Month: October 2017

1. Create a four-year degree plan. How will this major help you prepare a career in the future? Do you have a back up plan if this major doesn’t work out?

Seeing as I am a transfer student, over the next two years, I plan on pursuing my degree in photo communications. I believe this degree will give me some exposure to the necessary skills and jargon I need to further myself in the industry of photography. In the following two years, I plan to work as an in-house photographer for a company. My back up plan is to continue to do freelance work and build a portfolio of strong content and make connections in the field I want to work in.

2. Do you have a minor or have you considered a second major?

• If so what is it and why do you think this will be a beneficial choice?
• If not, identify at least one minor or major degree option that you are interested in. Explain why you chose this option.

I do not have a minor and I have not considered a second major. However, if I had to choose one, it would be marketing. I’m interested in the world of marketing and have used my photography in that capacity in the past. If I had to pursue another major it would be in marketing.

The movie I chose had a run time of about about 75 minutes. It featured two main characters, Lola and Manni, a young couple living in the city. The movie begins with a phone call between Manni and Lola. Manni is in trouble because he lost his boss Ronnie’s drug money. He has to deliver the money to his boss in 20 minutes or else he will be killed. Lola is compelled to help him get the money to pay Ronnie.

In the first scenario she runs to help and Manni and makes a valiant effort, but it’s not enough and they end up getting in a stand-off with the police after they rob a local store. Lola get shot by the police and hits the ground. She has a flash back to a conversation that her and Manni had. She screams, “STOP”, as if she has control of time.

Time restarts and another sequence begins. All the sudden she is back at her house running to help Manni. She is tripped on the stairs and that cause her to be a step behind all day. This has disastrous results. This time she decides to go to her father’s bank and robs the teller for $100,000. She robs the bank and makes her get away but as she gets to Manni, he is struck by a red ambulance and killed before she can get to him. It cuts to a flashback of the same conversation they were having in bed. As he is speaking his last words Manni says “NO” in protest of his own death and the sequence restarts.

Lola is back at her house and she has another chance. The day has restarted and she is determined to succeed in saving her boyfriend. She bolts down the stairs and off to save Manni. She rounds the corner and sees a casino. She decides to bet on a long shot at the roulette table and in just minutes, she wins the money they need to pay Ronnie.

At the same time Manni runs into the homeless man who initially stole the money. He retrieves the money from the homeless man and makes the hand-off to Ronnie. Ronnie is satisfied and everything is good. Lola meets up with Manni and they walk off with the winnings from the casino in the bag.

Lola appeared to be using powers to manipulate the time. I think she was restarting the sequence each time to reach the perfect outcome. This manipulation of time was enhanced with the use of cut scenes for the flash backs. The editors used different scene transitions and editing techniques to give some scenes the feeling of a dream or a premonition. It was an interesting film and a good example of how time can be segmented in to sequences to tell a story.

For each class ask yourself the following:

My greatest strengths in ________________ include:

Science: Taking Notes

Speech: Taking notes and writing scripts.

Photo 1: Shooting Photographs

Visual: Working in photoshop

For greater success in this course, I need to:

Science: Make better grades on the quizzes

Speech: Read more from each chapter

Photo 1: Use test strips more often

Visual: Make prints from photo shop and work to understand print setting better

Computer skills:

1. My computer skills include: Video Editing, Photo Editing, and Graphic Design.
2. I still need to learn: How to print professional grade images and basic web design

Research & writing skills:

1. My greatest strengths as a researcher/writer include: Writing reflective essays.
2. I need to work on these aspects of research and writing: Using literary devices more frequently.
3. I learn best & accomplish most when: I feel comfortable to explore and have a demo that involves actually doing the process myself.

ACTION PLAN

Choose one class that you are struggling with or are not doing as well as you could.

I could do better in my science class.

Now make a list of 10 ways you could improve your performance in this class

1. If I had a better grasp on the periodic table and what it means.

2. I could go to my teachers office hours and ask him to show me what in the world he was talking about in class.

3. I could ask my teacher to show me a better way to study for the quizzes.

4. I could find out exactly what information was going to be on the quizzes.

5. Take more precise notes.

6. Record each lecture and listen to them while studying.

7. While reading the chapter, I could fill out my study guide to make it easier.

8. Learn how to balance scientific notation.

9. I could turn in all three extra credit papers.

10. Look up practice tests/quizzes to help prepare for the real deal.

 

 

When I began to work on this set of collages, I had no idea what I was going to do. I kept tossing out ideas and couldn’t decide what direction to go with the assignment. I decided to let my supplies and tools dictate my creation. I looked in my tackle box of art supplies and thought about what might give my work some texture. I found some white and black acrylic paint. My first thought was that acrylic paint would make for a nice raised feeling on the black foam core that I was working with. I also had the idea of creating a segmented jigsaw object in the middle of each collage. I used a compass to help cut out circles from some of the pictures I had taken. Then I cut the circles up and mixed up the pieces to created a patchwork of different photos. I also cut out little triangles to place around each collage to give even more texture to each piece of work. I then applied the same dots to the little triangles. The dotting was tedious, but in the end I like how they came out.

Part 1

I thought the student presentations showcased a diversity of mediums and talents. Each speaker presented some of their work and here are some I things I took away from the work.

Clara’s landscape photography was very methodical and extremely well done. Her sense of framing and choice of view camera made the finer details stand out.

Michelle was very energetic and humorous. She is a visual arts major who has been helping design graphic art for local organizations here in Austin.

Hannah is a graphic designer and her work was was very beautiful. She used a lighter tone  which worked well for the things she was designing. She was interested in type faces and their power to change the quality of a piece she was working on.

Alexis was a game designer and she showed everyone a few games she had designed. She was very informative and showed lots of different pieces to her process. In her presentation she include sketches, and other graphic designs on their way to becoming part of a game.

Alexis spoke on the competitive nature of the video game industry and I believe that is true for most jobs in the visual arts genre. I think if you are good at what you do, friendly, and punctual you are much more employable.

Part 2

https://www.bhphotovideo.com

B&H photography has all the camera goods you need and want. I have been purchasing various thing from them over the years and I like the ease in navigation on their website.

http://www.thrashermagazine.com

I check this site almost daily for the latest skate media to get me stoked. Thrasher skateboard magazine has been around since 1981 and still going strong. They have a much greater web presence now and are preparing for the future generations and the way they digest skateboard media.

https://www.youtube.com

All hail video king Youtube. Youtube is one of the most widely used video viewing website on the internet. It is truly staggering the amount of content that is available on that one site. This site is responsible for new level of accessibility when it comes to learning almost anything.

https://www.amazon.com

Last but certainly not least we have amazon.com. I don’t know where I would be without this lovely site. The site is so user-friendly its creepy. You buy one thing and they say hey you probably want this too, people usually buy these together. The best part is that they get your stuff to you as soon as possible.

I wanted to get away from using things too literally in my collages. With these 5 collages I began by just cutting pieces from my congress images. Once I had a collection of pieces, I began to construct. The collages began to take form naturally and I just kept stacking pieces where they seemed needed.

Eventually after many hours of work I had a mesh of twisted motorcycle metal, a mix of leafy green, a swirl of blue, a rocket ship, and a sand castle. I used many photoshop tools to  complete the assignment. I used the various marque tools, the brush tool, the eraser,  as well as the the magnetic and non magnetic lasso tool.

Im much happier with these collages than I was with our first analog set. I tried to do the opposite in these 5 digital collages. I attempted to let form and shape guide my collage and not get too caught up in the building of scene. Im looking forward to meshing analog and digital in the next phase of our collage project.

 

Part 1

I have included two photos, one a picture of a man crossing the street, and the other a shot of congress and the city skyline.

1. The goal of the assignment was to capture a set of cohesive photos on south congress between Oltorf and Cesar Chavez. Then we were asked to craft reflective essays about our experiences.

2. I decided to photograph people in transition during their daily routine. People going to school, heading in to work, getting exercise, or doing some shopping.

Part 2

1. I think the strongest aspect of these two images is the light. Both were taken in mid day sunlight creating good detail.

2. The weakest aspect of these images is content. They might make an interesting image but they lack substance. Theres no emotion in either shot. The work tells no story without an explanation of the process.

3. I think I could refine the category a little to include more posed portraits. It would also be interesting to hear from people, find out where they are going and what brings them to that section of the street.

4. I could have used a tripod for the landscape shots to increase stability in the shots. It would be possible to use a better camera to capture the photos. I uploaded the images as jpg files to save space but if I printed them I could use the tiff file I created to bring out better resolution.

5. I would also like to shoot some more pictures on congress at night. Some long exposure shots and perhaps a time laps of the traffic would make cool additions to my theme for the assignment.