Envelopes to Push

The last week of school has been somewhat of an ease in challenge.  After I had spoken with a few of my professors about my creative stagnation and the wall I had built for myself (presumably), I decided to let go a little.  I let go of some of the baggage I've been carrying around the military had allowed me to pick up as I marched through the years in its service.

Admittedly, there's a lot more to let go, but it's a start, and I'll continue the process.  Hopefully it's exponential and starts to roll off faster as I move into a less stressful environment for myself.

The past week also was a shoot for Photo Design class dealing with the human Line, Shape and Form.  It was to be a 'nude' of some sort, where the human body was used as the subject for the assignment.  I was also to be done in black and white in order to allow for the subject, and not the color enhancements around or near it, to be the main focus of the piece created.

With that, I set out to capture an image that would be subtle, yet appealing; pleasing to the eye, yet not offensive or jarring in any way.  I hope I accomplished that with this image...

©Carlos Paradinha Photography, Seattle WA 2011

Juxtaposing

This past week was interesting, to say the least.  I'm quickly finding out that I have a  limited amount of creative juice to squeeze out of my nearly dried out rind.

No, no - it's true.  I can see other's work and go "Oooh! That's amazing!  I wish I had thought of that..!" And when I'm told I should try and mimic the images I like, I feel as though I'm just making a cheap knock-off of whatever it was that I saw.

Poop.

Yes, poop.  I feel as though I'm not part of the proper "clique" at school, so all the more creative 'cool kids' hang together and feed off of each other's energies, while I feel as though I'm fizzling out like some sort of wet sparkler.

I'm sure things will change and I will be able to draw from deep inner wellspring of creativity, but until that happens, I'm not altogether pleased with the way my thought processes are flowing.

Juxtaposition - Contrast - "Burnt Out"

Juxtaposition - Compare - "Don't Look Back"

The Challenge of Hierarchy

Another challenging week ends - with another looming on the horizon.  It's the way of college-based photography, I'm sure.  Where your professor-client demands a certain amount of creativity and honed skill within a week's time under tight conditions and other assignments equally as important to the other professor-clients.

With my Photo Design class, the idea was that we'd help each other out and assist each other with our shoots in order to maximize the time and halve the workload.

It didn't quite happen that way.

There were new "lessons learned" this week.  Each as valuable as the last ones learned the weeks before.  This week's lessons were in communication.  No matter how brilliant the plan, without communication with those who will assist in bringing that plan to fruition it's destined to have setbacks and issues.

I assisted Derek with his shoot on Saturday, along with Kieran and my son Milan.  Cassandra also was part of the shoot and I'm looking forward to seeing how it all turned out.  Now, it could have gone a lot better if communication was employed effectively.  There was, in my view, quite a lot of assumptions made.  I think that checklists and timelines would have been very useful in ensuring the shoot went better than it did.

Anyway, with that said, I, too, had issues with communications and the lack thereof.  All of the plans I had for the 'Hierarchy' assignment fell through one by one.  Every avenue I tried for the first few days of attempting to get people to help me with my imagery went south.  It's bound to happen, and that's life, but it's also frustrating and creatively stifling.

Finally, tonight, I was able to get a friend to pose for me for an hour's worth of shooting that, I believe, came out rather well.  It was a fun shoot, and I'm hoping to be able to work with Marti again in the future.

Inanimate object hierarchy - in this image "Judgement" is the most
important card and is made to be shown as such by the dramatic lighting.

People hierarchy - The Graeae are witches that share one eye between them
and were sought by Perseus in Greek myth to assist him in finding information
in order to defeat Medusa.  Here the witch with the eye is most important in the
hierarchy as depicted by her centered position, the eye held aloft,
and placed taller than the other two witches in the scene.