Catalyst – Photography Assignment

The following are my 5 photos for submission for Media Objects photography assignment, and the 500-word reflection. I will also be sending the 5 photos to you (my tutors) in a separate email, in case WordPress compresses the photos.

Water

Earth

Sun

Love

Heat

I approached the given theme ‘catalyst’ by reflecting my interpretation of it. For me, catalyst is first and foremost changes in chemistry. This led to me to think about growth and decay – the life cycle of a plant. However, as the project called for still images, and I had a limit of five, I could not do time-lapse – not did I have the time to do so.

I thought about the aspects that affect plants – namely the four elements. I altered ‘air’ to ‘sun’, because sunlight is key in a plant’s growth. For the 5^th photo, I borrowed Captain Planet logic, and went with ‘heart’, or rather ‘love’. That is, the loving enjoyment of the fruits of labor – eating. Digestion is also a chemical catalyst.

Water and Earth are simple too approach but hard to execute. At different ends of the spectrum, water and earth respectively are ever moving, and completely stationary.

To capture the fluidity of water, I had to use high shutter speeds to capture the droplets to prevent blur. My main focus as a new photographer was composition and lighting, and I am very proud of this photo as the best of my series, because of the lighting of the water droplets.

I chose to capture a sprout in the soil in order to create a dynamic narrative to a still subject. This was done with a shallow depth of field in order to focus on the sprout. The same idea was behind ‘love’, by focusing on the details of the food items. Weber influenced the composition of these two photos when he said that “the most important part of any picture is a clearly recognized center of (picture) interest” (38), which is why I placed both focal items about one-third away from the edge of frame (86).

Sunlight is difficult for me to capture on camera, due to the fickle nature of light. I opted to show light through shadows instead. I am not happy with the clutter that I left in the photo, and should have removed some items to create a less noisy photo, but composition wise, I chose Weber’s suggestion to use lines as strong compositional guides (68), and used the shadows heavily to lead the eye to the focal point.

Perhaps the worst photo of the lot is ‘fire’, or ‘heat’. The lighting conditions were poor, I did not choose good camera settings for the photo, and the planning wasn’t done, meaning the photo looks amateur. I am quite pleased with how the steam wraps around the handle of the spatula.

Overall, I am happy with 3/5 photos, which I deem to be satisfactory as this was my first time taking photos while putting creative and technical considerations into practise. On my friends’ behest, I shot entirely in a 50mm prime lens in order to force myself to think of composition and positioning more, and I very much appreciate the difference in mindset this makes. On my next project including photography, I will be focusing more on lighting as well as staging a good photo.

References

Weber, Ernst A. Vision, composition and photography. Berlin; New York: de Gruyter, 1980. Pg 36-39; 44-45; 58-59; 68-69; 86-87)

I can’t wait to fall in love with you

[Summer Love – Justin Timberlake]

So I am aware that I haven’t written much for a while. Mostly, life has been pretty routine – I meet up with Mela, I go to work, I have some shifts that are terrible, some that are fun. Mela and I have had a few small arguments but nothing close to a fight. I’ve gotten her Christmas presents and she’s gotten me some as well.

As you can imagine, last night was NYE 2011. Putting aside the “oh my God it was only, like, yesterday that I went to the city for NYE 2010”, I was pretty excited because we’d gotten a hotel room together in the city. Awkwardly, the room was right next to my work, the very place where I can’t be seen because I was “home sick”, so I spent a lot of time cowering behind Mela when we passed my work in case the managers were about.

We met up at Glen, as usual, and took the train up. There was still time before check-in, so we had lunch at this Vietnamese place, except I felt like fried rice, so of course I ordered a Pad Thai Fried Rice at a Vietnamese Pho restaurant. After eating our fill, we took the tram down to our hotel room, checked in, got all excited at the prospect of a night together in a decent for how much we paid hotel room. But not 10 minutes into our honeymoon beyond the threshold mania did Brendan call for me to pick him up from downstairs. There was a bit of a whinge on Mela’s behalf who, understandably, seeing as we hadn’t seen each other properly in a few days, wanted some time alone first. But I got Brendan, and we hung out in the hotel room for a bit watching TV until we went to Coles at Melb Central to get some snacks because I remembered being hungry the year prior. Took almost an hour to decide what alcohol to buy and ending up buying a tiny bottle of butterscotch schnapps which I will say now, sucked. We passed by Dani and Ben eating crepes outside of Harajuku crepes, thus seeing a 2nd year of accidentally coming across Dani in the city on NYE. We went back to the room and watched Man Vs Wild until Brendan had to go see his friends. So then Mela finally had her time alone with me.

At around 7:50, 8, we headed off to go have dinner with Jen in Richmond, seeing as it was also her birthday that we were counting down to. We went to Pacific House on Victoria Street, and since we arrived late, they ordered already. It was fine, because the food was amazing. Once again, we ate our fill and with bulging stomachs hugged Jen goodbye to catch up with my uni group in the city.

Caught up with Jacky who was standing waving his arms in the middle of Swanston Street looking for us, and we went to Gin Palace (a small bar just off Lt Collins) for a bit. Jacky brought along an entourage of our lunch group, including Clare whom I haven’t seen in what felt like forever. We didn’t stay in the bar for long, seeing as it was already 30 minutes to midnight. We went back to Fed Square, and on the way, Mela, Little Sam and I lost the rest of the group. After a good quarter of an hour desperately pushing through crowds and trying to get calls to go through, I finally got through to Clare, who told us where they were. Running like mad people and hurting, I am sure, numerous merry-makers, we managed to run from Fed Square, through the crowd and down to Southbank opposite the Langham in around 5 minutes, arriving to where the group was a mere 2 minutes before midnight.

Missed the countdown, as we always do on Southbank because we don’t have speakers there, but we knew that we’d ushered in the new (and final?) year when the fireworks flew into the night sky. We watched in awe as this year’s (which was much better than last year’s) fireworks lit up the Melbourne skyline, and then we watched in amusement and some degree of horror as the top of the Art Building spire caught on fire, sending massive flaming debris down.

Mela and I trudged back to our hotel room, somehow managing to get there before 1am. We had our showers, then snuggled up in bed with the schnapps which were quickly abandoned. We ate some bread and ham that we bought, even though she was still full. We hugged a lot and told each other many sweet things before feeling fatigue pull its veil over our eyes by 2, and going to sleep.

Sleep was a bit difficult, for me at least, because it was quite warm, but it was nice to be able to cuddle the one you love at any given time during the night. We woke up and had some more cuddles and sleepy talking before her phone went off to let us know that we had to get ready for check-out. Quick packing up, a few moments of Ben 10 on TV, and we said goodbye to our first hotel room together.

The day was already heating up monstrously, and we ate congee at the same restaurant as I had last year with Annie, Anna, Josh and Julia. Then we took the Cranbourne back to Oakleigh, and said a long and sad goodbye as we took our respective buses. But the goodbye wasn’t for long, because I can feel that 2012 is going to be the year where I don’t (and really shouldn’t) feel like I am alone at any time.

Alex.

You Never Ever Leave My Mind

[Hello – Hawk Nelson]

Today, the weather pointed at knife at me and told me to give up all my money now or else.

I went to MSAC today to talk to hopeful Yr 12s at MacRob about choosing Uni courses. That conference/talk in itself was anticlimactic and slightly humiliating (Annie and I, being Media and Communications students, got put in a group of Creative Arts, and it took us 2 talks to realize we didn’t belong). But the stuff that happened before and after it is blog-worthy.

Met up with my MacRob group at Melb Central and had lunch with them, and one of the exchange students from Yr 11 (I think it was just before I started blogging here so I don’t think I mentioned them at all) from Japan came down to visit so her and her host-sister came to have lunch with us. Dani and D.P. showed up to say hi, and they turned out be wearing matching skirts/dresses. Dani was trying to do something to her heels to make it stick, so she got band-aids, and felt it necessary to stick one of them onto my arm hairs.

We ate KFC (which I am currently regretting, my stomach hurts), and Bel and I put some of Tiffany’s sushi wasabi into my gravy. Makes instant Asian cuisine.

We went to MSAC and had the talk. There isn’t much to say except I GOT THE SCHOOL SPOON! My life goal is now actually (slightly/partially) complete. Also, at this point in the day, hugging people started to sound like velcro, because everyone was covered in a nice glazing of sweat.

After the MSAC talk, we made our way back into the CBD for me to finally get Annie her present, then for Bel to run some errands. We took whatever aircon’d place we could find, and groaned in disgust every time we had to leave.

Finally, it was time for my McDonald’s interview. I realized that my Asian blood ran strong in me when I showed up to the place 50 minutes early. Thankfully, the manager/hirer was actually free after her current interviewee, so I got snuck in early. Basic questions done, Kate (the hirer) looks at me and says, “well, I won’t make you wait the week I’ll tell you now, the job’s yours. I just have to find someone to train you.”

SO, YES, I FINALLY found a job! My standards for my money earning sources have dropped so much that I am actually completely over the moon about this. It won’t be easy, because the location is not near my house, but hey, I should start shouldering responsibility! Now to wait for my training to start. In the meantime, I have my vollie job at GVF next Friday.

Hopefully the weather won’t be like it was today. It started pouring sheets of water earlier, and my house, as strong as it usually is, started leaking.

Take care, everyone, and hope the weather eases up soon!

Alex.

Psychic Moment For The Day #3

Oh I nearly forgot. Today as we were about to take the train to the exams Connex said that all trains are delayed by half an hour, with no shuttle bus.

Panicking a little, Eliza and Fel said they’d give me a ride. I ended up going with Fel. I was desperately calling Carmaine trying to make sure she knows that trains aren’t running. But she wasn’t picking up.

Just as I was about to give up I turned around and saw Carmaine walking behind me. I called out and all was good.

Not exactly psychic but just lucky. Anyway.

Alex

It’s Beautiful, Man!

I went out today with Bee to watch YesMan and then had lunch with Carmaine and Eunice.

Haha, if only all my blogs were that short.

Regardless of how fucking hot it was yesterday (because I didn’t go out at all – score) I still maintain that today was close to being unbearable. Anything above 26 is pretty bad for me. I said to Bee, “I hope this winter is a cold one because we get to wear our own clothes so we don’t have to be stuffed in school uniform.” and she argued that our uniform isn’t that bad. But still. Those blazers stink when wet.

I took my walk to the bus stop and as I was sitting there waiting, April called. So I chatted a bit, and got on the bus, and Bee got on at her stop down the road, and at the end of the bus ride I nearly toppled over the seat in front of me because it – the bus – braked suddenly and I was in one of the back seats.

Bee laughed. Jerk (not really. I deserved it).

We went to the Glen and I got my recharge (yeah, there’s a gripe behind that that more or less goes along the lines of “stupid Optus”) and then went back to the cinemas and bought out tickets. Who do we see being the solitary ticket girl? Pam. Yep, I had actually thought this morning that it would be rather funny if we got Pam for our ticket chick and sure enough, Pam was our ticket chick. So of course I asked to be put down to children tickets. Gotta love Pam. Chatted a bit (but not too much) and then I got my Chop Top and we went up to see YesMan.

We got there rather early, and were the first ones in the cinema so we just talked loudly to each other until one of the guys who I suppose makes sure the cinema is in good shape came in, and according to Bee he was “really cute” and he chatted with us for a bit with his “nice voice” and then after that a few more people came in so we couldn’t talk loudly anymore.

Anyway, so my two cents on YesMan.

It wasn’t the best movie that Jim Carrey has done, then again Jack Black and Ben Stiller and Adam Sandler have all gone a bit kooky (granted I’ve yet to see Tropic Thunder so don’t hold me on my words there). But I had some pretty good laughs and came out of it feeling like I could…say yes to ANYTHING! (Except, as Bee found out soon enough, wear a dress. Ha.) But there was a rather sweet scene in a barn in the rain when the lead girl Alisha suddenly hugs Carl (Carrey) and I’m sorry, I nearly said “aww” there. Or maybe I did. The old lady “repaying Carl for his kindness”, that part, that was rather disturbing. Because he actually liked it.

After the movie, we were a little late to the pre-arranged meet time for lunch at The Arena in the Glen near David Jones (nearly 9 years living in this area and I’ve never been there) and so Carmaine and Eunice were there already when we got there. I said to Bee later on, “You either miss someone like crazy from the get-go, or you don’t realize how much you’ve missed them until you see them again.” And somehow both were the case today. Because I’d been on the phone with Bee a lot I hadn’t been out of contact per se with her as much, but I hadn’t talked to Carmaine and Eunice much at all and it was incredibly good to be BRuCE again, just being retards (or just me. Look I was influenced by Carrey, alright? Got a big loud and gesture-y) and laughing and catching up.

I ordered a really big burger, unfortunately it wasn’t good enough to warrant a “this burger is so good…”  but the fries were really good, and everyone kept on nipping one or two there.

We went to Country Road, then David Jones (you may remember The Arena was NEXT TO David Jones and Country Road IS NOT) and then went out to Real Gelati near the library. I saw Carmen working there! (I mentioned Carmen a couple months back from Chinese school) And so we chatted for a bit, and then we…went back to David Jones for Carmaine to be picked up by her mom – who was really nice and wished me a Happy Chinese New Year. Eunice and I had a couple of “Your Face” moments before that, and a lot of high-fives (or burger-five, or parody-five) were passed around. I even made Bee high-five me a couple of times.

Eunice went down the escalator (sorry, chronological disorder. This was all before saying bye to Carmaine at David Jones) and so Carmaine and I shouted down from the first floor “BYE EUNICE!” And yeah it was fun to embarrass her like that. You should try it. You, in general.

Bee and I took the bus home to her place, and we watched Scrubs. Oh, Eunice, we watched the episode with the line “I love this moment so much I want to have sex with it.”

Mom picked me up – and with the fact that she has a phone now, I called her on her MOBILE to confirm I was at Bee’s place – and came home and my face is hurting a bit so I’m guessing I got a bit burnt. Yes. I burn easily. Laugh it up, mortals, laugh it up. Because…THIS…IS WHAT A MONSTER LOOKS LIKE…[throws glitter in face].

I don’t think I’ve ever employed my [] in blogging before. Have I?

In one scene in YesMan, Carl stopped a guy from jumping because he played a song on the guitar, an instrument he learned in a whim. I think if I can stop one person from jumping by playing them a song, it’s worth it.

I have no idea how I hit 1000 words already but I should stop.

Keep Cool (apparently),

D.F.

So I says to him I says…

I am sitting in my Eng Lang class, and And- did’t show up, so we’re just sitting here with a sub who won’t let us leave. Yet.

Carmaine and Eunice are in the next classroom, in English. It’s such a lazy and bright day.

I hate that summer is creeping up. I hate the warm weather. Mostly I hate sweating. And I do a LOT of that.

Yesterday on the train we started discussing New Year’s. Carmaine will be on a cruise from 18th of Dec to just before New Year’s, so she’ll be away for Christmas (unfortunately) but she’ll be back for 2009. I really don’t want to have to spend another NYE with my parents pushing me to go to bed, and then finally sitting there in the most unenthusiastic countdown you can imagine, and then going to bed after a few minutes of the fireworks.

I want to be in the city, or at a party, or somewhere where everyone else is excited! And then we count down from 10, and it feels like we’ve achieved something when New Year’s comes.

While it goes without saying that my parents most likely wouldn’t let me sleep over at anyone’s place NYE (original rule PLUS the whole “spend time with your family” crap they spine every year) I stll think it would be pretty dandy to count down to the new year with BRuCE. While Bee and I were pretty interested in booking a hotel room for that one night, and then going to the city for the big countdown, Carmaine was a bit more iffy, saying that the city is full of drunks and idiots on that night. Fair enough, but it’s the spirit. But anyway, it would be really expensive so for now we’re just dreamin’.

Speaking of the family crap I was talking about…

Sometimes I wish I can just shut myself up, or go back a few seconds and literally CLAMP MY MOUTH SHUT because sometimes I say the most insensitive things. I was just saying how I can’t stand another NY with my parents, Bee said quietly, “well I don’t think I will do anything with you guys on NYE because I want to spend it with my dad.” And that moment I wish I can just cut my own tongue out because I was just idiotic. Or when I complain about my mom to April, I think aboutit afterwards and honestly I am an ASSHOLE.

Happier topic…

Today I had a double free and I forgot to bring my DS so while in the first period I did Japanese homework (read: copied it off April) I didn’t have ANYTHING to do 2nd period. It was quite sad. Without my DS, who am I?

April was quite gleeful at my downfall.

Carmaine gave me a really really really tight hug today; I think I have bruising on my ribs. But but, of course as always it was well worth it.

Carmaine and I asked Bee what the Cold War was. For ages Bee thought we were joking, but, honestly, neither of us knew what the Cold War is. Apparently, it was Russia v USA in nuclear or something war, and it was “cold” because neither party were near each other.

I might write a bit more later when I get home. School blocks funnyjunk.com so I will post up some funny pictures when I can get to them. Besides, there’s a whole train ride during which something can happen that’ll make me wanna write about.

As a final note: Today I didn’t see Dani at all. Thursdays she has a double free at the end of the day so usually she goes home, and in the morning I didn’t see her. It doesn’t mean she’s not here but the possibilty of that is quite likely as well.

On the formal night (for everyone else. Haha rumor has it that we are the formal-boycott group) Sonam, April, Ti-, Vania and apparently 2 others are NOT going, and we’re seeing Persepolis or Tropical Thunder, and then eating at Achelya’s. I might find their restaurant site, but the point is April works at Achelya’s (unfortunately, that very night, so only other of us are eating) and we want to meet Kitchen Boy (read her blog).

De Fluffe, Out.

P.S. I love You, from “Ley” apparently. I wrote “Lex” in a note for Carmaine but didn’t cross the “x” properly and it read Ley.