Also this...

I couldn't help but add this one of Sterling and Greta...and their same confused stare...it's typical.

Final Project

So, for my final, I kept it relatively simple.  Mostly because I wanted my images to speak for themselves.  Horses are such energetic, spunky animals and it was a lot of fun to TRY and capture them with my camera.  I say try because I had a hard time getting them to do what I wanted, I was happy though with the spontaneity of the pictures.

I found that a lot of my pictures featured a lot of natural sunlight.  We traveled to the barn in the evening, as the sun was setting, but I loved the presence of sunlight and consequently shadows.

This is one of my favorite pictures that I took.  This is one of the brood mares at the barn.  She insisted on putting her nose right in my face, she wanted to do what  she wanted to do...typical horse.

I loved this palomino. She tried so hard to force her way out of the stall, prompting Greta to keep pushing her back.  She was very affectionate and loved to be close to us...I don't think horses know their actual size.  Prime example, one horse stepped on Greta's foot and it took her a solid thirty seconds to save her toes.

 This sweet girl was my absolute favorite.  I was sad we weren't able to let her out of her stall but she was affectionate and gentle.  Again, the presence of shadows and sunlight are consistent between all the pictures.  There is also a consistency with the proximity, again, horses love to put their noses in everyone's business...literally.

Sterling was one of the equestrian team horses until one of the riders bought her, but she still boards at the stables.  I love, again, the presence of sunlight and shadows.  Sterling had just been out practicing jumps, and so she was determined afterward that she was going to enjoy some grass...at her own pace.  Stubbornness is a typical horse quality.

 

I loved the consistency of the barn; how the stalls are all the same but are each unique with all the buckets, blankets, and leads...not to mention the horses inside them.

This picture isn't so consistent with my theme, but I loved it.  Cos was enjoying some freedom in the arena.

Cos, again, doing what he wanted.  We were at his mercy, he's a little bigger than we are.  Again, presence of sunlight.

I thought this was a good way to close out my project, the sun setting over the barn.

Prepping for the final project...

I had no clue what to do for my final project.  Then I went on an adventure with my roommate, Greta, to the Sid Griffith Equestrian Center, where she trains for OSU's equestrian team.  I've been around horses my whole life, so I jumped at the chance to visit with her.

I'm still not sure what I want to do with the pictures I took (I took over a 100, I got a little camera happy) but I thought I could post a few of the ones that won't make it to the final.  Enjoy!

This is one of the foals born very recently, he was kind of a snot to be honest.  But the face made up for his feisty personality...and the nipping.

This horse had one blue eye and one brown one...it's a little creepy in person.

Some of the horses love baths...some do not.

Cos running at us as fast as he possibly could...nothing to worry about.

Trying to teach Cos to be patient for a treat...we weren't very successful.

Cathedral...

Raymond Carver's Cathedral talks a great deal about blindness, repeating the word blind a substantial amount of times, but also eyes, glass and other words that make us think about eyes.

Near the end of the story, we listen to the description of a cathedral to a man who has never been able to see it.  I can't fathom the idea of losing my sight.  It is almost an interesting idea to spend a day using other senses to describe an item, like a cathedral.  

How could we describe the cathedral to someone without them seeing it, but rather so they could create their own image in their head.  How does it feel?  Sound?  This would be an interesting way to create art, as art is about personal expression and the thoughts we have in our head.  If we had never seen a cathedral, how would we go about depicting it as others have described it to us.  Its almost as if we would have to paint with our eyes closed.

I almost wish I could experience the loss of sight for a day in an attempt to create things from my mind rather than relying on my sight.

Spill...

Spill:  [spil]  to cause or allow to run or fall from a container, especially accidentally or wastefully.

This is a close up of my cup after I spilled the water onto a paper I was reading; this is something that happens to me all too often.

On the occasions where I spill my drink, the aftermath is more of a hassle than a struggle.  My first instinct is to move my phone and other electronics out of the way.  Then I move to pick up the toppled glass and fetch something to catch all the water.  It's my goal, thereafter, to restore my work station to it's pre-spill glory.  

The true limitations of any spill is the need to stop everything else that is going on to tend to the problem at hand.  It's even worse if the contents of the glass can cause a stain, then you have to act more quickly.  I don't find that there are many opportunities that spawn from this form of clumsiness, other than having to get up from what your doing to combat the mistake by getting something to clean up your mess.  A change of scenery then.

I also wanted to include the pictures I took last week of a girl outside of one of my classes spilt her Red Bull.  I thought about how unstaged and natural her reaction would be so I had to document it discretely.

Spilling your Red Bull in the hallway can present a few obstacles:  having to clean up your mess, making sure others don't walk through it, acting as if you had nothing to do with the matter.  I found it really funny that after she knocked over the can, she brought 2 paper towels back, as if that would clean up the mess.  When that wasn't enough she used a tissue to try and mop up the rest.  She eventually gave up and went back to her nap, awkwardly on a bench in the hallway.

Friendly note, if you ever spill like this in a classroom building:  refrain from leaving the sopping tissue on the floor so you can go back to sleep and try to actually clean up the spill, instead of giving up after 2 minutes.

Super power...

So for my super power I decided to choose invisibility.  I placed my self on the main path of the oval, the place I find myself wishing I was left unseen sometimes.  I constantly am irritated having to walk on the brick path when USG is campaigning or other random booths set up on the oval.  When I'm on my way to class, and I'm usually late, I don't have time to stop and listen to everyone.

I decided that I wanted to make the people that were on the oval with me look like blurs.  This is how I feel they would look to me if I was invisible.  I liked the idea that my picture was photoshopped in because I can conspicuously take a picture of them walking, but it's hard to take a picture of myself with out looking strange.  This way, they already looked like they didn't notice me.

I added a few people from the other pictures I took.  It took me a while to master adding shadows, but I was happy with how they turned out.  I tried hard to make myself look like I belonged in the picture, but with my lack of professional photoshop skills I still look a little out of place.

I thought this was a fun project, it really relied on creativity and imagination.

Wallace Article...

Wallace's commencement speech had every good part of a classic college graduation speech:  a parable, sarcastic comments, realistic applications and a theme.  He speaks mostly about the realities of life, and seeing them for how they are, like the fish.  "This is water."  I appreciate the path his discourse takes; it borderlines cynical but he doesn't fail to make sure that his audience understands that everything is what it is.  I find that refreshing for a graduation speech, as most are fluff pieces aiming to inspire the listener to unrealistic goals.

That being said, he skips around a lot and tries to tie in a lot of little, separate stories that drag the audience on a long trip that isn't totally satisfying.  There is a certain limit of information displayed in a form like this that is acceptable, but Wallace surpasses it and I'm sure lost some of the attention of the students.  That was the hardest part for me; grasping everything he was trying to communicate and making sure it fit somehow into the whole picture that was his speech