The show is finally up and installed (thank goodness) and the grand opening will be September 5th, from 6-8 pm! If you're in Milwaukee, please come to MIAD and look at the work. 

I don't know that I'm completely happy with the print quality, but I learned a lot. A lot a lot. Last semester was my first semester ever being in the darkroom, and we moved from silver gelatin photograms to Van Dyke and Salted pretty quickly. I've never really used film seriously until this project, and it was very self-guided. If I didn't learn it at MIAD, I taught myself, and a whole lot of this project was me just figuring things out. I was once told by a friend that in order to learn to drive stick-shift, you just have to get out in a field with the car and go at it. That's what this process was for me: taking things I had learned and trying to apply the

Summary: I'm in Ireland, I've been super busy, this is just a dump of the project I'm working on, and I promise to update more regularly when I get regular internet. 

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. 

Something I have never been interested in, even though that is what most people associate photographic careers with, is studio portraiture. You don't get to be outside, you have to work with people, it's very difficult to get exactly what you want, and it makes me feel like I'm giving in to consumerism and the corporate man. 

That being said, I know that using lighting is a valuable skill, and it's important for me to be able to work in a studio environment and understand what I'm doing. Sometimes, one must support their photographic habit with, gasp, a job. 

Currently, I'm in a lighting class taught by the bubbly and talented Jessica Kaminski, known well in MKE for her work with the Milwaukee Ballet Company. While the work is not my forte', Jessica is a great teacher and makes things fun. If not for this class, I don't think I ever would have realized how much cooperation, teamwork, and time goes into pulling off a studio shoot. You have to coordinate with your team or assistants to find a time to use a studio, unless you are lucky enough to have your own. You have to find talent, or agree the team members will shoot each other. And then, there is set-up: backdrops, props, lights, what color is the talent wearing, what color should you use, what kind of lighting is appropriate for the subject matter, what are you trying to evoke with your work? Even after all that, there is a lot of communication an dependence between people. The photographer must know how to direct her helpers as well as the model to get the effect she wants at proper exposures and with good techniques. It's difficult, it's time consuming, and it takes a lot of practice to get familiar, and even more so to become skilled. 

Even though studio work isn't what I picture myself (ahaha, bad photo joke) doing in the future, I'm definitely learning a lot and getting some good experience. 

I had never guessed that being in a darkroom and using analogue processes would make me feel more complete as a photographer. I'm currently taking a Friday class, 8 am to 1:30 pm, called Old Forms, New Syntax that explores alternative processes such as pinhole photography, Van Dyke printing, cyanotype, and various darkroom practices. I really love the class and the tactile nature of the work, even though I feel incredibly inexperienced compared to everyone else. I hope to have some of this work up soon, most likely here in the blog.