The Spiral Jetty

Sorry it's taken me a while to post about The Spiral Jetty trip that we took as a photo class! It was a blast! We started off by driving for 3 hours in a van! John Telford, photographer extraordinaire was our pilot and we all talked about how we were excited to be taking classes from him in the spring.
Basically we walked around the great Salt Lake after that, looking for photo ops and trying to master the mud. I took many shots, but I'm not sure how many came out well. However I did get one. :D

So this was my best shot I think. And luckily it was done with minimal editing in Photoshop. Yay. :D
So I guess that I'll be able to survive my upcoming Nature Photography class with John. That is if I get at least one shot like this for each assignment. :)

Success and happiness abound!

Last night I said that I was going to take some photos, and boy did I take some photos! They aren't the best, of course. But they are something. :D
I decided to go out at 1:00 and I asked my photo friend, Chelsea, to accompany me. We travelled to Utah Lake in order to take some photos for my Multiple Negative piece and then we went exploring. Along the way we found a Paintball field/obstacle course and there were tons of unbroken paintballs lying around. So  we just started popping them and getting messes everywhere.
All in all, it was a good photo day and here are the images I shot.

And the Piece de Resistance is:

I am super happy with how these images turned out. I feel like I was able to pull some good stuff and make them work.
I think I'll just have to give myself the goal to take photos everyday. Or have certain outcomes that I want to achieve. Anyways, enjoy!

Creativity Block

Truthfully this blog post isn't about a block that I'm currently facing. Luckily my creative juices are flowing and I'm finding ways to execute my images. Just this past week I was able to experiment with double exposures. I learned how to correctly expose the same frame of film to two different subject matters and get a coherent image. It was all by luck, I'm not going to lie, but my professor said that my image was well done and that it was hard to tell that it was a Double Exposure piece rather than a Double Negative. I was SO FREAKING HAPPY!! My image was sweet too. It was a guy with his back toward the camera and then a skeleton shot into his back. I will put up the image once I get it back. :) To add more icing onto the cake, I was blessed to get 2 photos up onto the wall. Okay okay, this wall is in the basement of the Fine Arts Building, and not a lot of people see the photos or pay attention to them, but still it's a great feeling knowing that I was lucky enough to produce a good image and have it placed there.
So what's up with the Creativity block? Well I can't seem to find stuff to do with digital media. I think that by doing so much in black and white film I have been sort of numbed to digital pictures. I don't really know what to shoot or why. Usually I have an assignment or concept I that I feel like shooting but nothing has really presented itself as of late.
Next fall, my classes are going to be all digital. Will I be ready? I know that when I get assignments I'm a little more prone to exercising my creative muscles so I hope that when those classes come I'll be able to hit the ground running with ideas and concepts.
Another crazy thing that's going to happen. Spring term I will be taking Nature Photography with John Telford. For those of who know my photographic style, or who just look through this blog, you should know that I don't really take nature or landscape photos. I just don't find them to be my cup of tea. Nevertheless I didn't want to waste the opportunity of learning from John, because he'll be retiring soon. I'm excited to be able to go out and camp and get awesome, or not so awesome, nature photos.
I just want to become a well rounded photographer who can do everything. I don't have to do everything perfectly, but I want to know how to do each style and genre with my own voice and class.

This is not my photo. Photo taken by night-fate-stock on Deviantart.com

And finally, a great field trip is coming up! On the 24th, we're going to the Spiral Jetty. I've never been, but I'm super excited. I'm going to try and do photos with both film and digital. It's going to be awesome.
Okay so some highlights and goings on -
- Spiral Jetty on the 24th
- Nature Photography with John Telford in the spring
- Two photos on the wall and surely one more going up next time
- Double Negative Assignment in which I plan to recreate this scene from Hayao Miyazaki's Spirited Away

Only mine will be better than this.

- Oh and did I mention, I GOT A SCHOLARSHIP FOR PHOTOGRAPHY HERE AT BYU!!!!!!
I forgot to mention it, but it's definitely the highlight of the week! I feel so honored and blessed to get a scholarship and I cannot wait to use it to further my education.
Okay, tomorrow I'm going to go take some photos and hopefully I'll get out of my digital funk. Photos will be posted. :D

The Big Bad Media Monster

So lately in Psychology we've been talking about perception and influence on people. We first started talking about eating disorders which I find very interesting, sad but interesting. Did you know that officially getting diagnosed with Anorexia has NOTHING to do with how much one eats? It has to do with their weight! They could be eating an elephants portion but are the size of a toothpick an that can be anorexia.

Sorry, I got off on a tangent. But hey, you learn something new everyday right?

Well then we got onto the subject of Media influencing the image of people and their comfort in their bodies. Okay, here's the thing, we all know that people are affected by the media but for some reason we all seem to group every visual aspects of an advertisement into the word "media" and then it becomes a raging monster that everyone knows. I heard so many comment about how images are fake and edited and that no one can be like the models in ads and that we should have more life like images.

My teacher also showed us the video above. And how we all are fooled by the "media".

I understand that it's true. I understand that maybe we rely too much on the perfection of the body that we will never attain. And I'm a firm believer that it's not just women, it's also men. I mean I would kill to have a body like a movie star. I would like to have defined muscles and the eye of everyone on me.

And that's how media is supposed to work! Advertisements offer us products in order to better our lives and improve us. But there's the argument whether we should keep ads as they are or not.

I just wonder, how would our world change if we didn't have editing and Photoshop. Would women buy facial cream judging by a label alone or if the picture on the bottle was a women with a blemished complexion? Would we even buy magazines or even watch television shows without make-up? And then there's music, even beats and rhythms are psychologically stimulating and tempos inspire emotions.

The point is, we are so deep into the "Media Monster" that we cannot get out. We're six feet under plus 12 more. So if you ask me, I think it's sort of futile to think that we can change it and make it more "real". Yeah I'm biased, cause this is the kind of work I'm going into!

But really people?? Come on!

Thanks for listening to my rant. I don't know why it came up but it did.

And the Oscar goes to...

The other day I watched the Oscars. I loved them. I wish that I had watched all of the films that won awards. I had watched The Socials Network, Inception, and Alice In Wonderland, but I really want to see the Kings Speech. Best Picture, you know.
Well I cannot wait for next years Academy Awards. I'm sure the films will be fantastic!