No more nerves, just excitement!

Now that the first assignment has come and gone and more of what this course is about has been able to sink in:

When I first signed up for this course I wasn't sure what to expect at all. The real reason I did it: Because I love photography and I love being able to use it to help people. I really like being able to see how each individual reacts to a photograph because everyone will react differently...but I've learned...everyone reacts. Good, bad, indifferent, there's a reaction. 

We got to actually meet our clients today and myself and my partner have been paired with a UCF Grad student and a brilliant man! He actually is different than the other clients in that the stroke that he suffered affected the right side of his brain. He has adequate speech, but doesn't get the social cues that you and I normally recognize, like when not to speak or when jokes are going too far. He is extremely intelligent though. He knows a fair amount about art and I was thoroughly surprised to hear him analyze the pictures we showed him. 

After that experience though I am so excited to see how we are going to be able to work with him and how he will advance through this semester. I'm actually really curious about how the other clients are going to react to pictures and being able to express themselves by a simple click of a button. 

Photography can be so simple, but so deep. That's why I love it.

Art as Language, Project #1

For the first project that was assigned, we were to look at the composition of each photograph we take. What is the purpose of the picture and how do the angles or times in which we take each picture effect what it ultimately looks like. These were 3 of my final prints.

This first picture was the one we chose to bring to our UCF aphasia clients today. This one is actually probably my favorite. The pattern immediately is attractive to my eye; I had more like this one to choose from but the reason I chose this one to print is because the split second time that I snapped the shot, the moment of this person walking was captured. Just that moment was able to fill in a lot of questions that would have been left about what this pattern is, but because of the curb and feet, it's easier to see that this is a cross walk captured in a different way than we normally see.

This second photo that I chose to print I think captures the essence of what we were aiming to do in this project. The whole person isn't shown, but the worn shoes clearly are. They belong to someone obviously, but it is kept anonymous. [I'll spill, they're mine :-)] But the worn look against the textured brick I think tells a story and makes us wonder where this person was going or where they were coming from.

This last one...it's just adorable. :-) From a photographic sense though and the project in mind, it's easy to see the framing of the picture. The baby is framed by the green areas and the blurry hand at the bottom.

The Nature of Photographs

There's so much more to a photograph than we tend to think. In this day and age everyone is taking pictures, whether it's with a film camera, digital camera, or even our phones. It is an art and a single image can have so much meaning behind it.

This picture by Philip-Lorca Dicorcia can seem so simple at first glance, but dive in and take a second look and the picture becomes deeper. My first look lead me to see a man leaning on a window sill of a lit room. He is in a neighborhood, maybe during a colder season (bare trees), and the sun is almost set. After looking for a few minutes though I started to get a feeling of an anxiety that's being overtaken by just a brief stillness. I imagine this man to be in the middle of a long night of work, looking for just a minute to quiet his mind. The window gives this man's story: a working man, still in the middle of some project, drinking coffee; but the still air, the sky, the tree, even the houses give a peacefulness. What drew me to this picture, especially being a full-time student, is the simple serenity in an open window in the midst of a busy schedule. It's a comforting picture to see the power of simple surroundings