It's been a long week, especially weekend, so I'm just going to throw up some photos and thoughts. The vomit begins
now.

I think I would be considerably less stressed if I worked in the darkroom every single day. Everything is slowed down and feels so simplified when I'm in there, and I love the magic of chemistry. I don't have to battle technology, and I can experiment and move around as much as I like. 

Some people think in color, some people think in grayscale, some images are about color, some images are held back by color. I think I think in one or the other depending on what camera I'm using. If I'm shooting in digital, it's usually color. If I'm shooting with black and white film, I tend to look for black and white images in the world. 

I recently started developing my own roll film, and it is crazy exciting. Nothing absolutely spectacular has come out of my camera yet, but I'm happy to be making work, learning new things, and thinking new thoughts. 

I'm still not entirely sure what my work is about, and that absolutely terrifies me. I'm starting to wonder if everything I thought it was about is wrong, and it's actually just about the quiet, contemplative moments and sights in life that are important in an unarticulatable way. 

There are occasions when I think I'm majoring in photography only because I can't major in book arts. 

It seems that I'm subconsciously trying to complete a major and three minors; I'm taking an art history course for fun next semester and a geology class even though I've completed all of my MIAD science credits. 

I'm really interested in photographing on the bus. Not necessarily people (see Walker Evans), but the scenes outside the window and compositions that are created by objects and graffiti left behind by riders. I expressed my concerns of getting in trouble for photographing the wrong things or people in a public space to Larry, and he gave me his usual words of wisdom. "Shoot first and apologize later, or run like hell."

I want to work with my Polaroid Land camera more. 

Crits can be scary. Crits can be inspiring. Crits can make you want to cry. No matter how your crit plays out, the only thing that matters is if it is helpful.

For anyone unfamiliar, crit is short for critique. In classes and when submitting work to exhibitions, everyone has to hang their work up or hand it to someone else and say, "Here is what I did, here is what I tried to accomplish, tell me what you think." Sometimes entire groups of people critique your work, sometimes one person. Sometimes you're present, sometimes you aren't. The ultimate goal is to hear what people think of your execution, both technical and conceptual, and find out what is great and what you can improve on. 

Even though crits can be nerve-wracking and scary, they're really important, and you should have them as often as possible. Talk to everyone about your work that is willing to have a conversation, and if possible, talk to established artists. Talk to your professors. I know I've had a great day when I have a one-on-one talk with Jon or Larry, and even better if I make it through without crying or making excuses. 

If you have a visiting artist at your school or studio and you're graciously given the opportunity to have them look at work, take it. Always take it. I was lucky enough to be recommended to have a talk with Dan Torop (the only sophomore invited; a couple of juniors were asked, and the rest were seniors). I didn't know anything about Dan, but I said I would love the opportunity, and then I spent the next 24 hours freaking out about what I was going to show him. I was freaking out up until he walked in and we started talking, and then I was too busy having a conversation about art and learning about Dan and myself to be freaking out. 

Always take good opportunities that will further your knowledge, no matter how scary and no matter how unprepared you think you are. 

If you can't make it good, make it big. 

Panoramas have always had a place in the history of photography, but the technology to produce large-scale prints, by which I mean good quality and fairly inexpensive large scale prints, is still pretty new. Let's face it- digital photography is still pretty new when looking at the history of photography and the history of mankind. What is it about the gigantic prints that increases the value and interest of the work?

First and foremost, it's the fact that it takes more materials, be that paper, ink, developer, trays, etc, to make the print. For the most part, as surface size increases, so does the cost to produce. That cost increases as the creator chooses to employ printing or processing services, and the photographer could, at minimum, end up paying $6 a square foot. 

Aside from the material aspect, larger prints are considerably more tedious to create. When you blow an image up to three or four times its original size, minor imperfections are more noticeable, and if the image involves a lot of retouching or stitching together, the possible problems increase exponentially. My recent panorama, for example, took me at least 24 hours, if not more, of work to process. The nine-foot scene is made up of five different images, manually merged and corrected. All seams had to be erased, every piece lined up correctly, and any verticals or horizontals corrected. Exposures needed to match, and colors needed to be right. Unfortunately, even with all the work put in, this photo is still not what it could be. Which brings us to 

equipment. 

To make great-big photos, you need a camera and lens that can take in great-big amounts of info.  Lots of pixels and good quality construction. You know, expensive things. Things like $7,000 cameras and $1,000 lenses. Or, large format cameras. Many professionals shoot with 8x10 film cameras to achieve highest possible quality, but everything comes at an opportunity cost. Everything's expensive and the processes are different, but in the end its all about the print and working how you want to work. 

I was, and still am, pretty proud of my own print, considering my time restraints, equipment limitations, and current school standing. When my parents came to visit, I eagerly took them down to the school, where it current hangs, and showed it off. I think they were proud of the scale and my abilities, while being mortified that "our house looks like that". I sent them back with a 24"x6" version.