The alarm was set for 2 hours later than usual (on purpose...we got to sleep in today).
The mood was intense.
The butterflies in my stomach were like those of getting on stage to sing a solo.
The drive to school seemed to take forever.
Then I walked into the auditorium to be greeted by these words on the massive projector screen: Welcome to Phase One Final Review. There was music playing and the lights were dimmed. All the instructors sat in their directors' chairs along the side wall. There was a table on the stage - with a black tableskirt and a computer atop it - and 10:00:00 arrived. Phase One Review had begun.
They asked different sections to bring up different pictures from their portfolio of images. We had to submit our pictures both digitally (to the server) as well as print them to photo paper, after taking each through the editing process. My phase one section "R" was called upon to bring the picture of blurred motion. My picture was of a girl coming down the slide at a park.
The instructor looking at it said it was good, but commented on how the sky in the background was a little too bright. I'll take that. It helps me know what to refine for next time. The next time we were asked to bring a photo up, it was our warm on warm, cool on warm pictures. Instead of going through each one, this instructor chose to give a more generic talk about taking into account what matters and paying attention to the variables of composing a picture (right time of day, good model, wardrobe decisions, pose for your subject, etc.) Then they had us bring up our hand portrait that we had to take. And then ended the day with a slideshow of everyone's self-portrait (all 140 or so of us). It was a neat way to end our day together.
So now that we're "back to reality" - and a tad bit of seeming normalcy - life continues on. I stayed after school today to sit in as a model for a classmate who needed to reshoot a portrait session. Then I went to the computer lab to submit two assignments due tomorrow, one done in the commercial studio and the portrait session I just mentioned. I also did a little bit of work on my self-promo piece that is due next week.
Now here I sit in my apartment, writing a blog and thinking about what to eat for dinner (yes, you read correctly...I've not yet eaten dinner at it's nearing 9:00pm).
I will post my Phase One final pics soon. The files are too large to upload, so I need to go in and resize them before I can get them on the blog. But this is the picture I submitted for tomorrow's commercial assignment. I knew the Teavana set I bought would come in handy for purposes other than just drinking tea.
And just so you get a little bit of perspective, we worked in the commercial studio for 4 hours (from 1pm-4:50pm). There are 16 "bays" (sectioned off portions of workspace), each to be shared by 2 people. I worked with a classmate I didn't know, but it was fun meeting someone new. I let her go first, so by the time I was able to begin setting up, it was nearing 3:30pm. I set up my items and - I think - changed the background paper 4 different times. I finally landed on the green textured paper that you see in the shot. I had one of the instructors come over to assess what I was getting and she and I worked tediously on the littlest details to get the shot "just right". I am happy with the end result and really like my little tea set. In order to get the proper lighting, the items were actually sitting on the tabletop, which was moved to the floor. Normally the tabletop sits on two sawhorses. So when I had to move a teacup even slightly, I had to get on the ground, wedge myself between the light that was only about 3 feet above my items and tweak it just so, then ask my partner to press the command on the computer to take a picture using my camera. We were tethered to the computer again, which means that instead of images showing up on the back of our cameras, they show up on computer screens so we can see the images bigger and zoom in to see what's in focus and what isn't.
This week we have a bunch of lectures, followed by studio time.
Here's a breakdown of the next few days:
Tuesday
8am-10am: Location Lecture
10am-12pm: Portrait Lecture
12pm-1pm: Lunch
1pm-3pm: Commercial Lecture
3pm-5pm: Business Communications (this week it's an open work period to prepare - in groups - presentations we have to give after Thanksgiving)
Wednesday
8am-10am: Digital Foundations
10am-12pm: Design
12pm-1pm: Lunch
1pm-5pm: Location Studio
Thursday
8am-12pm: Portrait Studio
12pm-1pm: Lunch
1pm-3pm: Digital Imaging
3pm-5pm: Open Career Observations (time we get to work on any outside business assignments we have, or time to work on Hallmark assignments if we have nothing else)
Friday
8am-10am: PhotoJournalism
10am-12pm: Aerial Lecture (yes, we do aerial shots in December)
12pm-1pm: Lunch
1pm-5pm: Commercial Studio
So as I said, a huge portion of this week is shooting in the studio for 4-hr. blocks of time.....yikes!
Check back soon for some pictures I took of Kayla and Bucky's engagement shoot we did in Princeton 2 weeks ago.
No comments:
Post a Comment