Photography!
So yesterday was a busy day, that's why I didn't write. It's 12:30 now and I just got up and I'm still so tired! I studied and studied for that damn art history yesterday until I could study no more. This was Thursday night. I planned on studying at lunch yesterday but then I didn't want to.
So I had photography at 9, and I busted out 2 contact sheets and about a million prints! It was so awesome! It just took me a sec to get used to the fact that my teacher doesn't want us to make perfect prints right away, just work prints, and I was taught 2 summers ago by Kirstyn and Sean (my old photography teachers) to select a picture from the contact sheet and then work on it until it was as perfect as you could get it, and sometimes that took three hours. Okay, lemme back up though and explain photography to those who don't know. You develop your negatives, everyone knows what those look like, yea? They give them back to you when you take your film to a 1 hour photo place and have them develop them for you. So you develop your negatives, and they're in one long strip, and once they're dry, you cut them into sections of 5 pictures each and slip them into these plastic sheets that make up a whole page of them, called negative sleeves. That way, they're protected from being scratched and stuff and they're all laid out for you to see. Then you make what are called contact sheets. You lay the negatives directly onto a piece of photo paper and print the negatives the size they are. Does that make sense? You turn the tiny negatives into tiny pictures all on one sheet of paper so you can see what the pictures are going to look like. Then once you've developed the contact sheet with all you're tiny pictures, you can select from it pictures you want to enlarge and print big. There's no way of telling which ones will be good from the negatives, so the contact sheet really helps.
So I was taught to look carefully and select only the best few pictures on the contact sheet from printing, and then to work on them until I dropped. Which was a perfectly valid way of doing things. But my current teacher does things a little differently. Yes, he wants us to print the ones that look good for sure, but he also wants us to print ones that go in the maybe category. He says that you can never really tell from a contact sheet, that sometimes one you like doesn't look so good enlarged, and one you're unsure about looks awesome large and has some hidden details you would have never known about except that you enlarged it. So I had to get over spending a million hours making something perfect and I had to get over printing pictures I was unsure about. But I got over it quickly! Because it's so much more fun to print a whole bunch of different pictures and see what you have! So I was having a really really good time because I do have about 20 different pictures to work with right now, and I'm probably gunna go back to the darkroom today and print more! Even though I should really do some other homework. But somehow I didn't got too much this week, which is awesome! But man, I'm getting spoiled not constantly having to work this week, and it makes me not want to at all. Thursday I didn't do ANYTHING but study for Art History. Last Thursday I spent 12 hours straight doing work.
So anyways, that was awesome! I'm really enjoying some of my pictures and printing and all that jazz. So then I went to Art History and we had our quiz and it was only 3 questions like he told us it would be. I did just fine, not perfect, but at least a C. I hope. Hehe. Anyways, and then we learned about Aegean art and got out about 45 minutes early, which was AWESOME! And class wasn't too shabby. That class in general isn't as bad as it seems it should be. Memorizing art and what not... It's actually rather interesting. Sure, it's tedious, but at least we know what we're in for. On the first day, he introduced the course by saying it was a course of memorization, whether we liked it or not! And it's not boring, so it's all good.
Because we got out early, I went back to the darkroom to print more prints! So I spent a total of 6 hours or so there yesterday. I ended up with a headache from the chemicals, but I'm used to that =). So the darkroom closes at 7 on Fridays, which means you're last print has to go through the chemicals at 6 because they dump them out to start cleaning up. I was sad, of course, but it was probably for the best or I might have been there until 11! (Other days, the darkroom closes at midnight.) So I wandered back to my room, planning to call Adah to see if she wanted to get dinner with me, and I ran right into Caitlyn, who was just on her way to meet Adah and had apparently just stopped by my room to get her camera because I'd borrowed it. So we went down to meet Adah at the Pratt County Fair. Yep. I know. The Pratt County Fair! It was really funny! But they did a really good job with it, they had cotton candy and funnel cake and all sorts of fun stuff! We met up with this kid Zack, who I just met right at that moment, and then we went to get dinner. Zack turned out to be really really cool. He's also a writing major, and the four of us had a really good time playing with the cotton candy. It was pretty silly, but I wont go there...
So then we decided to watch a movie, but Caitlyn wanted to go to the C-store, which is in the Willougby apartments, so I was like okay, meanwhile lemme just run up and say hi to my friend Eddie. It was really great to see him, if only for 5 minutes, because I never really get to. So when I came back downstairs, Matt had appeared, and he decided to come with us. So Caitlyn and Matt went back to get a movie and Adah, Zack and I went to Adah's. We ended up watching Animal House, which was HILARIOUS and all together, I had a really great time. So then I came back to my dorm and I was sleepy because I had a headache, but I took medicine and it went away, surprisingly enough, and then I was AWAKE! So I called Anna and we talked for about an hour and she was like okay, we're only gunna talk for 10 minuets because Sophie's gunna call me, and I was like sure, that's fine, but the Sophie didn't call until Anna was like, did Sophie ever call? And I was like, Huh?? And she said, Sophie! She was gunna call you! I told you that! And I was like, no, she was gunna call YOU! So then I figured out that I'd heard it all wrong! So I got off the phone with Anna and called Sophie and we talked for two hours. By the time we hung up, it was 3 in the morning my time! That's why I slept in so far this morning. I haven't slept past 12 in a long while! That's because I haven't gone to bed past 12 in a long while either.
It was SO GREAT to talk to Sophie and Anna! They made me feel much more at home, if that makes any sense. I miss all my friends at home, and a lot of times I get really sad because I don't talk to them that often AT ALL and I wonder if we're eventually just gunna drift apart. Like, which ones will I end up keeping as friends? It's not fun to think about. So Anna told me all about the colleges she's going to apply to and what's been going on and she said Senior is an awesome year for her, which is so good to hear! She says she always smiling, so much to the point that id she's not, everyone notices! Isn't the great?! And Sophie and I had a really really good conversation where I got to hear all about really crazy but good things that have been happening to her, and I got to get her advice on something that's been really bugging me. Because there was no one here to talk about it with, I'm not close enough with anyone, and besides, they wouldn't understand it anyways both because they don't know me well enough and because they don't understand my home in Oakland and what goes on there. I needed to talk to someone from home about it, and Sophie was perfect! She made me feel a hell of a lot better about it. I never would have guessed of all people that I'd become so close to Anna and Sophie because both of them happened towards the end of last school year and over the summer, and friends I've had for longer are gone. Those two are awesome! And Sophie was like "Okay, so can we please not go so long in between times we talk ever again?" And I was like, yes please! And we promised each other we're going to go to an A's game next summer.
This is me and Sophie!
This is and and Anna!
So I had photography at 9, and I busted out 2 contact sheets and about a million prints! It was so awesome! It just took me a sec to get used to the fact that my teacher doesn't want us to make perfect prints right away, just work prints, and I was taught 2 summers ago by Kirstyn and Sean (my old photography teachers) to select a picture from the contact sheet and then work on it until it was as perfect as you could get it, and sometimes that took three hours. Okay, lemme back up though and explain photography to those who don't know. You develop your negatives, everyone knows what those look like, yea? They give them back to you when you take your film to a 1 hour photo place and have them develop them for you. So you develop your negatives, and they're in one long strip, and once they're dry, you cut them into sections of 5 pictures each and slip them into these plastic sheets that make up a whole page of them, called negative sleeves. That way, they're protected from being scratched and stuff and they're all laid out for you to see. Then you make what are called contact sheets. You lay the negatives directly onto a piece of photo paper and print the negatives the size they are. Does that make sense? You turn the tiny negatives into tiny pictures all on one sheet of paper so you can see what the pictures are going to look like. Then once you've developed the contact sheet with all you're tiny pictures, you can select from it pictures you want to enlarge and print big. There's no way of telling which ones will be good from the negatives, so the contact sheet really helps.
So I was taught to look carefully and select only the best few pictures on the contact sheet from printing, and then to work on them until I dropped. Which was a perfectly valid way of doing things. But my current teacher does things a little differently. Yes, he wants us to print the ones that look good for sure, but he also wants us to print ones that go in the maybe category. He says that you can never really tell from a contact sheet, that sometimes one you like doesn't look so good enlarged, and one you're unsure about looks awesome large and has some hidden details you would have never known about except that you enlarged it. So I had to get over spending a million hours making something perfect and I had to get over printing pictures I was unsure about. But I got over it quickly! Because it's so much more fun to print a whole bunch of different pictures and see what you have! So I was having a really really good time because I do have about 20 different pictures to work with right now, and I'm probably gunna go back to the darkroom today and print more! Even though I should really do some other homework. But somehow I didn't got too much this week, which is awesome! But man, I'm getting spoiled not constantly having to work this week, and it makes me not want to at all. Thursday I didn't do ANYTHING but study for Art History. Last Thursday I spent 12 hours straight doing work.
So anyways, that was awesome! I'm really enjoying some of my pictures and printing and all that jazz. So then I went to Art History and we had our quiz and it was only 3 questions like he told us it would be. I did just fine, not perfect, but at least a C. I hope. Hehe. Anyways, and then we learned about Aegean art and got out about 45 minutes early, which was AWESOME! And class wasn't too shabby. That class in general isn't as bad as it seems it should be. Memorizing art and what not... It's actually rather interesting. Sure, it's tedious, but at least we know what we're in for. On the first day, he introduced the course by saying it was a course of memorization, whether we liked it or not! And it's not boring, so it's all good.
Because we got out early, I went back to the darkroom to print more prints! So I spent a total of 6 hours or so there yesterday. I ended up with a headache from the chemicals, but I'm used to that =). So the darkroom closes at 7 on Fridays, which means you're last print has to go through the chemicals at 6 because they dump them out to start cleaning up. I was sad, of course, but it was probably for the best or I might have been there until 11! (Other days, the darkroom closes at midnight.) So I wandered back to my room, planning to call Adah to see if she wanted to get dinner with me, and I ran right into Caitlyn, who was just on her way to meet Adah and had apparently just stopped by my room to get her camera because I'd borrowed it. So we went down to meet Adah at the Pratt County Fair. Yep. I know. The Pratt County Fair! It was really funny! But they did a really good job with it, they had cotton candy and funnel cake and all sorts of fun stuff! We met up with this kid Zack, who I just met right at that moment, and then we went to get dinner. Zack turned out to be really really cool. He's also a writing major, and the four of us had a really good time playing with the cotton candy. It was pretty silly, but I wont go there...
So then we decided to watch a movie, but Caitlyn wanted to go to the C-store, which is in the Willougby apartments, so I was like okay, meanwhile lemme just run up and say hi to my friend Eddie. It was really great to see him, if only for 5 minutes, because I never really get to. So when I came back downstairs, Matt had appeared, and he decided to come with us. So Caitlyn and Matt went back to get a movie and Adah, Zack and I went to Adah's. We ended up watching Animal House, which was HILARIOUS and all together, I had a really great time. So then I came back to my dorm and I was sleepy because I had a headache, but I took medicine and it went away, surprisingly enough, and then I was AWAKE! So I called Anna and we talked for about an hour and she was like okay, we're only gunna talk for 10 minuets because Sophie's gunna call me, and I was like sure, that's fine, but the Sophie didn't call until Anna was like, did Sophie ever call? And I was like, Huh?? And she said, Sophie! She was gunna call you! I told you that! And I was like, no, she was gunna call YOU! So then I figured out that I'd heard it all wrong! So I got off the phone with Anna and called Sophie and we talked for two hours. By the time we hung up, it was 3 in the morning my time! That's why I slept in so far this morning. I haven't slept past 12 in a long while! That's because I haven't gone to bed past 12 in a long while either.
It was SO GREAT to talk to Sophie and Anna! They made me feel much more at home, if that makes any sense. I miss all my friends at home, and a lot of times I get really sad because I don't talk to them that often AT ALL and I wonder if we're eventually just gunna drift apart. Like, which ones will I end up keeping as friends? It's not fun to think about. So Anna told me all about the colleges she's going to apply to and what's been going on and she said Senior is an awesome year for her, which is so good to hear! She says she always smiling, so much to the point that id she's not, everyone notices! Isn't the great?! And Sophie and I had a really really good conversation where I got to hear all about really crazy but good things that have been happening to her, and I got to get her advice on something that's been really bugging me. Because there was no one here to talk about it with, I'm not close enough with anyone, and besides, they wouldn't understand it anyways both because they don't know me well enough and because they don't understand my home in Oakland and what goes on there. I needed to talk to someone from home about it, and Sophie was perfect! She made me feel a hell of a lot better about it. I never would have guessed of all people that I'd become so close to Anna and Sophie because both of them happened towards the end of last school year and over the summer, and friends I've had for longer are gone. Those two are awesome! And Sophie was like "Okay, so can we please not go so long in between times we talk ever again?" And I was like, yes please! And we promised each other we're going to go to an A's game next summer.
This is me and Sophie!
This is and and Anna!
posted by Bonnie at 1:26 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home