Unblurred

    This week I'm going to be extremely busy. I'm working on a lot of images and getting photographs ready to show to some galleries in Pittsburgh this Friday night. There is an event called "Unblurred" that takes place the first Friday of every month on Penn Avenue that I actually had no idea even existed.. until my awesome manager Eric told me. He also gave me an idea and told me to make little booklets with my contact information to hand out to people during the event. So I've been trying to get together all my stuff and I also have a lot of printing to do! I am SUPER excited for this Friday, because if you've seen me or been around me lately, you probably know how much I'm starting to dislike The Art Institute and how much it's been bummin' me out.
    I can't say that I haven't learned anything..because I definitely have. But what I can say is that the money I'm spending is not worth the quality of the education I am getting. A lot of the stuff I have learned recently, I taught myself. The only real benefit I'm finding from the school now is the fact that I can sign out a studio space and print my photographs there. Not worth the $93,000. Really.
$93,000.
$93,000.
Ninety-three thousand dollars.
Ninety.
Three.
Thousand.
Dollars.

Thank goodness I live with my parents... or I think my gerbil would be the only thing powering my computer. Kung Pao Chicken can run on his wheel all day.



Well... Here's a photo. It's Heather lit with 2 strobes with gridspots and red gels from behind (left and right)

I will update after I actually get to experience Unblurred.. WOOHOOO.

Comics and Antiques

I haven't updated this. OOPS.

Here is what I've been working on recently. I've decided to try and stick with this idea of using the environment to say something about the subject... for the first 3 photos at least.


This is Jeff.. One of the first few things I really knew about him was that 1) He is goofy like me and 2) He loves comic books. In fact, he loves them so much that he actually decided to write one called Teddy and the Yeti, and I think everybody needs to read it right now, because it rocks. Jeff has unleashed my inner dork, and when I walked into the comic book store I had several mini freak-outs over the various Spider-Man things I saw around the store..and now I'm buying Spider-Man comics.. well.. ANYWAYS.. Thank you Jeff for letting me do photos of you.. and thanks to Pittsburgh Comics in McMurray for letting me set up in the shop! ALSO be sure to check out Jeff's website!

http://www.teddyandtheyeti.com

Next, I decided to go down some of the antique shops in Canonsburg. These people are some of the most amazing people I've ever met, and they have so much awesome stuff to look at in the shops. If you are in the area, I really do think you should stop in to check out everything. There is so much to look at and who knows, you might leave with something (.... because I almost did.......)


This is Phil, owner of Where the Toys Are..

www.wherethetoysare.com

And this is Edward from Tri-State Antiques.. He decided to have an arm wrestling match with this figure I found in his shop!

http://tri-stateantiques.com/

That's all I have for now.. I'm trying to work on putting together a portfolio so I'll have more soon.

Winter Quaaarter

I am officially done with my first week of the winter quarter... and I've already gone insane....

And I actually I have cases for my lights and light stands coming in the mail. NO MORE CARDBOARD BOX!!!!!!!!

Good music

I just updated this a few minutes ago and was going to put this in the same post but figured it should have it's own..

Can't embed this one... BUT it's Tomorrow by Morrissey..Just click play & you can watch on YouTube...

New Quarter JAN 9th... meh.

Sadly, I haven't taken any new photos over break because AIP normally makes me hate my camera by the time break actually comes around. I have done nothing but sit around and play Xbox, go to work, sleep, listen to the new Coldplay album over and over and over, sleep, sleep, and get a nasty stomach virus that took me down (literally).

Apparently there is a bad virus going around. Thank goodness for my mom and the hospital, or I probably would have been laying on the floor for a very long time. I don't think I have ever been so sick in my entire life, and I'm not exaggerating. I still feel weak, but overall I feel a TON better than I did the other day.

Other than that, my break was ok. I'm just glad I got to rest. Break ends the 9th... and I am NOT looking forward to my Friday 8am Portraiture 2 class. I love that me and Heather had to apologize to each other several times after Portraiture class, because we were both normally so aggravated that we were mean. I think we both eventually just realized that we were going to be in a bad mood in that class, so we got used to each other.

I don't know what I would do without Heather, and I'm glad I get to see her on Tuesday.



Here's more stuff of J.J. that I've been working on..

no sleep

I'm on break now.. thank goodness..I feel like this school has done nothing but discourage me lately. I walked in last Tuesday only to discover that one of my school loans got denied. Luckily I was able to get a different one out, BUT it shoved my graduation date ahead, which absolutely crushed me, of course. 

I am utterly disturbed by the fact that someone who does not want this as bad as I do can graduate before me just because they or their parents are in a better financial position.

I also nearly failed one of my final projects because I turned in 6 out of 8 photos.

This quarter, I have learned that it is much better to turn in 8 terrible photographs that were shot the day before the project was due, than to turn in 6 that were worked on over a period of weeks.

I did manage to get a C for all my hard work though.

I have decided that my grades at The Art Institute mean nothing to me, due to the fact that someone who either does a terrible job, turns their work in late, or just plain does not care, somehow always manages to get praised and get an A.  

(Heather helping me test lights for JD's photograph)

Thank goodness that this girl exists, because I swear I would never be able to get through a day at AIP anymore without her. Heather, thank you for being such a wonderful person. It was truly a blessing that I met you. If I find that nothing else good comes from this school, I know that I have at least met someone who I know will always be around for me and care about me no matter how grumpy or sad or frustrated & mean I can be...and I swear, we could both be in the worst mood and still manage to come out laughing in the end. It's so nice to have someone like that here. She is also an epic photographer and helps drive my creativity & pushes me to do more. I have never in my life met someone more creative than her. Her mind is like magic.

anyways.. here are some photographs i guess.
I was really bothered by my last one because I wanted more paint. So I bought more and painted myself again. I don't think anybody has any idea how much fun this can be.... minus the fact that once the paint started to dry, it felt like my skin was burning off.

This really needs a lot of work. I plan on reshooting this soon. You most likely will not understand this unless you have played the video game Fallout.

And these are just some more photos of J.J. that I've been working on. He rocks.

I hope everyone has an awesome Christmas. I know I will because I need this time off and I have been playing BIOSHOCK nonstop.

Kathi - Portraiture Final

This is Kathi from Kutters Edge. She is the one who pierced my lip and my eyebrow :D It's such a blast talking to her and she has such an awesome personality. If you are thinking about getting a piercing, I highly recommend her. Check out her website...

http://www.kuttersedge.com/