I don’t make it habit to post daily, so two posts in one day is really something of a stretch. Had to share my silliness with photoshop, though…
Category: Play
Photography is Hard
After a busy weekend of new Doctor Who, homemade pizza, and kid-friendly cookouts with friends, I tried to get some more pics for my hybrid fruit project. Here’s one of the best pics taken in my dining room using the late afternoon sun.
This pic was taken by my husband and without the makeshift white backdrop I created. I took many photographs of this apple and this lemon in a variety of positions and stages of undress, the entire time fighting against the shadows falling from the panes on my dining room window and the toddler who was fascinated by this tripod toy that Mommy wouldn’t let him play with. Eventually, the light gave out, the toddler decided to eat one of the subjects (not the lemon), and Teddy agreed to pose for a few photos.
And that’s how I spent my weekend. Tomorrow I get to try to clean up the pics.
Shortcomings
We’re all at home this afternoon due to that little squall down in the Gulf of Mexico, so I decided to have a look at the photos I took for the first project in my digital art class. I’ll spare you the horror and just share this picture of my absolutely delectable subjects.
They’re all pretty much gone now; we had the broccoli (in the plastic bag to protect from dust) for lunch with the fabulous Stacy and Mimi, and I have it on good authority that the pineapple provided a perfect morning snack for two hungry toddlers on a rainy day playdate. The grapes and I got acquainted last night after supper.
I was supposed to get shots of my subjects that I could use in a hybrid fruit/vegetable/fruitable project, and I did take a few photographs, but they weren’t lit very well and the tripod was crooked and I just couldn’t seem to wrap my head around all the parts of the project, so I ate my subjects with the idea that I’d get a new batch over the weekend when the weather’s better and give it another go.
The really important thing that came out of this experience, though, was the reminder that we don’t all know how to do everything, and that we can always develop new competencies. Before going to take the photos, I participated in a small group discussion of our sketches for our projects, and all I could think about during the experience was how my writing students must feel when they have to share their drafts with their classmates. Maybe I’m wrong–maybe they all feel confident and competent as they send around those tentative words–but I know that at least a few of them over the years must have felt as I did yesterday: humble and inadequate and not a little bit frightened to reveal just how amateur and feeble my skills are in comparison to the work of those more confident and experienced than I.
A Reason to Write
I’m going to make some art.
I’ve been wanting to learn the basics of photoshop-esque digital art for a while. I’m not a visual artist by any stretch of the imagination, but I’d like to be able to do more than just crop a photo or shift between color and greyscale, so I’m sitting in on a colleague’s Digital Art class. Two classes in and I’ve made a picture.
Clearly, I have a ways to go.
One of the projects for the class is a photo collection illustrating various color and visual principles, a project that gives me license to visit my craft room. I cannot begin to tell you how happy the thought of diving into the bins of yarn and fabric–not to mention the folders of paper and the buttons and…–makes me. Pretty.
So there will be posts here related to that class, which may lead to posts related to other things (like my writing class, where we’re focusing on the use of social media in elections. Team Romney, I’m not talking about you or linking to you or liking you because I like you. My interactions with your social media sphere are for science. So there. Nah nanny booboo).
Anita DeRouen 