This assignment was both fun and annoying at the same time. My kids really enjoyed looking around with me to find letters but K W and M were the hardest to find and I gave up with an upper case R because it was finally making me mad not finding them lol. Over all it was a lot of fun doing and can see myself doing this outside the home when I have more options to find letters. I was shocked at how quick I found Q but thats probably cause I do laundry everyday that it was hard to miss.

I really wish I would have made it to see the MOPA museum in person. The week before the school shut down I was in Balboa with another art class when I realized I left my ID and wallet at home, so I ended up skipping it that day and then it all shut down due to the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic. So instead I had to settle for the virtual tour of the exhibits. The Celebrating Five Women were interesting some a felt were better than other and other not sure why they were chosen but the great think about art is its different emotion for different people. The out of the shadows: Contemporary Chinese Photography was interesting to look out. The moon image by Shao Wehuan caught my eye and I love the layout she chooses for the image. I also enjoyed looking at the abstract art done by Lynn G. Fayman in the exhibit A colorful Life the images defiantly bring you in more to analyze the picture. The exhibit Illusion: The Magic of Motion was also a fun one to explore. The bullet through the apple and the ghostly shadows on the couple leaning into kiss was interesting. I remember my first class for photography learning about exposures and playing with my kids running around like ghosts. I have actually always wanted to do one in a cemetery and night, but my scared ass is to be scared for night photography without a group of people. I think I would have to say that the The Photography as Witness: Documents of Conflict was the most powerful images for me. I think that images can show more emotion than the thought of war and conflicts going on around the world, so it really speaks to me. I hope one day to travel and document life like this one day after my kids grow up and if I can be brave enough to be in such areas. I am an emotional person who isn’t afraid to cry and show emotions, so I am not sure how well I would do if actually put in an area of conflict I might do amazing or I might flight myself all the way home.  Only time will tell but these images really draw me in and think about the disadvantages other have and how truly lucky I am to be here in America without having to put myself or my children through such tragedies. 

This sketch was interesting because I was not sure which aspect of Cindy Shermans work I wanted to do a spin on. Her closed fist mad women look, the painted face looking different look or her take on morbidity look and as I stated before I am not a fan of getting in front of a camera but I did come up with a twist of an image I saw of her laying on the bed or someone laying on a bed almost dead like so I wanted to give it a try. It is a lot harder than it looks. After about 30 mins running back and forth from the camera and timing it trying to find angles on my dresser or my computer desk or chair and although it would be much cuter with a model they didn’t come out half bad. I was trying to go with the vintage thrift store look with my floral dress and neckless. I shot this with the back light from the lamp and some side light coming from the left front side by the bathroom. It was shoot on a canon 6D 24-70 lens at 24 mm with ISO 500 wide at 2.8 and 1/125 sec.

For this one I had to wait for the product to get ship from Jo Ann’s Fabric’s so once I got it I mixed my solution and decided I wants the paint brush look so let the solution set on the watercolor paper for 30 minutes in my dark studio. While it was drying I took a plastic sheet cover and wrote family and love on it. I placed the leaves and the clear sheet on the watercolor paper once it was dry and placed in all in a frame with glass. I then placed it out in the sun for about 20 minutes or until the color I wanted. I was trying to match the color of my accent colors in my home but I will probably be redoing these with some cut out lettering Im not sure yet. This assignment I really enjoyed and plan on doing again.

Remix- so the first time I forgot to put them in water so I redid a few and this was the best outcome. I took our cake topper and used leaves 🍁. So much fun and can’t wait to see what else I can make with my solutions. Thank you for a fun semester.

This documentary was interesting I watched it last week when I was falling asleep so it was a little hard to follow at times so today I rewatched it. When I went to write about the documentary the first time I wasn’t sure what I really wanted to talk about because I was falling in and out of it the first time.

It was interesting to listen to cartoon talk about his drawings and need or want to do it because I get the itch with photography when I have not picked up my camera in a while. It really hard not to document my kids lives through photography because I want to remember them throughout. their different stages off life. Cartoons and Estevan’s life story is very interesting to see the different stages of their artwork. From cartons different stages of his tagging art on walls in LA to his time in college to learn about letters and began working on his own style. Something I am familiar with because I am still trying to learn my own style at the moment. Location seems to real play a role in their path. If he wasn’t bouncing at a club he wouldn’t have met the people he did in the music industry. Which lead to them touring around with top names in the music industry at the time. It really gave them a chance to tour the world and do things they never thought they could do with photography and artwork. Once Cartoon and Stevo (Estevan) meet they couldn’t stop working on way to grow their talent and business and it took off when they were touring. I also loved seeing the artwork from Cartoon be brought up to stage scale sets. I have never been a fan of tattoos for myself but when done well they can be pretty amazing. I love to see artist push boundaries to find their true passion and this partnership with Stevo brought Cartoon to the new life of tattoos and parlors which lead to a new line of work he enjoyed even more. Right now I am in that stage of trying to figure my next step in my own life and business. I am so thrilled to be graduation in a few week so I can finally spend my time on my artwork and family. Although I a glad I went through school it has been a very long road the last three and half years in school with 3 kids all under almost 8 now. When I started I had a 5 year old, 4 year old, and and 2 year old. Although I will miss part of school I really cant wait to not have to cramp in homework at the last min because my mind is more in live and designing potential sets for Mother’s Day Minis or Summer watermelon baths. I hope that one day my work can become true income for our family but right now I am just trying to make it a few more weeks in school.

Where to begin. I am really not sure. I am still processing what I had to watch. It was interesting and interesting to know that art is subject to the eye of the view and that many views are interested in his artwork there is no denying it but almost seems unfathomable. I found his story very interesting and also related to the idea of fame and wealth. Robert Mapplethorpe seemed to be very must addicted to the idea of fame and getting into the right crowd and become rich. I think that at the time he was going through a lot of uncertainty of his own sexuality and identity that his willingness to exploit himself and his various lovers and subject seems like a cry to attention in my opinion. Although some see this as fine art, I for one see them more as explicated images of porn like the one of him being fisted just seems 1) unnatural like wtf that shit has to hurt and 2) why share it with the world if not for the attention alone? His other work seem to compare or be worthy of appraise at the time but his shot to fame was really over the controversial aspect of his X Y And Z images.

I also found it sad that his relationship with his father was almost non existence because his father couldn’t handle his sexuality. I found it even more sad when his father mentioned even if Robert told him before his work came out he would still not have approved of his son for whom he choose to loves or is that because the damage of these images have already tainted his own father view of his son? I also thought the relationship with his younger brother was disappointing and childish especially when his brother talked about how Robert freaked when he also got mail and Robert got made saying he wouldn’t let anyone ride his “coattail” to fame even his own brother or especially his own brother. He seems very controlling and quiet frankly weird in my onion through the film. His little brother holding on for dear life just wanting to be accepted by a brother that didn’t really seem to care about him. He seemed to idolize his brother in a sense and still does as you can see when he talks about Robert in the film. Yet, he still thought Robert would want him to keep his name alive after he died but never asked him before dying. I also found his going away party beautiful and sad at the same time. It is always beautiful celebrating ones life before passing and their accomplishments in life but Robert became ill at his peak in status and as he finally began making money. His life of sex, drug, and addiction of fame ultimately killed him in the end. Would he still have died at a young age if his path were different? Overall the movie was hard to watch. I get it to each their own but this is one I will rush off to see agin.

I originally posted all about me on the Sketches portion of the Self Portrait section of the assignment but I will go ahead and just tell you a little more about myself and why I took this particular class. Again I am a mother of three and I am married to my husband, a retire navy chief with 24 years of service. With the helpful push of my husband I finally attempted college 10 years after my first try right after high school. I really wanted to do photography after having kids and the local junior college in Temecula seemed to have a wonderful program so I signed up but the deal was I needed a second career option incase things didn’t work out as planned in the future. Well now I am just wrapping up my last semester of my Bachelors in Liberal Studies with emphasis in Teaching for Elementary Schools.

Although, I didn’t always take everything out of photography that I could have because I was feeling overwhelmed with three kids under four at home and being a full time student again, I truly did find the passion I always felt was missing in everything I did as a job in my past. I told myself I have till I graduate to build my website, some clientele, my equipment and studio up and while I am finishing up college so that when I graduate I can take my photography business to the next level. I also feel so weighed down sometimes with the lack of equipment or time and now with this who shut down it has me feeling even more unsure of my choice in career. This is a luxury not essential for survival. Will it pay the bills?

My goals are to one day match my husbands salary so he can retire finally and enjoy life a little more. I want to travel the world with him on the expense of others wanting to hire me to take their photos on vacation or an elopement. I hope to make enough to sustain life, give my husband a break and to let my creativity lead the way while always challenging myself and learning along the way. I have envisioned many sessions in my head but it is the lack of time, money , models and execution that seems almost impossible sometimes when there is always something to do. Either paying bills for 4 hours or cleaning up the 12th cup from the kids in half a days time. Or one of the many assignments I need to finish to appointments and to just life itself. I took this class and saved it to my last semester so that I was not bombarded with writing assignments and copious amounts of mind numbing assignments that seem to kill my creativity. So that is why I am in this class and a few of my goals for my future in photography .

This is classroom assignment I was excited to learn something new in Lightroom as I have been gradually learning new steps and tools while I edit. I really do wish I had more focus on y early classes in photography because I remember going over these process but I never really played with them as it was my first time back on a college campus in ten years. I was never good in school so my focus was more on my critical thinking and history classes. Needless to say I was glad to be learning something I never really tired. Fo the firs images we went over the way to use split toning to get the image to be more even tones. I used the tool from bottom to top and then bumped up the exposure and contrast a hit on the bottom part of the image. For the second image I used the cross processing method and add a little more yellow tones in the shadows and less but still yellow tones in the highlights as well. I look forward to playing around with them more often and have already used it on previous client sessions in areas when the light falls of more than I want to to using one light source.

As a mother of three beautiful children life alone can be hectic sometimes. I began this journey a little over seven years ago with my first born Kaytlin. I truly thought with her I was in the clear and that I made it through pregnancy without any stretch marks. I was thrilled about that. Stretch marks and losing my perfect boobs were my biggest fear of motherhood at the time. It wasn’t until about two week before her due date (she came 11 days early and on the day of maternity pictures which also never happened) that a few little light lines appeared. “It was no big deal” I said. Then three days later she came into the world my entire life changed forever. The journey of having a children grow inside you is unlike anything in this world. It really wasn’t until the postpartum deflating of my skin trying to bounce back to it’s previous mold (never did and never will) that brought more light pinkish lines on my stomach. At least thats what they were back then they have now faded to my normal skin color seen mostly in reflections when the light hits it in the right direction. It was about just shy of thirteen months late Kaytlin’s brother Brayden joined the pack bring a few more lines through the nine month journey and the months after and then about 27 months later our youngest came and completed our family. Each pregnancy just a few more lines gradually appeared throughout pregnancy and postpartum as my body transformed and nurture three children for almost 6-7 years through conception, pregnancy, birth, the months after as well as years of nursing each child. Although I am very self conscious about my body after children I decided for this project if I were to do any nude image of myself it would be of the marks that make me who I am today.

If your a parent you know that life is really challenging one moment and completely beautiful the next. They can wreck your body and your house (minutes after cleaning it) in seconds but they can also melt your heart with their affirmation of love and make you proud to call them your own all wrapped in a tight bow. If your not a parent yet the beauty out ways the mess in my opinion. But, the mess can be sometimes feel very low and while the highs out way them most of the time they can sometime also be difficult. When give the body with texture assignment I really didn’t want to use my children as object for this particular theme and I didn’t even bother asking my husband. So, instead I decided that I would try a lighting technique I used back in one of my assignments in another photography class at my junior college a few years back. I didn’t have a beautiful model this time or a second light to rim the other side so I had to come up with a concept I felt comfortable showing off parts of my body. Once I came up with a partial fade into shadow effect so I don’t have to show much lol, I choose to paint over these beauty marks that represent my children. I hate my body to be quiet honest because I was so thin before children but there is something beautiful about the image representing my journey creating these beautiful souls. These beautiful souls that now walk this earth and house screaming mommy or mama 1000 times a day now that we are stuck in the house 24/7 and I have now become a teacher of two elementary students.: ) Anyways for those who don’t want to be parents enjoy your freedom and travel lol jk or not whatever you prefer.

For this image I turned off my regular headlights in the studio and shot a night to have a blacked out studio minus my Einstein with a small umbrella to defuse some of the light. It was on the lowest setting the Einstein allows and was about four feet away from me and angled at 45 degree from the the subject (myself). My husband actually took the image to focus in the dark lighting and I didn’t want to set up my tripod and work about focus as out late dinner was almost ready. The backdrop in a thunder grey paper backdrop and it was shot on cannon 6D with a 24-70 @ f 4.0 1/125 sec ISO 100 shot at 70mm.