309/366 – Home

*Tuesday, November 20
I hadn’t done a double exposure for a while, so I thought it would be good to do one while I was home.

285/366

Confession time. I completely forgot to take a picture yesterday, so this is actually from a few days ago when I was trying out my Holga lens on my Nikon. I fell in love with the incredible depth I got in this shot, and the kind of dream like atmosphere. It is SOOC, with the exception of conversion from RAW.

282/366 – Fall Confusion

I ordered a Holga lens for my Nikon last week, and got it in the mail yesterday. I went out shooting with it for the first time for my grad work this afternoon and decided to try out a double exposure with it. This is pretty much SOOC, just a bit of a contrast boost.

For those of you who may not know, a Holga is a cheap, plastic film camera. They have a plastic lens, and are known for their soft focus and heavy vignette. They now make lenses like this that can attach to DSLR cameras. Since my grad work is about Alzheimer’s I thought it would make more sense to be shooting with a lens that distorts and disturbs the images like this instead of getting “perfect” photographs.

On another note…I am finally all caught up.

83/366 – green grass and flip flops

Another digital double exposure for my series.

The “final” installation

All semester I have been working on a body of work that was wrapped up last week in an installation for final critique. I had been posting about it on google + for those of you who follow me there, but for some reason never posted here. So I will finally update you all on what I have been working on.

First of all an explanation of the physical images. They are all digital double exposures done in camera. Part of the trick about digital double exposures is that they have to be pretty instant. Once you set the camera to do a double exposure you only have a few minutes before it goes back to a single exposure. So all of the images were pretty spontaneous. I printed the images in various sizes on transparencies. The images were then suspended using red string in a space that I created using white sheets.

The entire body of work focuses on the idea of how we process things that we see every day. It touches on how memories begin to form essentially, and how things of our daily lives begin to blend and blur together. It all stemmed from the fact that I can’t remember anything. It was my way of representing a terrible memory, but has evolved into something more that I can’t yet phrase quite yet.

So, here are the images of the installation. This is the outside of the installation. The space around it is not ideal, but I used a space that was available to me so it worked.

And the inside of the Installation. Unfortunately the images really don’t do it justice. In part because it is designed to be interactive, forcing the viewer to walk through the space to see the images.  It may just be because it was my creation, but for me walking into the installation was almost surreal. I can’t even really explain it but it created a feeling and experience completely unique.

Memory + An Update

It has been a bit since I have posted here on my blog. Partly because I have been busy, and partly because I have been putting it off. I am currently taking a photography class with the goal of getting a portfolio ready for grad school. However, I have struggled so much with trying to come up with a concept that I was really happy with and that I felt could really grow into something. The frustration that resulted from that struggle brought me to have a “crisis” of sorts with my photography. That combined with my very busy schedule make me question my 365.

So, I have come to the conclusion that I will no longer continue with my 365 at this point. Honestly, I am somewhat disappointed in myself, but I feel like it is hurting more than helping at this time, and that I need to be focusing on grad school related things and work. My 365 was just draining me, and although I was getting decent images I felt like it wasn’t pushing me in the right direction. My energy and attention needs to be spent on other things right now. I will still be taking photographs (obviously), and will still be posting as often as I can, but my 365 is on hold.

On a different note, I thought I would share one image that may become part of my project for this semester. I don’t want to give many details because I am still working a lot of things out about it, but at its core this project is about memory. This image is an in-camera, digital double exposure. The only editing I did was to boost the contrast a tiny bit, otherwise it is straight out of the camera.

And lastly, I just want to say thank you to everyone who has stuck with me, and all the support that you all have given me. I hope you guys stick around and bear with me as I figure out where to go from here!