Yet Another Pictureless Post

I get bored easily, what can I say? I have nothing to post, and posting to my deviantART isn't as entertaining as it used to be. I don't have my blur project done yet (two frames away! ARGH), and thus I don't have my humor project even started yet. In my rush to get to the doctor's office this morning, I forgot my camera, and thus cannot develop until Monday, and it takes a day for the film to dry. Wednesday (the class after Monday) is our final critique.Today is the last day to develop all of my film and still get time to print the photos, and I don't have any film to develop.

Although this class has been a great experience, my grade in it has suffered horribly. I doubt that I will get my blur project printed and with my horrible timing, I don't think it will be useful to develop either of my projects. I won't be able to get any of them printed anyway... And with that, I will fail this class (not that I'm not already).

Thanks for the experience. I will always love photography, and hopefully this blemish will not prevent me from trying this same class again (with an F, I don't think I'll be allowed to go to Photo II) in the next two years.

The Rest of the Portrait Project!

Finally, I have completed printing the long-overdue Portrait project! I have a total of three prints. One is seen a while ago (the one of Jake), but the other two are here. And here they are!

This one is of my younger sister after the huge feast of Thanksgiving day. Although she's a vegetarian and therefore did not consume any turkey, she was exhausted. I took advantage of the situation to take photos of her. No, she did not have champaign that night, but she did have a glass. By the way, she is a model, and despite her feeble protests against my photos, I still took a bunch! I don't care what she says, I think she looks beautiful in this photo.

This photo is of my friend Ian. He's slightly creepy, but really sweet. This is one of the various creeper positions I have taken of him over the course of this class. To answer the question you don't know you're asking, I did make him a copy. Or did I make one for his girlfriend, who is also in the picture? We shall see during the next period (which I have with both of them).

Still need to finish Blur project and get started on my humor one (which makes me extremely sad, since we are developing that project today. I will, however, develop tomorrow after school).

I'll keep this one short to make up for the extremely long ones I posted earlier. TA DA!

To Do List

While I'm waiting for my turn in the darkroom, I thought I'd do yet another picture-less post (I am extremely sorry for my lateness with all of my projects). This time, I'm being up front about what I still need to do in terms of projects. However, since this is my blog, excuses will be provided, however pathetic they are.

Lets go in chronological order, shall we? All pieces in a category that are crossed out have been completed, according to eSIS.

One Thing:

• Roll of film ready to develop
• Contact Sheet
• One print due in a sleeve

24 Things:

• Develop roll of film
• Two Prints due in a sleeve 
• Contact Sheet labeled with things from list

Light Project:

• Develop roll of film
• Two prints and a contact sheet due in a sleeve

Self Portrait:

• Develop roll of film
• Three prints and a contact sheet

Portrait:

• Develop roll of film
• Two prints due

Multiple Exposure:

• Develop roll of film
• Two prints due

Blur:

• Develop roll of film

Now, for some explanation as to certain missing items from the list.

1. In the light project, I did get it done in time. I think that's when I was sick.... Why I don't have credit for my film, I don't know, because I turned in three prints (late, though), and it says that I didn't develop my film...? How is that possible? I'm hoping I can get at least two points for that now. 
2. For portrait, I don't really have an excuse. Once Megan's done, I'm going to print two more portraits, and then I'm done with that!
3. Now onto Multiple Exposure. I didn't have the roll of film done, so it makes sense that I don't have credit for that. I just now turned in my two prints and contact sheet. 
4. As for blur... Well, I still don't have that done. It was due a while ago, and it's our final project. I still have fifteen or so shots left to do, then I can develop and print during every single after school darkroom next week. 

We also got a humor project, which I can't start until I finish up my blur. The only problem is that I have the background-blur-foreground-clear part to do, and I can't find a guinea pig to use (and by guinea pig, I mean friend or little sister). My sister is constantly busy with swimming, I've used my parents a lot, and besides, they hurt and are busy with work, and I am currently grounded and can't see my friends other than at school. If I did bring my camera to school, they probably wouldn't want to walk on marks all break/lunch. But this is no excuse, I'm just saying what's going on photography-wise.

A few days ago, I broke my mom's tripod that she was loaning me for this class. I broke it trying to fix the legs, and one of them snapped off. After running to my parents crying and apologizing, I found out something that made me feel even worse; She had bought it in Japan thirty years ago when she went to visit, and you can only get light-weight tripods in Japan. So, now I have no tripod, my parents don't trust me, and my grounding just got even worse. Ah, the agony of a teenager.

This isn't really a blog for my class anymore, is it? I seem to have taken it over as a ranting tool for my life in accordance to photography. But, hey, it makes it seem kind of interesting, no?

The main classroom is really quiet and pretty dark, and the bright contrast of the computer screen is making my head and eyes hurt. Actually, it might look kind of cool in black and white, from an odd angle. The rows of computers lit up, the students staring mindlessly into them. Man, I wish I had my camera right now... And I also wish that I had my humor project started. It would fit Hohman's description perfectly!

Speaking of Hohman, he's out on a trip to Germany (just had to ask JJ about that). Hope he's having a fun time, and I hope that he's doing some amazing photography!!

I'm gonna stop writing now and check on Megan... Hopefully she's close to done! I'm not sure if it's halfway through class, but it's getting busier out here, so I assume that people are switching out. On to get stuff done!!

Edit as of January 26, 2010:


In red I have crossed out things I have done now. I recently finished my portrait project (see my latest post). I turned in my multiple exposure (as I said earlier). I'm going to turn in my portrait now. 

Multiple Exposures

Well, it's about time that I got my multi done, and now that they are printed, here they are!! It took me long enough, but at least it's done. I hope that these are considered good, even if they are late late LAAATE. Comments are appreciated, but, of course, nobody looks at this blog :(

Photo drying and girls' bathroom sign in the Auditorium. Turned out eclectic and cool, huh?

This one turned out kind of dark, but I love the ornateness of it! It's our Christmas Eve dinner table and one of our ornate lamps. Since Hohman said that if we wanted a pattern, we should light it, I did! I turned on the lamp, which cast interesting shadows in the carvings.

Done and Developed

Finally got the multiple exposures done! I just finished developing them, and what do I find? My washes were too warm, and melted some of the gelatin off. It looked like a big, black booger on my film. Ew. I'm kind of interested as to what the photos would have been if they hadn't been melted, and if melting might be a type of art. See, I know that you might want to "crack" a photo on purpose as a way to make a statement (either, "the thing in this photo is messed up" or "what the hell am I doing?"). So, I'm unsure if melting is like that in some cases (I highly doubt it, though).

I thought I had made my final washes too cold. Ah, well. Guess I'm more tired than I thought (which is saying something, since I was practically falling asleep on Peyton at lunch, which I have right before this class). In hindsight, I might have made it too cold for developing COLOR film, which has a higher temperature needed.

I'm unsure if my random blogging is detracting from my score... I guess I'd better get some photos out, quick! There's after-school darkroom Tuesday and Wednesday this week. I'm going to have to print two more portrait photos, two multiple exposures, and a portrait contact sheet. See, I printed the one of Jake to give to him for Christmas, because he wanted a copy of it, good or not. It was just my luck that it turned out nice, so it's one that I can submit. However, I still need to do my contact sheet :( This is going to be a super duper fun week, ain't it? ]

The latest project assigned is an intentional blur one. I'm pretty excited, since it has to be set up (at least, for half of them), but, on the other hand, it has to be set up. My family is all busy, and I have barely any time to spend hours on it, like it deserves (it's our final). We develop on Wednesday. I'd better have it done and done well by then. No more procrastination!!

Ken Ross, my godfather, just got back from Paris and the Alps, where he spent the holidays. I haven't heard much about his photos recently, and he told me that he had taken about a thousand + there and was uploading them to his website/blog as he called. I will have the website eventually, as soon as it gets through my email. The lucky guy got to spend New Years' in Paris with his beautiful girlfriend. The only thing that is comforting my jealous self is that he had to spend Christmas in a cellar, in the Alps (jealous flare is up again), in a very old, wooden house that is heated by a wood stove. Ha ha. Serves you right for getting to travel around the world! It's totally unfair :(

Well, I think I've talked about everything that I can today. I wish this class wasn't ending so soon! I believe that the soonest time I can take Photo II is next year, if I'm lucky.

Finally Found It

I finally found my multiple-exposure film! It was in my camera case, right where I'd left it. Silly me. Anyway, I got it fixed and now I am taking photos around the classroom to complete the roll. I'm specifically looking for repetition in natural life. So far, I have seven photos. Well, actually, six, since Hohman accidentally took one when he was trying to figure out what was going on with my camera (I was on a different mode than I wanted to be on accident. It was very strange).

Anyway, despite all of the interesting things in Hohman's room, there's nothing more for me to photograph, so I have nothing to do but add an entry and look at photographs online (which, I will tell you, gets annoying after a while). I have been looking at other student works (most specifically, those of my friends) to get some ideas for my own project. I thought I'd post the links to their blogs, just in case there's somebody reading this who isn't Mr. Hohman or my dad. I like promoting friends :D

Pauly (Forsaken Knowledge): http://afrozenhourglass.blogspot.com/
Beegan (Bumble- Beegan): http://alphabetsoupphoto.blogspot.com/
Bruenn (pokemonxmaster): http://pokemonxmasterpb.blogspot.com/
Osborn (The Genetically Perfect Pig): http://thegeneticallyperectpig.blogspot.com/
Boring (The Boring Baby): http://theboringdisease.blogspot.com/
Dawn (AshleyDawn): http://ashleydawnphotography.blogspot.com/

I know that this blog is meant specifically for my photos from class, but I get bored easily, and technically this is participation. Kind of. Anyway, I think the period is going to end soon (After almost a year and a half of high school, I still don't know what time each period ends), so I'm going to post this and start packing up. Unless I'm insane. In which case, I'll add more to this.

Problems with Multiple Exposures

I am ashamed to say that I didn't get my roll of multiple exposure film done in time to develop it with the class. Therefore, I decided to do my project over winter break. As it turns out, this was even more unwise to do than not completing the project in the first place.

But a little more background is needed before I can tell you why my "brilliant idea" was unwise. At first, I thought that I had a multiple exposure function on my camera. It's a fairly advanced camera, the best for the non-professional photographer (at least, it was in the 1980s). However, much to my disappointment, it doesn't, so I had to do it the manual way, where you layer the photos on each other. First, you put the film in, mark where it comes out of the canister, and change the ISO to 800 (the ISO of the film I'm using is 400, so you double it to have two photos on one roll). Then you take a bunch of high contrast images and finish the roll. After you've finished the roll, you wind it up until you are at that spot that you marked earlier. Then take photos like normal (especially high contrast images).

Now for why doing my project over break wasn't a great idea. You see, I finished the first "roll" (the first layer of the multiple exposure photographs) during the first week of break, hoping that I could do the second "roll" the second week. But my camera has a semi-automatic wind (I have to initiate the wind myself), and I couldn't stop the camera from rolling the film up completely in the canister. Now, Mr. Hohman has a special device called a "claw" that can remove as much of the film as you want in case this happens, which would have been especially useful after my mishap. However, I couldn't go to Hohman to get my film clawed; I still had a week left of break, and now had a useless canister of half-exposed film left on my hands.

To make matters worse, I was going to bring my film today, the first day back that I have Photography, to get it clawed. I had put it in a safe place, but then we moved my grandmother up from Redding and into an assisted living facility up here, and since she was staying with us for a night, my family automatically had to clean the entire house. In the process, my film was misplaced, and I didn't learn about that little detail until this morning.

When I get home, however, I am going to interrogate every member of my family to see if they moved it, and I am going to search for it until I do find it. After I complete my actual academic homework. That always comes first, of course. Anyway, here's to hoping I find it in time to get it clawed, photographed, and the contact sheet and prints done by the time that they are due, which is next Monday. Great. This is going to be an interesting week....