Final presentation for Summer

The summer class is officially over. It went by fast. I still have a little chunk of work to complete, but I can work at a normal pace and not feel stressed. I'm happy to be able to do normal things again. I cleaned my apartment last night, and it was great. Oh, and I am sleeping again. :)


My plan for the summer was to have everything completed that is going in the book, before the fall. I still have some elements of the promote program to work out, but I am pretty close. When I began working on it, the program was a little small, but it has morphed into 3 robust phases and has taken more time to get done.


I also need to watercolor the program sketches, do a practice binding for the book, and re-do the photo shoot. I am shooting again on Saturday... or Sunday if there is rain. I am so annoyed with all this rain. Usually August is pretty dry, but it seems every weekend I can shoot is raining. I am really hoping to have some time this weekend to finish this all up. I think it will go better this time around. I am not stressed, all the pieces are done, and ready and I have already made mistakes from the first shoot to learn from. Fingers crossed.


I am working on getting my timeline set for the fall. I am close, just working out the details. I just have a couple weeks "off" before it begins.


Below are the pages to my final. These images are from the first shoot and are just screen shots of the unedited RAW images. Not great, but it does show the work I completed.

Photoshoot monsoon

Getting ready for the photoshoot was a lot of work. Lots of refining, printing, cutting, assembling, drilling, painting and not sleeping. I was pretty happy with what I got done each night and I was able to finish everything before Sunday. I worked right up until I went to bed, and right up until the shoot. Looking back, I have no idea how I got it all done, but looking forward before the week, it did not seem like that much. So glad that is over.

Although I made sure to finish up each night at a normal hour, I still did not get sleep. In the words of Doug Stanhope, “That’s when the carnival kicks in to high gear”. I lay down for much needed rest, and my brain takes over playing out the events from the day, making to-do lists for the next year, working up ideas for my projects… it just goes on and on. Sometimes, this works to my advantage because I get some great ideas, write them down and then fall right asleep. But, most nights it is just thoughts firing off and they keep me up all night. The fun part is it continues throughout the day and I become so tuned in to it that the rest of the world seems to be going by, instead of actually happening. This is a lot of fun at work, when I am forgetting what the hell I am doing, and missing meetings and generally looking like I'm in another world. I need a back-up brain for when I am in school. I can just take the school brain out and plop in the “working brain”.  Good plan. Thought about that in my sleep last night. Pretty standard.

Well the photoshoot on Sunday was a bit of a disaster. It rained almost all day, which forced me to shoot indoors. It would have worked out OK, but the air was so wet, that my papers were curling and the lens on my camera was just wet all day. I kept a towel over my shoulder and had to wipe off the lens in between each shot. I had about 3 seconds before it fogged over again. Fun times. The sun eventually came out and I ran around getting the last shots before it set. I didn’t get everything, but I got the majority done. After reviewing them, I see about ½ of them are OK. The rest are blah. I will be setting up another shoot on break. Luckily I have the work done. I do need to re-print, cut and assemble the paper pieces that got ruined by the moisture, but at least it is all refined and ready to go.

The last few weeks of every semester I begin to question why I am doing this. I am tired, cranky and I feel like I am never going to have a normal weekend. I know it will pass, but I am not all that happy with being a student the past couple weeks. 9 months to go.

Here are some of the better images. (Not good, but better than the sucky one's)

Work like crazy, then photoshoot day!

After writing in the journal last week I realized that not only do I want a break, but I will need it. I want my book to be a beautiful presentation of all of this work I have done and I can’t get working on it with a clouded head. So I set my photoshoot date for the 7^th and that is forcing me to work harder to be sure all of my pieces are complete to shoot that day.

I have a big to-do list for the week, but so far I am looking good to have a complete shoot on Sunday. I am shooting at my in-laws in the backyard which has a great woods backdrop, dirt road, old wood and a garden. Lots of opportunities. I am excited, but also nervous to get these photos. Excited, because I LOVE photography and I am anxious to have the collection of images of my work. Nervous, because what I have in my head may be hard to get done in reality. We may already be set up for a rainy day, I may not notice a small corner is not in focus, I may realize when it is over that I needed more images, there may not be enough light…. The thoughts go on like this. But, all these thoughts are what force me to be as prepared as possible.

I worked through a lot of my edits from last semester and finalized more pieces for the sell and shop program. I also refined and added more to my promote program. I have more of that to do, but it is all photoshop work and not needed for the photoshoot, so that is on hold until I have the other pieces completed.

My apartment is a disaster and no area is safe to walk in. I am nervous something will spill or fall on my school pile, but I have nowhere to store everything. Fingers crossed it makes it till Sunday.

Not many images this week. I am not fully assembling everything until I am ready to shoot. It is safer to transport my items flat, rather then puffed out and ready to be squished. 

Heading home to build a bike crate out of balsa wood. I have no idea what I am doing, therefor I may spend all night making paper crates till I get it right.

Detail of the menu hangers that will hang from the menu board

Complete and assembled grow kits. (Just need dirt in the bags)