Monday, May 4, 2009

Research project

I chose to tie my research project with my final. I new I was gonna do something with photography for my final so for my research I chose to play around with different things on the camera. Mostly I played around with different lighting conditions. I also did a little depth of field and time lapse. I looked up different techniques on the internet and practiced them and got some pretty good results. I will post my pics on my final project blog or may just bring them to class.

Monday, April 27, 2009

New Media Scavenger Hunt

New Media is best defined as the use of newer (digital) technology used for communication as opposed to older technology such as print and T'V. We are in a generation that is computer and technology driven. Digital Media is used for everything by this younger generation and even the older generations are getting hip to what's going on. There are five excellent uses of New Media that I can think. They are as follows:
1. The use of online portfolios and resumes as opposed to printed material
2. Websites for companies is a necessity even to the point where I wouldn't take a company seriously if they don't have a website!
3. The use of online social networking sites such as myspace, facebook, and now twitter.
4. The use of online music sites that promote artists such as myspace, vh1 and rhapsody.
5. The use of social online networks to promote the presidential election!

The biggest one of all five has to be the use of social networks to promote this year's presidential election. Barack Obama is shown to be one smart ass man to recognize what is relevent in today's generation. He took advantage of the social networks that have become the blood line for today's youth. He used myspace as well as face book to promote his campaign and even had the creator of face book come on board with him to manage his promotion through face book. Wow! Barack was able to gain huge support from his young generation as well as older generation through the use of these medias. I am able to use what I've learned by recognizing that if I want my final to be relevent to the people of today's generation it better use these newer medias!

Monday, April 20, 2009

Response to class on April 13

I was unable to make class on this date because I had some appointments to take my daughter to. I don't know what went on in class but as always I'm sure it was interesting.

Sunday, April 12, 2009

What the Bleep response

I thought the movie was very interesting. It made you think about things in a different way. The idea of Quantum Theory made me ponder things in a different light. I may not have fully agreed with everything that was said or maybe I didn't fully understand what was said enough to believe it. Some of the ideas about what matter was didn't seem to far fetched. While watching that part of the movie I couldn't help but to think about all the things in this world which at some point someone said was impossible. All the inventions that make you wonder how the hell was someone able to bring to life. Maybe all matter is something that was thought of by someone or thing and brought into existence. I am one who truly feels that there is nothing and I mean nothing that the human mind can think of that can't be brought to life in some manner.

Monday, April 6, 2009

Client Exercise

As much as I would have loved to use Mary Ellen as my client it was impossible for me to complete in time for her birthday. The assignment was too sudden and I was very busy that Monday. So I decided to use my daughter as the client. I took pictures of her first day at church so I could show her them when she gets older. I know it pretty lame but hey I didn't have anything else to work with. I chose the ones I liked the most and framed them. These were the images I selected.

Monday, March 30, 2009

Randomness Exercise Final Step

My instructions were to take something that celebrates water and incorporate it some how with my chosen idea. Well I came up with the idea to have the background of the web site pages have a sort of water-like feel. I can have my foreground images and text laid on an image of water or something. Maybe even animate the water to show some type of ripple effect when you click on any of the inside links. Well that's my idea.

Tuesday, March 24, 2009

Response to class after Spring break

Class yesterday was interesting. We got to see what some of the results for the randomness assignment were. It was cool to see what everyone came up with. Can't wait to see the rest.

Monday, March 23, 2009

Randomness FINAL STEP

Well great. I was under the impression that I would get back in time to email Beth for the final step to this assignment. Well today she is unavailable it seems and no one has responded to my plea for help. I will submit my URL anyway and discuss this in class hopefully.

randomness part 4 (my idea)

Well the best idea I had was the one about creating a web site encouraging people to sacrifice something each day and then blog about it. I think this would be wonderful idea and I am thinking about how I would put this into effect as soon as I have the time. In the meantime I will continue sacrificing and documenting in my journal.

randomness part 3 (COMBINED JOURNAL ENTRIES 1-3)

JOURNAL DAY 1

Today the main thing I could think about was the reason I came across the word SACRIFICE. Was this a coincidence or is someone trying to tell me something. The reason being is I know I can be selfish at times and its something that I really have wanted to work on. So my idea for today is that I want to sacrifice at least one thing everyday for the rest of this trip. Who knows I might put this into practice everyday. Let's just see how it goes.


JOURNAL DAY 2

Im just pondering more upon my idea from yesterday and thinking how I could expand upon this sacrificing idea. I was thinking about how I can spread my idea to others so today I will ask my family that is here to see if they can sacrifice at least one thing each day.


JOURNAL DAY 3

When I got up to brush my teeth this morning I saw my word again. SACRIFICE. All of a sudden my mind jumped to thinking about Jesus and how he made the greatest sacrifice of all. Then the perfect idea hit me. I thought why not create a web site that would encourage people to sacrifice each day. They could log into it and create journal entries or blogs just as we are doing in this class. The blogs would tell what they sacrificed during the day or they could do it by week. Everyone would be able to view each others' entries. If nothing else maybe this site would serve to stir up the humanity in us as people and remind people of the great feeling that comes from sacrificing something for someone else. Best of all I would name the web site THE GREATEST SACRIFICE. Awww... the revelation!

Randomness part 2

I cut my word (SACRIFICE) out of the paper today and carried it in my pocket. At first I forgot about the word for the first half of the day. Then while I was at the mall buying some shoes the word showed its evil head. Why would I call it evil? Allow me to explain. So I'm at the mall buying some shoes, cause you know when you out of town you gotta buy stuff that nobody in your city will have, and I reach in my pocket to pay for the them and along with my money comes this word SACRIFICE stuck between a couple of the bills. At this point I'm lookin up at the sky going "common... not right now."

Thinking again that this must be some sort of sign or divine intervention I had to put the shoes back and get my girl some shoes instead. I knew that she needed some gym shoes more than I did. I enjoyed the rest of my day though and am just now getting back from sight seeing. The first thing I did was tape my word to the mirror in my brother's apartment and asked no one to mess with it. At first, I was eager to get rid of the word but now I'm in such a good mood and am wondering if this assignment is merely coincidence or does everything happen for a reason.

Randomness part 1

I took my word out of an old American Classifieds mag that I had laying around in my bag. I turned to the third page and came across the word SACRIFICE. I felt that this was a great word to use. I don't know how to keep something in the back of my mind (according to instruction) other than to kind of forget about it or try not to think about the word over other thoughts. Maybe I'm thinking to much into this right now... Well, I found that the word kept popping in my head a few times throughout the day. Some situations happened throughout the day where I found myself putting the word into practice. For example, when I went out to dinner today my sister wanted to sit facing the window knowing how much I have to face a window when I'm out somewhere. I don't know why, I just do okay!

Anyway, the word SACRIFICE popped into my head and I thought it was a sign from above or some other divine intervention and I felt the need to comply. So I sacrificed the window seat for her. Yea, its my good deed for the day. I'm saving up for a ticket to Heaven and I here those flights are pretty expensive these days. Interesting in seeing where this assignment is going. Til next time...

Randomness-Introduction

Okay. I went out of town for Spring break. I printed off the instructions for this assignment and took it with me cause I knew I wouldn't have that much access to a computer while I was gone. I could have found a computer at some library if needed but come on... it's spring break! Anyway what I did was put all my blogs in word documents knowing I could just copy and paste when I got back. I will paste all of my entries as separate blogs in the order they were done.

Monday, March 9, 2009

50 what if questions for Final Project

1. What if I knew all the details of my final project? Would I be able to come up with better what if questions?
2. What if I could incorporate this assignment into my capstone project somehow?
3. What if my photography had some unique characteristics?
4. What if I could make people think deeper about my photography?
5. What if I could freak people out with my photography?
6. What if I could stir up some other emotions with my photos
7. What if used props in my photos?
8. What if my photos were less life like and more animated?
9. What if I used some older style techniques with my photos?
10. What if researched different photography techniques?
11. What if my photography was in black and white?
12. What if I could incorporate other things along with my photos?
13. What if I could use sound with my photos?
14. What if that sound could cause some type of emotion?
15. What if I could use some type of smell with my photo.
16. What if that smell could cause some type of emotion to go along with the photo?
17. What if my photos were more abstract?
18. What if I altered my photos in photoshop?
19. What if altering them creates a whole different feel?
20. What if I could combine my photos is some way?
21. What if my photos were blown up?
22. What if they were shrunken?
23. What if they were taken at night?
24. What if they were taken in the day?
25. What if they were taken at dust?
26. What if taken at dawn?
27. What if the time they were taken has no relevence at all?
28. What if it does?
29. What if I took pictures of things that are important to me?
30. What if I took picutres of things that weren't important to me?
31. What if the things that weren't important can become important through my pictures?
32. What if they couldn't?
33. What if that doesn't even matter?
34. What if my photos can be printed on something else other than photo paper?
35. What if they were printed on a wall?
36. What if on a t-shirt?
37. What if on a cup?
38. What if on some type of stationary item?
39. What if my pics weren't printed at all?
40. What if there were some other means to display my photos other than norm?
41. What if I could develop some new method of displaying photos?
42. What if my photos could be interactive in some way?
43. What if parts of my photos were cut out? How could they be used?
44. What if i could create some type of sequence with my photos?
45. What if I could stimulate ones imagination with my photos?
46. What if my photos could stimulate my own imagination?
47. What if my photos were used for some type of marketing?
48. What if could sell my photos?
49. What if I became famous for my photos?
50. What if I can't think of any more what if question?

Tuesday, February 24, 2009

Response to class 6

In class we discussed the importance of taking time to ourselves. I definitely needed time to myself as described in my previous blog. I agree that this is very important in order to maintain some level of sanity while dealing with our everyday busy lives. At least for me anyways.

We also took time to think more about our final projects during this class. I think it is becoming evident to everyone in this class that if you are given an assignment that has no clear definition, but you are free to do whatever you choose, it can actually be more difficult than given clear instruction on what to do. Maybe its because in our lives we are so use to following instruction and given guidelines on what to do. We are now forced to think for ourselves and its quite scary. I need my mommy right now...

Monday, February 23, 2009

BLISS AND BRAINSTORMING

BLISS

The topic of this assignment couldn't have come at a better time for me. The reason I say this is because I have been busy for the last week and a half satisfying other peoples' needs instead of my own. It all started on Tues the 10th of Feb when I had family come into town to handle some important business. And guess who they stayed with? That's right... me. Don't get me wrong, I love my peoples to death but sometimes they can be demanding as hell!

They had all sort of meetings to go to and court dates concerning our small family business back home. The problem was that no one knew their way around the city leaving me stuck to direct them everywhere they had to go. I just didn't have it in me to make them map quest directions yal. I would've felt bad in the end. After all these was the people who wiped my ass as a baby and clothed and fed me through most of my existence on Earth.

Anyway, the whole time they were here I had to juggle the lives of my parents, siblings, and my girlfriend and kids all at once. And in the middle of all that was Valentines day which all my fellas know this aint a day for us at all. And guess what?! That's my birthday! You think I got to make it at all about me? Hell na but I ain't gonna go down that road cause I'm trying to suppress the memories but its still a work in progress.

I don't remember the last time my life has been that busy and the minute everything stops its like your left gasping for air. You don't even fully grasp how crazy its been until the very second its all over and you're seeing your family off as your life starts to go back to normal. I was also left with a feeling of sadness and part of me didn't want it to end. But hold up, the majority of me did so lets not get it twisted! I love my family and all but I ain't no sissy face mama's boy... Shoooot!

Well during all this excitement of these last weeks I literally didn't have time to do all of my assignments. I know that's bad ain't it? Yes, that's just how crazy its been. And it doesn't help that I don't have the internet at home any longer, which is an issue I am in the process of resolving. But when I finally got a chance to look at the details of this assignment I was thinking what a coincidence. This is just what I needed. Some time to do something I wanted to do and not worry about everyone else.

So what did I do with my free time? Nothing damn it! That's right. I did nothing but try to catch up on some sleep and be lazy. First, of all I have to admit I took a lot more than the three hours we were assigned in class. How about three days? I needed that time though because I start to get severely stressed if I don't take the proper time to let my mind relax on the stuff I be tripping on throughout the week. And once you relax and organize your thoughts you start to realize that the stuff you tripping on really ain't that much as it seems.

During my time this weekend I slept, played some video games, and watched TV. I knew that come Monday I was gonna have some catchin up to do so, even though I was stressing over my assignments, I tryed to push everything out of my mind til then. And you know what? Now I feel a lot better. I feel my mind and body is rejuvinated. I even got up this morning a jogged around my neighborhood which I haven't done in a long time. Honestly, I don't even know where that inspiration came from cause it was cold as hell. Even so, I feel the need to continue doing that every morning cause I been meaning to get in shape for the longest.

So that's where I am at right now. In the midst of playing catch up but I am feeling good mentally. I am feeling good physically because I finally showered after a couple days and a nice jog around the block. Oh shut up! Don't act like yal ain't never done it! By the way, my girlfriend asked me why I was just laying around not doing my assignment this weekend when I was just complaining about the work I had to do. I told her that this was my assignment and, Beth, she swears she's signing up for your class next semester. I had to explain to her the logic behind the assignment but she was to stuck on the part about assumingly doing nothing.

BRAINSTORMING

So far what I have come up with for my final project is going to have something to do with photography. I feel inspired to go out and take some pictures since its been a while since I've taken some serious photographs. As of what I am going to do with those photographs I am unsure of at the moment. I definitely want it to go beyond just pictures though. I want to do something different with the photographs. Something unseen as of yet. I just don't know what yet.

Monday, February 9, 2009

Senseless+1

For this assignment I chose to go without my hearing since I feel it is one of my most important senses. This is because my career and the majority of things I love to do is heavily based on my hearing. I want to become a record producer or video editor/sound designer. These fields are what I based my whole college career around and what I do on a daily basis. So if I were to loose my hearing it would be have a traumatic affect on me.

Well I couldn't really get the full effect of this experiment because it was hard to completely block out sound but I was able to greatly reduce it. What I did is buy some ear plugs. Then I stuffed some tissue in my ears and then put in the ear plugs. I then went about my daily routines. I tried to mix some music that I have recorded and of course that was impossible. I then tried to watch some TV and it was very difficult. I had to turn it up extremely loud just to hear it at all which bothered everyone else so that didn't work.

On top of that having a conversation with someone is impossible. I had to try to read lips or ask the person to speak louder than normal just to hear them. After a couple hours I couldn't take it any more and came to the conclusion that I would never want to live without my hearing.

The sense I chose to invent is called headbuttervision. This is where you go around and headbutt something to get a sense of what it is. By headbutting something you are able to send a signal to your brain that gives a description of what that item is. This would replace sight if we were not able to see.

Peace Offering

I think we should make some type of peace offering to the next class. I think we should all leave a little note on the corner of each desk in exactly the same place. The note should state our name and that we were conducting a social experiment that they were participants in. Then we should state that we are sorry for any negative feelings and vow to never do it again. We could even invite them to follow our class blogs to see what goes on in class. This may very well gain interest in this class for future students.

Tuesday, February 3, 2009

Response to class 3

I thought yesterday's class was very interesting. But i have to get right to what I thought was most interesting about the class and that was when we did the crazy thing with the chairs. At first I did not understand the point of what we did with the chairs. The only thing I thought it would do was piss the next class off for having to fix the chairs back. Then later on it hit me! I don't know what anyone else got from that excersise but here's what I got from it. Beth, I feel, was teaching us to do something outside of the norm and not be afraid of how others would react to it. To try to strike up a reaction from people and that's exactly what we did. For once I feel like I took a chance on trying something different despite what the next class would think or feel about it and it felt great.

That is the only way we will learn to think outside of the box and take chances. It's what seperates those who are great from those who are average. I now have a new found encouragement to do things outside of the norm and not worry about the reaction of others! Beth your a genious!

PS I also decided not to spell check this post and not worry if soneone thinks I am a horible speller! Ha! There's no stopping the madness now!

Tuesday, January 27, 2009

Class Experience Jan. 26 09

Class was very interesting this week as we got to see what everyone came up with for the egg exercise. It was amazing to see how different everyone's ideas were from the next person's. My classmates were coming up with ideas that I would have never even thought of! It leaves me to believe that working with other people and bouncing ideas of each other could lead to some pretty amazing and unique stuff. I look forward to seeing what everyone's ideas are on future projects.

Monday, January 26, 2009

The egg

Well it took me a while to come up with an idea to do for this egg assignment. Then whalla! It finally hit me thanks to my girlfriend. I was in the refrigerator at the time getting some juice when she asked me to check to see if we had any eggs left cause she was going to cook breakfast the next morning. I told her yea and as soon I shut the refrigerator door I thought to myself what if I could carefully poke a hole in the eggs, drain out the yoke, and then replace it with the red juice that was in the refridgerator. What if I could then glue the small piece of seperated egg shell back in place so that no juice would leak out. Then I would see how my girlfriend would react when she cracked the egg in the morning and juice bursted out. Oh the idea was halarious in my head! I immediately grabbed an egg and took it to my upstairs bathroom to see if it would work. I couldn't crack a small piece of the egg's shell on the first try so I ran downstairs to get a couple more. Luckily, on the third try I was able to seperate a peice of the shell that was in tact and big enough for the yoke to seep out.

I then had to find a way to poor the juice into the egg which became a problem. Then I figured it out. This is a little nasty but you've been warned... I had to poor some juice into my mouth a spit it into the egg through a straw. I did this till the egg was almost filled with juice. Then came the hardest part of all. It was hard trying to glue the piece of the egg shell back into place so that it would be as undetectable as possibe. I eventually had to get some clear tape and tape over the hole and then use a razor to trim the tape as close to the shape of the hole as possible. Then I used some poxy to glue the piece of shell over the tape to the rest of the egg. It turned out better than I thought after I carefully wiped any traces of the glue away before it dried. Of course the hole was detectable but the key to the success of this experiment was to position the egg so that my girlfriend wouldn't see the side where the shell was cracked as she picked it up and cracked it against the skillet.

Oh it was gonna take precision to pull this off. First I tipped the egg over to see if anything would leak and to my surprize nothing did. I still felt that if I was to place the egg in the carton all night by morning the shell probably wouldn't hold. So what I did was place the egg in the carton with the hole upright. I had to get to the egg carton right before she was about to cook and turn the egg so that she could'nt see where the egg had been cracked. Then I suddenly realized that I should do this to atleast one more egg to get the maximum effect of her reaction. So hell yea.. That's exactly what I did. I placed both eggs in the refrigerator and took all the other eggs out except for two so that there was a total of four eggs left.

In the morning I woke up late to the smell of pancakes but luckily she hadn't started cooking the eggs yet. I jumped up and ran into the kitchen and acted like I was pouring some juice and I quickly turned the eggs to the right position hoping nothing would leak out. I then asked my girlfriend if she wanted me to hand her the egg carton and she said yes. All I could do now was take a seat in the living room and pray that this would be successful and that she would hurry up and start cooking the eggs before leakage occured. Finally, about 10 minutes went past and thenI got what I was waiting for. I heard the sound of her cracking an egg shell against the skillet and all I heard was her yell... "What the F***" ( I know she has a potty mouth). She then yelled for me to come into the kitchen and I acted all surprised. I had to fight to hold in my laughter as I paused for a minute before entering the kitchen. Her face was priceless as she tried to explain how "red shit" came out of the egg when she cracked it.

I acted like I didn't believe her and told her to crack another one and handed her the other egg that was filled with juice. She cracked it against the skillet and a look of terror came over her face as we watched red juice burst out of the egg. Oh my God! I almost died laughing! I couldn't hold it any more because she just kept saying "Oh my God.. Oh my God..! What the hell is going on?" She was asking me why I was laughing as she swore up and down that it was blood from the unborn chicken that came out of the egg. She said how she was about to call the supermarket and I let her reach for the phone before I told her what I had did. It took a while for it to sink in as she asked me why and how I could come up with a crazy joke like that. I then explained to her my class assignment and she still couldn't believe that out of all things I could have done with an egg that that is what I came up with. She vowed that she would still never eat eggs again. I gave her the rest of the eggs that I hid and sure enough she made everybody else some eggs but herself.

Later that day I heard her telling her sisters and friend what I did and everybody thought it was funny then. I'm glad it worked out better than I even imagined.

Saturday, January 17, 2009

Response to class

Hello all,

Well unfortunately I missed the first class because I was originally signed up for another one. Well that class got canceled and at first I was kinda bummed about it. Then I came across this class which seems like something I would have rather taken in the first place. That's why I will never say the name of the class that got canceled. I will take it to the grave with me! Ha, ha ha! Hee, hee... hee! Sorry... Anyway, I wish I could have been in class but I am looking forward to the next. Good day I say.. Good day.

Marqi