Lighting Day 4

Friday, we started to learn how to use whatever light available to take a good photo rather than lights we can control. It's the same concept, using exactly what you have. What you have is just different. I like the idea that it is possible to get a photo in ANY location. I thought about it, and this is going to be the most useful to me considering that I will not have a mobile light source or any other equipment when taking most of the photos I will take in my lifetime. I was a little overwhelmed by all of the variables that affect the best way for a portrait to be taken. The shape of the person's face, their eyes, basically every other feature they have, the background, the light, anything interesting that's around. Then there's all of the different things on the camera to adjust and in the layout to adjust to make it all work together. I definitely want a lot more practice with it.

Lighting Day 3

Today, none of our equipment was up to par. We didn't have a camera, so we used a video camera. Our lights were weak. Our reflector was just a big white board. We didn't have a "gobo," so we hung a board and a jacket from hangers. The only real piece of equipment we did have was a round reflector, and it was all old and flimsy. And it couldn't have been cooler when we got a decent photo out of it! It was a great way to get an idea of the difference between what we as people see and what the camera sees. We saw a big old blanket being held up behind a model with hangers balancing on poles all around her, but the camera sees just her face with a dark background. I like the control that we had, and how easy it was to attain with whatever resources we had at hand.

Lighting Day 2

The most important thing I'll probably have gotten out of the second day of the workshop is knowing what F stop and shutter speed do and how to use them. I never thought of a camera as a brain so much as I did on Friday. It's not exactly like a human brain, but it is like a brain! It does far more things than I realized it could. You have to know how to work with it and also how to trick it because, like human brains, they can be fooled! They are intended to be tricked. Having known nothing about cameras before, I was happy to learn some of the basics and try to put them into practice.

Lighting Day 1

I found the basic lighting stuff we learned today remarkably interesting. I've seen a million lights in my lifetime, but it turned out I didn't really know a thing about them. Just the technical stuff like how to make a light harsher or softer and that quantity of light doesn't make a difference really interested me. It was amazing how dramatically lights affect a picture. Later, I was sitting in my living room and looking up at the chandelier, and I started to wonder why a light fixture would be designed to be so stationary when placement and arrangement of how a light is set up could give a room so many different personalities or feelings. What also interested me was how each technique and each principle could be explained with what the sun does. Photography, and especially lighting in photography, is just like what I always say about poetry. It mimics nature; the best poem represents something just as it is, staying as close to nature as possible, and a good photograph does the same. I don't mean the best photographs are of birds in trees; I hope I'm explaining this well. Anyway, I'm genuinely excited for the next workshop!

ROB

Rob Goldman is a noted photographer who's been published internationally. He is also the author of the book
Shooting From the Heart: Creating Passion and Purpose in Your Life and Work. Many big magazines such as Cosmopolitan and Time have contained his work. Rob has organized personal development programs with a focus on the artist and the person as a whole. His workshops are typically conducted for the education, business, art, and yoga communities. In these programs, he explores the integration of the energies of the body, mind, and spirit. Rob also serves on the board of Photographic Imaging Program at Suffolk Community college and is co-founder of Oyster Bay Gallery Art That Matters.

Dancing...

I don't have any complaints about having to dance. It's not my favorite thing, of course, but it doesn't hurt to do something that throws me a little out of my comfort zone. It's also fun. I guess my only problem with it is that I can't contribute much to it other than doing it. It doesn't work my mind too hard, which is nice, but not so rewarding. I guess the real challenge will come when actually doing it in front of an audience and struggling through my own shame and insecurities.
As for Stac Live as a whole, I hope everyone realizes how amazing it will be if we get to do everything we want to. I'm incredibly determined to make it all happen. I think that even though it will be difficult, it will be small compared to how much credit we'll get from the school for pulling it off. Everyone has to do everything they can to make sure this works as well as it can.

Starting Over & Black Swan

Lately, everything is circling around the idea of starting over. Shosta-tree-tree and New Years and just having this break to get myself together. Normally, I'm a cynic and am very aware that resolutions are seldom carried through. Well I still am, but I don't see any reason that Stac can't start fresh and with a clean slate. If anyone can do it, Stac can do it because despite our opinions of each other, one thing we always have going for us is that we're on the same page about what's going on and what we want to happen.
But starting over doesn't interest me all that much. January is June is December and I could start my year on any day I want and the rest of the world won't listen anyway.
I saw Black Swan. Twice actually. It was pretty great. I was jealous of how well the dance scenes were filmed. I found it especially interesting when Nina would be off and on stage in the same shot. That was really cool and it went along with the idea of oneness and not being able to separate out the different parts of you, the good and the bad. It was also extremely Brecht. The push pull effect was clearly evident. The lowest tension moments would end with something bloody or horrifying and then it would cut to a scene in the studio. I was constantly moving from the edge of my seat to the back of it. I tried talking to my brother about the movie and he said it could have been better because you know exactly what's going to happen at the end, and I explained that it wasn't by accident. Especially seeing it twice, I was able to try and figure out why things were happening instead of what was going to happen next. I was very impressed. And it was just as good the second time.