This week has been fun and interesting. I have always enjoyed taking pictures of things (just ask my boyfriend). I stop to take pictures of anything I find interesting. But this week has allowed me to grow in my photography skills. I learned about the rule of thirds this week–something that I may have known but had not consciously learned about previously. I learned about depth, contrast, perspective (something that I like to mess with), and many other aspects of photography. I also learned how much you lose when you don’t have sound. They say a picture is worth a thousand words, well sometimes the words that are actually happening happen to be very important.
The first assignment I did this week was Splash the Color which was worth three stars. In this assignment you are supposed to pick a picture and take out all of the colors except one which will end up being the focal point of the picture. I chose the picture that I did because you can tell what the focal point is. There is obvious movement in the picture because a ball can’t simply hover above my hands forever. It is the definition of a moment suspended in time. (This fact didn’t actually bother me until I just started thinking about it)
Since I didn’t know how exactly one would take colors out of a picture, I Googled it. This website came up and it helped me tremendously. On my own I figured out how to change the picture from color to black and white but it wasn’t be desaturating as this tutorial told me to do. So I put the picture back into color, duplicated it, desaturated it and picked the desaturated version that looked the best to me (Luminosity in my case) and changed the picture. Then I right-clicked on the black and white layer and clicked “Add Alpha Channel.” After this I chose the eraser tool and erased the black and white from the softball turning it back to yellow. It was pretty cool and here is the finished product:
I also was bored later in the week and created this one:
After looking at it for so long it didn’t even look like it was in black and white anymore around us but now that I look at it again I realize that it actually does. I am really happy with how it turned out.
Should Google Change to Courier New?:
My second visual assignment (2 stars) was a little less time-consuming than the first. All I had to do was find a logo and change the font of the words in the logo to make it look terrible. I chose the Google logo because it was easily duplicated. I chose Courier New because everyone hates it, including me. So I copied and pasted the Google logo into Microsoft Word and selected Courier New and typed “Google.” I then changed the colors of the letters so they matched the logo. Then I screen shotted it and pasted it into word, saved it as a picture and opened it with Microsoft Photo Editor to crop it. After I cropped it I uploaded it to the internet for all to see. So here is my Google logo in Courier New:
She Thinks We’re Just Fishin’:
When I saw this assignment on the assignments page (3.5 stars) I knew what lyric I was going to do. It kind of just came to me. Then I had to decide which picture to use. It came to me that I had a picture of me fishing from when I was little. I figured this song was exactly what my parents were thinking when they took the picture of me. I did it by opening my picture in GIMP so I could edit it. I tried to get a little fancier with it but I was unsuccessful in this venture. I even Googled it to see if Google could help me but it couldn’t (!). So I just went with a font that I liked in a size that looked reasonable and a color that was readable on the picture. I chose Century Gothic (which, by the way, used to be my favorite font). Here is the result:
My next visual assignment (2 stars) was pretty fun, but more challenging than I expected due to working with live subjects and not thinking about perspective. I realized shortly after I started taking close-up pictures of my boyfriend’s dog that I actually need something to compare her to in order to make her seem bigger. So then I tried to take pictures of different rings with my computer in the background in order to make the ring seem bigger. I was very happy with how that one turned out. The one of the cat with the food bowl turned out better than I expected, I guess that is because I took it from basically an ant’s point of view, making everything in the picture seem bigger. Onyx seems big in the picture with the computer in the background because of the combination of the computer looking small, and the perspective at which I took it (in addition to the fact that he is actually 25 pounds). I am happy with the way all of these turned out, but mostly the ring picture. Here is the photo collage of all of the pictures that I liked the most of the 50 or so that I took:
Take Me Back to (8-bit) Paradise:
This assignment (3 stars) came in two parts from me. My first attempt was not as good as it should have been. The reason, I believe, that this happened was because I was following the directions for making an 8-bit avatar. So it said to size it down before I digitized it and that’s what I did. I realize now that it does not need to be sized down before I digitize it, I just need to make the pixel sizes bigger.
So to do this, I picked a simple picture that you would be able to make out even when it was digitized. I then Googled how to digitize a picture using GIMP and this site came up. I imported the picture into GIMP and downsized it to 128×171 pixels the first time (too small) and 1000×1333 pixels the second time (juuuust right). Then I went to Filters>Blur>Pixelize and the first time I made the pixels 5×5 and the second time I made them 20×20. Here are my pictures:
My assignment for the photoblitz was as follows: something that represents the number 3 (or the number itself), a photograph of an ordinary item from as close as you can manage, photograph featuring a circle, emphasizes one color more than others, “dusky path of a dream,” reflected subject in a body of water, and an outdoor scene free of human artifacts.
I love taking pictures so this was fun for me. Some of the pictures that I had to take were harder than others because I live smack in the middle of Fredericksburg. So the ones that were hard were the body of water and the photo free of human artifacts. The dusky path of a dream one was also hard because I didn’t know what that meant so I just went with what I thought it meant. Here are my pictures in the order that I stated above–under them I’ll say what I liked and didn’t like about them.
With this one, I liked the balance–I tried to use the rule of thirds. I also like the contrast between light and dark–however I think there could have been more contrast had the lighting been better. I liked the idea of using three objects rather than the number 3. Also, being a perfectionist, I don’t like that they aren’t on exactly the same horizon line and facing exactly the same direction.
In this, I like the contrast between the ball’s reflection of the light and the shadow on the bottom left of the picture. I like how it is focused in the back. The problem with it being so close up is that it wouldn’t focus on the front of the ball, so most of the picture is out of focus. The focus though, helps show the depth in the picture.
This picture might be one of my favorites that I took in this photoblitz. I like the difference between the foreground and the background. I love the fact that the only thing in focus in the picture is the “circle” (my bat). I also like the unintentional balance with the balloons on either side of the picture. The rule of thirds is pretty well followed by this picture, though rather unintentionally. I believe I put the bat on the bottom third but other than that it just happened.
Honestly, this is probably my least favorite picture of all of them, but I think it follows the rule of thirds. I also think I did a good job emphasizing orange while still showing foreground, background, and contrast.
This picture doesn’t show much in the way of foreground/background, but I tried to follow the rule of thirds. I tried to put something interesting in each segment of the picture so I didn’t make it off-balance.
I also don’t like this picture but I didn’t really have many options within 20 minutes of me in terms of a body of water. Oddly enough, this picture is semi-balanced. Other than that, all of the other areas of photography are pretty lacking. There is no foreground/background and no contrast. In a way it shows movement by showing the opposite of movement–it is sitting still and that shows in the picture, I think.
I like the foreground/background of this picture. I like how the foreground is focused and the background is out of focus. I also like that the perspective is like that of an ant.
The first daily create I did was what was playing on my radio. I knew that there would be a Redskins game on that day so I decided to record that to make my radio rather than just doing music. I pulled up Audacity and recorded parts of the game. I then spliced them together until I liked how they sounded. Because I recorded them off of the TV the quality was poor, so I had to amplify them. They still don’t sound super good because they were not imported files, but they were okay.
For my second daily create I did Y U NO DRAW JIM GROOM. It was easy because I knew what to draw as soon as I saw it. I knew he would be saying 4 life and I know that it is easier to draw spikey hair so I was golden. Here is how it turned out:
THE WIRE:
Season 2, Episode 6: “It don’t matter that some fool say he different” -D’Angelo
The director of the wire is really into the rule of thirds. There is almost always something interesting in every part of the screen. The only thing that is wrong with that is that sometimes it competes with your interest. When they are all sitting around the table talking toward the beginning, there is always someone’s shoulder in the foreground that they are looking over.
I loved when Omar called out the butthead lawyer saying that he preys on the drug dealers in the same way that Omar does–taking their money and hoping they get away with it again. The lawyer was not happy about that one. I also thought it was funny that they gave Omar a get out of jail free card, like in Monopoly.
I didn’t like how Nicky got the Greeks to go after the drug dealers that took Ziggy’s car–he is going to owe them even more. Ziggy makes me angry–he doesn’t know how to save his money. Who in their right mind burns a $100 bill simply because they have it??? I also don’t like that he wanted to take the drugs from the Greeks rather than the money, he is an idiot. I did like that Nicky put Ziggy in his place by calling him a kid.
I thought it was super funny when McNulty was in the background of his wife trying to make a business deal. I was also surprised that she agreed to go out with Jimmy again. I thought it was funny when he told her that he cleaned up his act and quit drinking as much anymore. I was surprised that she wanted to sleep with him again. But she doesn’t want to get the boys’ hopes up that they are getting back together.
I thought it was interesting when D was putting whatever he was putting in the toilet (drugs–cleaning his life up) how the camera went from wide to narrow. D’Angelo was basically Gatsby when he was talking about that because he said “because he wasn’t ready to get real with the story, shit caught up to him.” D wants everyone to leave him alone and let him do his own thing. I hate that they killed D. I would have been happy seeing him happy in jail.
Season 2, Episode 7: “Don’t worry, kid. You’re still on the clock.” -Horseface
I didn’t like watching the episode without sound, I missed a WHOLE lot. I was not expecting as much deep conversation in the flower shop as there was.
I loved when Nicky said you happen to be white. I didn’t expect that when I was just watching the episode without sound. It annoys me that Ziggy isn’t thankful that Nicky is putting himself in harm’s way so that Ziggy doesn’t have to. He doesn’t act like he wants the money but then he goes and spends it right off the bat. It was funny the ongoing story about Ziggy getting a girl pregnant and then trying to beat the guy up and getting stuck on top of a container.
The guy’s leg that got smashed was gross. I don’t know if the money that Sobotka gave his wife was like worker’s comp money or if it was a little something extra–if I had to guess I’d say something extra. The black guy asked Sobotka where the money came from but he doesn’t want to answer the question.
The scene with the tennis ball was hilarious–I didn’t catch all that happened when I was watching and not listening but upon watching it again, it was even more funny. It was funny when you could see Herc listening to Carver run after it and it getting hit by the truck.
I thought Russell did a great job lying to Sobotka saying that she wasn’t working on the pier anymore and that she would be somewhere else. I didn’t like how Sobotka was trying to get another year as the head of the union or whatever just so that he could get done what he needed to get done. Sobotka is scared for Ziggy’s future and his family’s future because that is the only life his family has ever known. He is paying that guy to try to get the canal so they can get more boats at the docks.
Haha greater security and reliability with no need for human surveillance—basically the little powerpoint was saying that they could no longer steal stuff from the shipments that they were getting—they don’t like it because it would cut down on the people that work also and they are already having problems with that
I was surprised that Daniels took the 14 homocides, and so was his wife. She was not a happy camper about that. He said “I love the job” and she said “well the job doesn’t love you”…ouch. And she says that she married him because he had ambition but he doesn’t anymore.
Season 2, Episode 8: “How come they don’t fly away?” -Ziggy
McNulty was a dummy at the beginning of this episode. Why did he drunk dial his wife, lie to the bartender, and wreck his car twice? What a dummy. The dogs were barking at him while he was at the apartment of the girl from the cafe.
Sobotka knows he is flagged by his cell phone company but doesn’t know why–well he figures it out. That makes me mad. I hated that the other cops told Sobotka what Russell was doing. Horseface thinks he is just paranoid but Frank knows something is wrong. I hate that the police think they are onto something but really Sobotka is onto them and they don’t know it yet.
Ziggy and his duck are so weird–he acts like it’s a guide dog. Ziggy wants in on the drug game with Nicky but Nicky is just protecting him from the bad things that can happen, so Nicky is basically putting himself in harms way in order to protect Ziggy.
I liked the scene where Bunk was complaining because he got stuck with them in some run down little thing that they call an office, it was funny.
Daniels played hard ball to get McNulty back, but I’m glad he did. It will be good for McNulty (hopefully) and help him get his life back on track. I thought it was funny when Kima said “it takes a whore to catch a whore” about McNulty trying to catch the “exotic dancers.”
I thought the lighting was interesting in the scene with Sobotka and his brother–it was almost like an interrogation room. I also liked Sobotka’s brother, he was a straight shooter who didn’t like all the crap that Sobotka is into.
I thought it was cool how they set the shot up when Frank met with the Greeks to tell them about the cops being onto them. It was cool how you could see everyone even though they were in a booth and it was shot from the side. They did a good job with balance in that regard.
All of the police are having issues with their significant others. McNulty and his (ex)wife, Daniels and his wife, Kima and her wife. It is just a bad situation all around. Is McNulty cleaning up his act for Russell though? They don’t seem like a good fit to me. Russell and Prez seem like a better fit even though Prez is married. I think he will cheat and that will cause problems with him and the Police chief father in law that gave them the Sobotka case to begin with. I thought it was interesting that McNulty decided to leave Russell’s house, not sleep with her or do anything else.
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