in acting style, plot line, special effects, camera positioning, editing, etc.
Out of the four films to chose from, I picked 'The Great Train Robbery' mainly because I had heard of it before. The first thing I noticed about the film was the year it was made: 1903. Immediately this video won props in my eyes. But once the film started my eyes went all buggy- not only was the quality terrible, but the four-shade black and white coloring was awful! I had troubles depicting what was going on and differentiating what was the background and what was a human.
Another strange part of the movie was the music- it was completely inappropriate for the media. I predicted that the film was going to be a comedy based on the happy-go-lucky music, but instead there was a lot of killing and the robbers got robbed by other robbers. . . altogether no comedy was visible except for the atrocious acting. Of course this is due to the fact that the camera's didn't zoom in on the characters faces, but their body actions were either over-dramatized (such as when they were 'shot') or under-dramatized (I couldn't figure out what they guy in the train was doing even when he was killed.
The plot was very different from what we see in movies now because it didn't have much to it. There was one story with no twists or problems for the characters. I was shocked in the end when another gang stole the money from the robbers- it was not exactly a happy ending, but it was still too random to be ironic. I believe that the characters were very flat too- no one stood out because they didn't have personalities, just actions that their actors carried out. The camera was almost always in one position, far away so that no screen changing was needed to see all of the characters. I also noticed that the transitions were messy, just a blink and the characters were moved without actually moving.
But, with all this negative being said, it was still very impressive. This was one of the first films ever made, the beginning of a long train of trial and error. For being so old, the ingenuity that was required to make this film is unbelievable. Even nowadays, CGI and other high tech sources would have to be used to make the train move with people on it and the gun scenes would take a lot of coordination to pull off. All in all, this movie is a credible pioneer for movies in the twenty-first century. It paved the road for many movies to come and proved that, with great determination and creativity, anything is possible- you just have to take the first leap to start a revolution.
Out of the four films to chose from, I picked 'The Great Train Robbery' mainly because I had heard of it before. The first thing I noticed about the film was the year it was made: 1903. Immediately this video won props in my eyes. But once the film started my eyes went all buggy- not only was the quality terrible, but the four-shade black and white coloring was awful! I had troubles depicting what was going on and differentiating what was the background and what was a human.
Another strange part of the movie was the music- it was completely inappropriate for the media. I predicted that the film was going to be a comedy based on the happy-go-lucky music, but instead there was a lot of killing and the robbers got robbed by other robbers. . . altogether no comedy was visible except for the atrocious acting. Of course this is due to the fact that the camera's didn't zoom in on the characters faces, but their body actions were either over-dramatized (such as when they were 'shot') or under-dramatized (I couldn't figure out what they guy in the train was doing even when he was killed.
The plot was very different from what we see in movies now because it didn't have much to it. There was one story with no twists or problems for the characters. I was shocked in the end when another gang stole the money from the robbers- it was not exactly a happy ending, but it was still too random to be ironic. I believe that the characters were very flat too- no one stood out because they didn't have personalities, just actions that their actors carried out. The camera was almost always in one position, far away so that no screen changing was needed to see all of the characters. I also noticed that the transitions were messy, just a blink and the characters were moved without actually moving.
But, with all this negative being said, it was still very impressive. This was one of the first films ever made, the beginning of a long train of trial and error. For being so old, the ingenuity that was required to make this film is unbelievable. Even nowadays, CGI and other high tech sources would have to be used to make the train move with people on it and the gun scenes would take a lot of coordination to pull off. All in all, this movie is a credible pioneer for movies in the twenty-first century. It paved the road for many movies to come and proved that, with great determination and creativity, anything is possible- you just have to take the first leap to start a revolution.
Introductory Video
This is my self-introductory video for my Media Arts class. It was done on "Xtranormal.com", this site is very easy to use, you just type in the dialog and direct the video. I can't figure out how to download the stupid thing so here is the url. I am warning you- it probably won't make any sense haha.
http://www.xtranormal.com/watch?e=20090920132749310
http://www.xtranormal.com/watch?e=20090920132749310
Thursday, September 10, 2009
A First
This is my first blog, not only here on Blogger, but on any website. I have had access to this feature but have never before used it to my advantage, nor had anything to write about that was worth signing up for yet another website user name. And yet, here I am writing to essentially no one about things most people don't care about or have time to waste thinking of. The subtle push that made my decision to conform to the ever-popular blog world was Digital Media. No, not fancy web advertisements or other pretty things that people create to ensnare unsuspecting victims, I am talking about a new class that is offered at my school. Now this class is special, not only because of the novelty that is the subject in my school, but because of the type of class it is.
Hybrid. A most beloved term to green-peace lovers and a thorn (or at least annoying buzz word) in other peoples' sides. Sure, this class is green in a sense and you can brag to your friends about just how thrifty you are for enrolling in it. It is a unique form of learning that encompasses both the face-to-face relationship that is practical for most class room situations as well as the internet which makes more sense for a wide variety of other times in furthering a students knowledge. There truly is no limit now that the World Wide Web has been created, and now it serves yet another purpose: teaching. Through this 'hybrid' course, students can keep the peer workmanship and teacher-student relationship, but also learn on their own time, at their own pace. Classes will take place every other day, with a study class in between.
This will give students a block period for time and creative freedom and eliminates pointless class discussion. A prime example would be our class topic; digital media. In this class, us students will be making a wide variety of movies, mash-ups, video games and other forms of 4-D artwork. Creating said projects cannot be done in front of a lecturing teacher or in front of the whiteboard. Thus; the term hybrid has found yet another way to revolutionize life in the 21st century.
Though the class is new and specifics are being worked out, I believe that this new way of learning will ultimately be beneficial for all students taking the trial-run class as well as students who will participate in learning this way in the future. I am very excited and I am looking forward to experiencing this new and revolutionary way of learning new subjects.
Anyway, now that you know a little more about the class, I suppose it is high-time that I explain just why this class forced me to subscribe to Blogger and, as a result, encourage my long-winded and meaningless blathering. In this class, each student will be posting about one blog a week, possibly more for the outgoing student (which may or may not be me). Each week we will either be writing a review of any digital media- be it a movie, YouTube video, or the newest video game- or creating a tutorial for creating media, the former being more prevalent. As you can already see, I intend to make good use of this task.
And so it begins! Potential readers beware- even though I'm sure my words are definitely as entertaining as I wish them to be, I write a lot and often get carried away with my own ramblings. Any future posts will be potentially longer, more convoluted, more pointless, and yet less humorous than the last.
You have been warned. ;)
~kelley
Hybrid. A most beloved term to green-peace lovers and a thorn (or at least annoying buzz word) in other peoples' sides. Sure, this class is green in a sense and you can brag to your friends about just how thrifty you are for enrolling in it. It is a unique form of learning that encompasses both the face-to-face relationship that is practical for most class room situations as well as the internet which makes more sense for a wide variety of other times in furthering a students knowledge. There truly is no limit now that the World Wide Web has been created, and now it serves yet another purpose: teaching. Through this 'hybrid' course, students can keep the peer workmanship and teacher-student relationship, but also learn on their own time, at their own pace. Classes will take place every other day, with a study class in between.
This will give students a block period for time and creative freedom and eliminates pointless class discussion. A prime example would be our class topic; digital media. In this class, us students will be making a wide variety of movies, mash-ups, video games and other forms of 4-D artwork. Creating said projects cannot be done in front of a lecturing teacher or in front of the whiteboard. Thus; the term hybrid has found yet another way to revolutionize life in the 21st century.
Though the class is new and specifics are being worked out, I believe that this new way of learning will ultimately be beneficial for all students taking the trial-run class as well as students who will participate in learning this way in the future. I am very excited and I am looking forward to experiencing this new and revolutionary way of learning new subjects.
Anyway, now that you know a little more about the class, I suppose it is high-time that I explain just why this class forced me to subscribe to Blogger and, as a result, encourage my long-winded and meaningless blathering. In this class, each student will be posting about one blog a week, possibly more for the outgoing student (which may or may not be me). Each week we will either be writing a review of any digital media- be it a movie, YouTube video, or the newest video game- or creating a tutorial for creating media, the former being more prevalent. As you can already see, I intend to make good use of this task.
And so it begins! Potential readers beware- even though I'm sure my words are definitely as entertaining as I wish them to be, I write a lot and often get carried away with my own ramblings. Any future posts will be potentially longer, more convoluted, more pointless, and yet less humorous than the last.
You have been warned. ;)
~kelley
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