oh, hi (:
http://www.twodaysinfebruary.com/blog/
see you there!
monday, 1/12/09
how do you measure a year?
in moments, in memories, in report cards, in mocha frappaccinos, in used post-it notes, in oil changes, in mortgage payments .. or maybe in photographs?
for the past three-hundred and sixty-six days (yes, i know, i failed to realize the leap year until very late in the project) i have attempted and been successful in my endeavor to visually record an entire year in my life.
from day one, i have never been short on things to say, people to name, or experiences to describe. what began as a means of photographically exploring a year quickly turned into a very literal documentation, as well. i never set out to detail the happenings of my day, to find myself online at 3 am desperately trying to remember what i wanted to talk about, or even to have over fifty "mysterious blog readers" that would track my trials and tribulations over the course of the journey. (yes, i have a sitemeter that keeps track of you all, but not by name. no worries :) but yet, despite any planned or preconceived course of development i may have had for this project, this is how it turned out. and i do not honestly think i could have ever predicted just how much of an impact it would have upon myself, and others, however unintentional it may have been.
i did not write this blog for anyone but myself. never once did i hit backspace, in fear of saying something that might negatively portray myself in the eyes of everyone reading, nor did i ever spend much time planning what i would say. everything you have read for the past three hundred and sixty-six days has been nothing but raw, true thought, and likewise with my pictures.
life is not sugarcoated like movies on the big screen, with blissful endings and perfectly scripted plots, and i wanted this project to reflect that.
and that is why, on this last day, on this seemingly indescribably important ending, this landmark of a day, the picture i have shot and chosen is ordinary. because this project is and was entirely about the ordinary. because the the word extraordinary cannot be formed without it. because the ordinary is beautiful.
if you have been following along for the past 12 months, you have probably gathered thus far that my career plans are to become a high school photography teacher. i live to be inspired. i like finding hope in ordinary things, finding faith in unlikely people, and finding peace in everyday places. it's all about the journey, and i have been lucky enough to find mine through photography. now i want to help other kids to find theirs.
it is for this reason that there will be one more post following this one. i have no idea when it will be posted, perhaps tomorrow, perhaps next week. this post will not be a blog, it will not contain a picture. it will, instead, contain a link. what you choose to do with it, where you choose to go from there, it's just that: your choice. this is the end of this path, this metaphorical route that i have taken for 1/16th of my life. but the journey is far from over. in fact, i think, it has only just begun (:
in moments, in memories, in report cards, in mocha frappaccinos, in used post-it notes, in oil changes, in mortgage payments .. or maybe in photographs?
for the past three-hundred and sixty-six days (yes, i know, i failed to realize the leap year until very late in the project) i have attempted and been successful in my endeavor to visually record an entire year in my life.
from day one, i have never been short on things to say, people to name, or experiences to describe. what began as a means of photographically exploring a year quickly turned into a very literal documentation, as well. i never set out to detail the happenings of my day, to find myself online at 3 am desperately trying to remember what i wanted to talk about, or even to have over fifty "mysterious blog readers" that would track my trials and tribulations over the course of the journey. (yes, i have a sitemeter that keeps track of you all, but not by name. no worries :) but yet, despite any planned or preconceived course of development i may have had for this project, this is how it turned out. and i do not honestly think i could have ever predicted just how much of an impact it would have upon myself, and others, however unintentional it may have been.
i did not write this blog for anyone but myself. never once did i hit backspace, in fear of saying something that might negatively portray myself in the eyes of everyone reading, nor did i ever spend much time planning what i would say. everything you have read for the past three hundred and sixty-six days has been nothing but raw, true thought, and likewise with my pictures.
life is not sugarcoated like movies on the big screen, with blissful endings and perfectly scripted plots, and i wanted this project to reflect that.
and that is why, on this last day, on this seemingly indescribably important ending, this landmark of a day, the picture i have shot and chosen is ordinary. because this project is and was entirely about the ordinary. because the the word extraordinary cannot be formed without it. because the ordinary is beautiful.
if you have been following along for the past 12 months, you have probably gathered thus far that my career plans are to become a high school photography teacher. i live to be inspired. i like finding hope in ordinary things, finding faith in unlikely people, and finding peace in everyday places. it's all about the journey, and i have been lucky enough to find mine through photography. now i want to help other kids to find theirs.
it is for this reason that there will be one more post following this one. i have no idea when it will be posted, perhaps tomorrow, perhaps next week. this post will not be a blog, it will not contain a picture. it will, instead, contain a link. what you choose to do with it, where you choose to go from there, it's just that: your choice. this is the end of this path, this metaphorical route that i have taken for 1/16th of my life. but the journey is far from over. in fact, i think, it has only just begun (:
sunday, 1/11/09
i'm blogging unusually early tonight because as usual i'm buried in homework and stressed up to my ears. ah, and to think i chose this ...
anyway, today was a very busy day! i woke up early and had planned to go to a second study group at my friend nicole's house with a bunch of other people, but decided that working on my 234345 other assignments at home, by myself, would be a better choice. so i worked all morning and helped my mom around the house after lunch.
around 2, lexi came over and we drove to ms. harriman's house in vero to shoot her friend, norton. he looks so much like my artbook artist (rene magrrite) so much that it's scary, and he was such a great sport while i spent the afternoon shooting him.
a lot of the shots required us to basically re-arrange ms. harriman's living room, and also required multiple trips to her various artistic neighbors, for clay and easles and a cigarette for one shot.
my artbook entry that i'm working on to turn in tomorrow will include all of the pictures that i shot today, which are modeled after a series of self portraits that magritte did throughout his lifetime. i'm really excited about this entry, and it was so much fun to finally get to meet norton! he's been printing all of my photography contest entries for the past two years or so, and helping me pick pieces for my portfolio, all without us ever having met, haha. but he's definitely one of the coolest old guys i know now (:
picture for today is a combination of the final two shots i took of him. it is so strange how much he looks like magritte, they honestly could have been brothers. maybe theyre related!
ps - first day of exams tomorrow: wish me luck!
anyway, today was a very busy day! i woke up early and had planned to go to a second study group at my friend nicole's house with a bunch of other people, but decided that working on my 234345 other assignments at home, by myself, would be a better choice. so i worked all morning and helped my mom around the house after lunch.
around 2, lexi came over and we drove to ms. harriman's house in vero to shoot her friend, norton. he looks so much like my artbook artist (rene magrrite) so much that it's scary, and he was such a great sport while i spent the afternoon shooting him.
a lot of the shots required us to basically re-arrange ms. harriman's living room, and also required multiple trips to her various artistic neighbors, for clay and easles and a cigarette for one shot.
my artbook entry that i'm working on to turn in tomorrow will include all of the pictures that i shot today, which are modeled after a series of self portraits that magritte did throughout his lifetime. i'm really excited about this entry, and it was so much fun to finally get to meet norton! he's been printing all of my photography contest entries for the past two years or so, and helping me pick pieces for my portfolio, all without us ever having met, haha. but he's definitely one of the coolest old guys i know now (:
picture for today is a combination of the final two shots i took of him. it is so strange how much he looks like magritte, they honestly could have been brothers. maybe theyre related!
ps - first day of exams tomorrow: wish me luck!
saturday, 1/10/09
okay, so it's three am, and i need to go to sleep. so i apologize in advance for the absence of today's picture. i promise i'll add it in when i have the chance.
today was such a funny day, wow. i went to michaels and picked up a bunch of random props for my shoot tomorrow, which included a never-ending hunt for a decorative bird cage ... i think i'm going to have to go searching tomorrow morning.
after that, a ton of us met at panera bread to have a big semester exams study group. originally, me and lexi had planned it for just four or five people, but about fifteen ended up showing up and it was crazy! there were so many of us crammed into this tiny little booth area, with all of our laptops and ib textbooks/notes/bags/food, wow. i have no idea how we all survived. needless to say there was a lot less studying that got done than what was planned, but it was fun (:
after running to walmart to get superglue to repair a special pen (don't ask) and having to deplete the store of it's napkin supply to soak up the 3847 gallons of tea that we spilled on the floor (again, don't ask), we managed to cover a good amount of history material for monday, and take so many bizarre / funny pictures with the photobooth program on my macbook pro. all in all, despite the chaos and lack of studying the entire time as previous planned, it was so much fun.
okay, i'm about to leap from my office chair to my bed and hit the light switch in the process because i have to wake up around nine tomorrow and get ready for my shoot in vero, finish studying, work on my artbook, and do a bunch of english journals. oi vey. goodnight!
friday, 1/9/09
happy friday! i know i'm posting this a little late, so it's likely that you'll be reading this on saturday .. but i do hope that everyone enjoyed / is enjoying their weekend.
this is a significant post, because it begins the final weekend of this project. monday will be my last post.
aside from the gloominess that seems to surround talking about the very-near end of this project, today was a great day. most of my teachers had read about my mom in the newspaper, and were sending their congratulations. she's been so excited the past few days from all the emails and phone calls and positive feedback she's received after being given the award / becoming a finalist. it's nice to see her so happy.
in portfolio, roxanne and i took a trip to the drama room (which involved trekking cross-campus all the way to the middle school and missing a good 15 minutes of portfolio, i was not happy, haha) to get a suit jacket and a tophat for my rene magritte shoot with norton on sunday. we picked out a big jacket that will hopefully fit him (he's apparently like 6 feet tall!) and a top hat that mildly resembles one that abraham lincoln would've worn. magritte painted a lot of his pictures with bowler hats, but we couldn't find one of those. so i'll have to work some photoshop magic on the top hats in post-processing to make the pictures look a little more authentic.
in history, we found out that the other history teacher, mr. gray, needs more kids for his 7th period class. he teaches the majority of the junior ib history classes, but about 20 of us were put in 6th period with mr. wyder, to split things up at the beginning of the year. so now the tables have turned, and things need to even out in the other direction, and they're going to be pulling kids from mr. wyder's class and put them in one of mr. gray's. what's funny about this is that, if you've been following my blog since august, you'll remember that when i received my schedule for this year, i was so upset that i wouldn't have mr. gray's class. i tried and tried to get the guidance councilers to switch me, but it never worked out. and now, five months later, i'm being given the option of switching .. and i'm choosing not to! i'm comfortable with the way things are now, and my history class has more or less come to grow on me. it's far from my favorite, but it isn't miserable, either. i like sitting in our little corner of the room with lexi, katie, rachel, alex, and tyler, and i can't imagine being anywhere else now. so i really hope that i'm not picked to switch; we all do. moving one class almost always affects your entire schedule, and no one wants that half way through the year. oi vey.
after school, amy drove me home and i got to meet carmen! carmen is her little touch-screen GPS that she got for christmas, and she's pretty smart. she took us to walmart to get gas and then back to my house with no trouble at all. i am definitely going to need carmen (or perhaps one of her siblings) when i start driving in may. i inherited my father's sense of direction .. (;
picture for today is andrew modeling the top hat for me. i shot it with my little point and shoot canon camera in ms harriman's room, so the quality isn't exactly fantastic. but he was a good sport like always, and i like how the shot came out!
this is a significant post, because it begins the final weekend of this project. monday will be my last post.
aside from the gloominess that seems to surround talking about the very-near end of this project, today was a great day. most of my teachers had read about my mom in the newspaper, and were sending their congratulations. she's been so excited the past few days from all the emails and phone calls and positive feedback she's received after being given the award / becoming a finalist. it's nice to see her so happy.
in portfolio, roxanne and i took a trip to the drama room (which involved trekking cross-campus all the way to the middle school and missing a good 15 minutes of portfolio, i was not happy, haha) to get a suit jacket and a tophat for my rene magritte shoot with norton on sunday. we picked out a big jacket that will hopefully fit him (he's apparently like 6 feet tall!) and a top hat that mildly resembles one that abraham lincoln would've worn. magritte painted a lot of his pictures with bowler hats, but we couldn't find one of those. so i'll have to work some photoshop magic on the top hats in post-processing to make the pictures look a little more authentic.
in history, we found out that the other history teacher, mr. gray, needs more kids for his 7th period class. he teaches the majority of the junior ib history classes, but about 20 of us were put in 6th period with mr. wyder, to split things up at the beginning of the year. so now the tables have turned, and things need to even out in the other direction, and they're going to be pulling kids from mr. wyder's class and put them in one of mr. gray's. what's funny about this is that, if you've been following my blog since august, you'll remember that when i received my schedule for this year, i was so upset that i wouldn't have mr. gray's class. i tried and tried to get the guidance councilers to switch me, but it never worked out. and now, five months later, i'm being given the option of switching .. and i'm choosing not to! i'm comfortable with the way things are now, and my history class has more or less come to grow on me. it's far from my favorite, but it isn't miserable, either. i like sitting in our little corner of the room with lexi, katie, rachel, alex, and tyler, and i can't imagine being anywhere else now. so i really hope that i'm not picked to switch; we all do. moving one class almost always affects your entire schedule, and no one wants that half way through the year. oi vey.
after school, amy drove me home and i got to meet carmen! carmen is her little touch-screen GPS that she got for christmas, and she's pretty smart. she took us to walmart to get gas and then back to my house with no trouble at all. i am definitely going to need carmen (or perhaps one of her siblings) when i start driving in may. i inherited my father's sense of direction .. (;
picture for today is andrew modeling the top hat for me. i shot it with my little point and shoot canon camera in ms harriman's room, so the quality isn't exactly fantastic. but he was a good sport like always, and i like how the shot came out!
thursday, 1/8/09
currently, i am listening to this backstreet boys song that i've had on repeat all night. periodically i'll raid my cd bookshelf (i'm such a packrat that i need an entire bookshelf for all of my cds, yes) for an old cd that reminds me of someone, or something. in this case, i associate the backstreet boys (and nsync, and hansen, and every other 90's-era boy band) with my first best friend, julia. i think i've posted about her, but she moved to japan and i haven't seen her in seven years. she is still, however, and always will be, one of the most important people in my life.
this backstreet boys cd reminds me of her because i can so vividly remember all of my friends being obsessed with boy bands and pop music back then. i, on the other hand, absolutely hated it all. i grew up on james taylor, seals and crofts, john denver, and the beatles. so in my pre-teen years, i couldn't appreciate the music of my own era for the longest time. but i did eventually grow to love it, mostly for it's nostalgic qualities. so listening to this old backstreet boys cd is less about the computerized quality of nick carter's voice, and instead has everything to do with remembering the past.
fast forwarding a little ...
today was good. i missed artbook and half of biology because my mom had a flat tire, which was entirely fine with me because that left me with an extra two hours to drink my tea and shoot pictures in the early-morning light that i rarely get to see.
in portfolio, andrew and i discovered that today is bubble bath day. i vowed to go home and take one, but i failed to remember that i have a walk-in shower that does not at all resemble a bath tub. nor do i have bubbles ):
after school, we had our national honor society induction ceremony. this involved changing into formal clothes, which i dislike almost more than tomatoes (almost being the key word here) and walking on stage to light our candles and recite a pledge. i actually used to enjoy being on stage and performing in our christmas and spring programs at st.andrews, but like so many other things, that has completely changed.
however, i survived, and am now a member of the national honor society!
but that's not the only exciting news. i'm not sure if i posted about this, but a few weeks ago my mom was named the school board employee of the year for her division. all of the division honorees were then narrowed down to finalists for the county employee of the year, and she's one of them! ms. harriman got the email when i was in her class today and she ran over to tell me, it was so exciting.
i am so proud of my mom.
picture for today is a self portrait i took this afternoon. the weather was beautiful beyond words today.
this backstreet boys cd reminds me of her because i can so vividly remember all of my friends being obsessed with boy bands and pop music back then. i, on the other hand, absolutely hated it all. i grew up on james taylor, seals and crofts, john denver, and the beatles. so in my pre-teen years, i couldn't appreciate the music of my own era for the longest time. but i did eventually grow to love it, mostly for it's nostalgic qualities. so listening to this old backstreet boys cd is less about the computerized quality of nick carter's voice, and instead has everything to do with remembering the past.
fast forwarding a little ...
today was good. i missed artbook and half of biology because my mom had a flat tire, which was entirely fine with me because that left me with an extra two hours to drink my tea and shoot pictures in the early-morning light that i rarely get to see.
in portfolio, andrew and i discovered that today is bubble bath day. i vowed to go home and take one, but i failed to remember that i have a walk-in shower that does not at all resemble a bath tub. nor do i have bubbles ):
after school, we had our national honor society induction ceremony. this involved changing into formal clothes, which i dislike almost more than tomatoes (almost being the key word here) and walking on stage to light our candles and recite a pledge. i actually used to enjoy being on stage and performing in our christmas and spring programs at st.andrews, but like so many other things, that has completely changed.
however, i survived, and am now a member of the national honor society!
but that's not the only exciting news. i'm not sure if i posted about this, but a few weeks ago my mom was named the school board employee of the year for her division. all of the division honorees were then narrowed down to finalists for the county employee of the year, and she's one of them! ms. harriman got the email when i was in her class today and she ran over to tell me, it was so exciting.
i am so proud of my mom.
picture for today is a self portrait i took this afternoon. the weather was beautiful beyond words today.
wednesday, 1/7/08
today was interesting. it began rather horribly, but i can never seem to stay in a bad mood for very long. and that is definitely a blessing.
lately i've been titling a lot of my flickr pictures with quotes, and earlier i found one that i absolutely love:
and so, today ended up being a great day.
for my next artbook entry (different from the 3D thing i mentioned a few posts ago), i've decided to focus on a series of self-portraits that my artist did in the 1950's. many of them were done with large format black and white photography (not traditional 35mm), and i'm going to attempt to reproduce them!
while recreating our artist's artwork using different mediums like oils, pastels, etc is very challenging, i've found that it's the hardest to recreate a photograph. i have the hardest time doing it, too, because i believe so much that every one's creative vision is unique. photography, for me, is raw emotion. it's exactly what i'm feeling at that point in time,a memory of what i've once felt, what i want to convey, or what i need to express. getting behind a camera is such a personal experience, and a way of finding yourself, in a sense. so imitating the work of another artist just feels wrong. it has never felt right to me to "copy" my artist's pictures, even though that's what my whole book is supposed to be. having no choice in the matter used to irritate me to no end, but i can see where the art examiners are coming from when they make the rules. they're assessing us on our ability to interpret and re-convey, in a sense, an image that was already a masterpiece. it still doesn't justify the whole thing in my mind, but it does make sense. so i concede.
that being said, i am so excited to start shooting!
ms harriman has a friend named norton that looks almost exactly like my artist. so she volunteered him to spend sunday afternoon with me doing a portrait session for my artbook. i'm going to pose him in a number of different ways, just like magritte's self-portraits, and hopefully i can find the props that i need.
rene magritte was famous for his bowler hats and classic black suits, coupled with his serious face and jet black hair. i just need to find somewhere that sells these bowler hats. maybe a party store? i'm going to have to do a little hunting. if you're curious as to what exactly a bowler hat (and magritte) looked like, click
here!
after school, lexi, amy and i stayed for an ib bio semester exam study group with our teacher and about 20 other kids. it was really helpful, and i was glad that my teacher decided to set one up. there's going to be one the day before the exam next monday, too, so i will definitely be attending that, too.
lexi's mom drove lexi and i to her office afterwards, and that was probably the best part of my day. apparently she passed one of my business cards around and a lot of her coworkers visit my flickr account, so they all knew me when i walked inside! it was so cool / exciting to talk to and meet them all, and a lot of them had a personal interest in photography. one man was telling me about how he used to work with kids after school in a darkroom that was funded entirely by the government. if only the economy could have remained in a similar state. i would give anything to be able to run one and teach an after school class, especially if it were for processing color film.
but all things in time, i suppose. (:
lately i've been titling a lot of my flickr pictures with quotes, and earlier i found one that i absolutely love:
Wherever you go, no matter what the weather, always bring your own sunshine.~Anthony J. D'Angelo
and so, today ended up being a great day.
for my next artbook entry (different from the 3D thing i mentioned a few posts ago), i've decided to focus on a series of self-portraits that my artist did in the 1950's. many of them were done with large format black and white photography (not traditional 35mm), and i'm going to attempt to reproduce them!
while recreating our artist's artwork using different mediums like oils, pastels, etc is very challenging, i've found that it's the hardest to recreate a photograph. i have the hardest time doing it, too, because i believe so much that every one's creative vision is unique. photography, for me, is raw emotion. it's exactly what i'm feeling at that point in time,a memory of what i've once felt, what i want to convey, or what i need to express. getting behind a camera is such a personal experience, and a way of finding yourself, in a sense. so imitating the work of another artist just feels wrong. it has never felt right to me to "copy" my artist's pictures, even though that's what my whole book is supposed to be. having no choice in the matter used to irritate me to no end, but i can see where the art examiners are coming from when they make the rules. they're assessing us on our ability to interpret and re-convey, in a sense, an image that was already a masterpiece. it still doesn't justify the whole thing in my mind, but it does make sense. so i concede.
that being said, i am so excited to start shooting!
ms harriman has a friend named norton that looks almost exactly like my artist. so she volunteered him to spend sunday afternoon with me doing a portrait session for my artbook. i'm going to pose him in a number of different ways, just like magritte's self-portraits, and hopefully i can find the props that i need.
rene magritte was famous for his bowler hats and classic black suits, coupled with his serious face and jet black hair. i just need to find somewhere that sells these bowler hats. maybe a party store? i'm going to have to do a little hunting. if you're curious as to what exactly a bowler hat (and magritte) looked like, click
here!
after school, lexi, amy and i stayed for an ib bio semester exam study group with our teacher and about 20 other kids. it was really helpful, and i was glad that my teacher decided to set one up. there's going to be one the day before the exam next monday, too, so i will definitely be attending that, too.
lexi's mom drove lexi and i to her office afterwards, and that was probably the best part of my day. apparently she passed one of my business cards around and a lot of her coworkers visit my flickr account, so they all knew me when i walked inside! it was so cool / exciting to talk to and meet them all, and a lot of them had a personal interest in photography. one man was telling me about how he used to work with kids after school in a darkroom that was funded entirely by the government. if only the economy could have remained in a similar state. i would give anything to be able to run one and teach an after school class, especially if it were for processing color film.
but all things in time, i suppose. (:
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