Author: Celestina Macareno

My group went with the idea of music as a shelter. We decided to build our shelter by trying to make a physical thing that evokes the feeling one gets when listening to say their favorite song. The feelings we named off were: magical, another world, safe, “trippy” , happy.  We felt this was successful even halfway through when we sat in the half built structure. We enjoyed sitting in it talking with each other and we had forgotten we were in it at some point.  Our budget for materials was $30 for cups, glue and glitter paint. All other materials were found either in my closet of crafting leftovers or in Gabe’s garage. In Gabe’s garage we found a few extra materials we thought of incorporating including ropes and paints but we ended up not using any of those, we did keep it in thought as a maybe. The workload was equal despite our schedules clashing. We went to look for and buy materials together, did research together and at times built together, however there were times when we worked separately and came in whenever we could to add to the structure.  I believe our strength was how excited and passionate my group was about the shelter we were creating. Everyone had a picture in their mind and wanted to make it great. It sadden us to know that all our work would only be up for a week and then thrown away. We spoke of how if we had more time and a better budget, we would love to have perfected our shelter to how we imagined it in our minds. Our weakness just was scheduling and planning because of everyone’s schedules but we got around it. My role was the designer and directing construction. I recommend the next group do deep research on the internet for materials. the internet knows all, that’s how we found 1000 cups for so cheap!

75 LINES

TOP 10 STRAW PHOTOGRAPHS

It took me a while to decide on my subject for the 100 Solutions project but as I sipped on some Dr.Pepper in the kitchen one day, I found my answer in front of me. I chose a straw. It may sound strange but I instantly felt a connection with the straw and the straw and I immediately got some great ideas. We were on a roll! Not too long after we did manage to hit a stop. Luckily the straw did not let me down and we had some great adventures together. Not only did we travel together but he joined me to the Austin Pride parade (which I wish I had remembered to take a picture of the straw when we were there but I forgot). I found the straw to be very flexible and adventurous and a great partner to work with. I now present the top ten pictures from this straws adventures with me this week . . .

This picture both brightens my day and also makes me depressed. You see, the straw was having a blast in this lighting as it was very bright and colorful! I felt I could probably take a cool picture if I could do one of those pictures in which the exposure of the light takes very long and you could see the little trails of light. Unluckily, I don’t know how cameras do that or which cameras do that so I was fine with this set up. The reason this picture makes me depressed is because although this little straw is having a great time, he was dancing on my phone which had blown up earlier in the week. So this picture carries many feelings but in the end I was pretty proud of the lighting in this picture and came to making this picture my favorite.

This next picture was a favorite because of the focus of the camera. I loved how focused the straws were (that’s the main straw’s twin brother next to him) and the lighting was nice. I was really picky when it came to lighting. In my mind I thought that any lighting could be made good lighting if the picture was taken right, However even with this in mind, I still had a preference. You see, I came across a lot of orange colored lighting which was my least favorite, the lighting shown above was my preferred type which was bright and white lighting.

This fountain picture looked really nice to me because I saw it as different textures along with movement. The water had different texture when taken into a picture. within the picture the texture of the water varied depending on whether the water was in the air or hitting something solid. The straw was a nice pop of colors against a neutral background and all the shiny items around.

Im not sure how this next picture happened. To be honest, this was a picture I took on a whim because I needed more but it ended up turning out pretty impressive. The reason I was impressed was because it looks like a filter was added to it but there wasn’t. It feels like a vignette was added to the picture plus the contrast was increased but none of that was really applied. This picture remained untouched. I also like the natural placement of all this. This picture was taken under a bed.

I had fun playing around with shadows and lighting! Out of all 100 pictures, this picture was my favorite when it came to playing with shadows. Had I not gotten the outlet, cord and metal item in the bottom, I feel this picture would have been way better. This lighting was achieved by using a friends Iphone light and pointing it up from the bottom.

This here is the straw at his starting point, In his natural habitat. I mainly liked this picture because of the colors, shadows and angle. If I had a camera that could take a brighter more focused picture, I would have been happy with the outcome. This was the best I could do for this type of picture.

This picture is also depressing as the straw took a hit for the team. I lit the straw on fire and this was the end result. I tried taking a picture of it on fire but was unable to get a clear picture. The end result was good enough as I was able to obtain many textures and got a cool shadow from the flash and an I phone light.

The next two pictures may seem alike but I see them as different as they were taken at different times, at different places and different angles. Not only that, photography is made up of light and time and those two things are different in both these pictures.

This first one was taken after I froze the straw in a container for two days. It reminded me of some sort of sci fi film. I took the picture from the top of the container after the straw was frozen.

This picture was taken after the straw in ice was placed outside for some odd hours. To me, this seem like a picture I could find in a magazine so I was proud of it. The placement was good and It had a dramatic feel to the photo.

My last picture felt very balanced. The only thing keeping this picture un-balanced was the placement of the straw (on the left) and the lighting on the wall. I took this picture from the top rail of the stairs looking down after I threw the straw over the rail. No extra lighting was placed, this lighting was the natural lighting of the room.

 The pictures were taken with a DSLR and a regular point and shoot camera. During the project I got stuck at around 45 pictures but in the end found to like most of the pictures I had taken. I played the most with lighting and angles which I very much enjoyed.