"Photoblitz" Assignment: Everything in my House Seems to be Green
I am taking this moment to step away from my I-Search project to investigate a new type of creating.
Below you will find five photos taken during my exploration of the "photoblitz" assignment. For this assignment, we had twenty minutes to take a set of nine photos with themes such as "a photo that makes use of converging lines" and "a photo of two things that do not belong together." Following these photos you will see a short reflection regarding my experience during the short project.
Start time!
Photo Choice #1: "A photo that is abstract."
I really love this picture. Guess what it is, anyone?
Photo Choice #2: "A photo of something at an unusual angle."
For this photo, I decided to get an idea of what my dogs and cats see when they roam around the house on a daily basis. It smells funny down there.
Just kidding.
Photo Choice #3: "A photo dominated by a single color."
Some fake sunflowers in my sister's room gave some unexpected brightness to this project.
Photo Choice #4: "A photo that expresses a human emotion."
This is a photo of our gas fireplace, and it made me think of two human emotions--anger and passion. The two are often connected.
Photo Choice #5: "A photo that represents the idea of 'openness.'"
This is my yard. If you look very closely, you can see a few of my horses down there. I am very lucky to have been raised here, and looking out the back of my house definitely gives me a feeling of openness.
End time!
Experiencing the Photoblitz Assignment
I chose to complete the Photoblitz assignment in my home, as it is filled with interesting spaces and knick knacks to explore and photograph. Looking back on the project, I am pleased that I chose to complete it at home, but I do think it also would have been very interesting to explore a public place that I may have been unfamiliar with. I certainly learned a few things during my experience.
First of all, I learned that everything in my house is green. This was not something I had noticed before, but there is definitely a motif of a soft olive-like green color that my mom apparently loves.
Second, I learned that I was not entirely clear as to the definition of converging lines. I had to look it up after I had started taking photos.
It was also interesting to find that the project went much more quickly than I expected. I really expected to be scrambling to find the "right" photos in the twenty minutes I had, but I found that I moved through the project with much more ease than expected. I really enjoyed taking abstract photos, and I was very happy with my final choice, as I mentioned above. On that note, I often took several pictures for each assigned theme and I chose my favorites when I was finished. I had the most trouble finding "an unusual shadow" to photograph, because it was rather cloudy when I completed the assignment--there were no shadows to be found! The weather was not something I expected would affect my work, but there you have it.
Overall I enjoyed this assignment. There were moments of frustration, and there were moments when I felt less "artistic" than I would like to be. I had to remind myself that that isn't what this assignment was about. It was more about thinking on your toes and being inventive. I tried my best to aspire to those things, and I hope everyone finds some value my post.
"Looking back on the project, I am pleased that I chose to complete it at home, but I do think it also would have been very interesting to explore a public place that I may have been unfamiliar with" You know, I never really thought about that. I noticed most of us chose to do our projects in an environment that we are very familiar with, usually home.
ReplyDelete"Second, I learned that I was not entirely clear as to the definition of converging lines. I had to look it up after I had started taking photos" Sadly, I was in the same position as you. But that's alright, because we can tell our students that we have to look things up to, we cannot just guess and hope all turns out well. Sometimes a little research is needed.
" I learned that everything in my house is green" I love this line because doing assignments like these, we begin noticing things we NEVER would have noticed before hand. Could you consider that "close reading"?
I think my favorite photo is the sunflowers, as you said, it is very bright. It's a very lovely photo, one that many photographers would be jealous of.
I also like the odd angle photo because, it doesn't FEEL off. It looks normal, but different. Maybe, as you said, you feel like a cat or dog sitting on the floor. It has a home-feel to it, just at a different perspective.
This is great, Allie! I love the shot of your yard and horses...sense of place! Cool! Also, I like that you enjoyed "getting lost" in the assignment. Think of the ways you might riff on this in your own teaching and why!
ReplyDeleteAllie,
ReplyDeleteI had a feeling you would love the abstract photo option! Is yours a vase??!? I get a very artsy sensibility from you but I bet you don’t think you have it. Your profile shot for instance, although you probably didn’t take it is not only stunning but deep. But I digress…
There was an ease to it. No rushing at all. Crazy! Weather affecting work, oh yes. Now we know how professional photographers feel, especially wedding ones!
My favourite shot is of your fireplace. Not because I’m a pyro but because of its shape and colour. In fact, I think you have captured converging lines there. Passion and anger are on the same fine line as genius and insanity. I whole heartedly agree. This is why I am wary of soulmates but again I digress…
I’m tell you, your work is artsy-no need to try. Your shot of under the dining room table was so creative because it’s your pets perspective. The place where they hope to gain scraps of goodness. Can that be used as a metaphor for writers too? Hmmm…
Also, I am super jealous that you have your own horses.
Allie, let me just shout out and say your human emotion picture is amazing. I never thought of something like fire being an expression of human emotion. For mine, which I didn't use, I took a picture of one of my stuffed raccoons that it smiling, and I thought that was clever, but yours is awesome. The sunflower picture is also awesome, when I thought of dominating colors I thought of just a picture of mostly one color, not something where the color is so radiant it is all you see. And i have to say that most things in your house being green isn't a bad thing, as that is my favorite color!
ReplyDelete