October 2007
Miranda and Steve are my neighbors
Katrina called me on Tuesday and told me that she had just gotten off of the subway and there were a ton of trucks and trailers parked on the street really close to Pratt. When she asked the people what was going on, they informed her that they were shooting the Sex And The City Movie. Apparently, the house that Miranda and Steve move into in Brooklyn, it’s a block away from my school. …. AHHHH!!!!!!
I called basically everybody I could think of that would be even remotely interested in seeing them filming and most of the people turned it down. I didn’t get what kind of person would pass up an opportunity to be close to something that was Sex And The City related. I finally got a hold of my friend Isabel and at least she could understand me. She screamed on the phone when I told her and the people in her studio asked her what was going on. It turned out that they were fans as well and we all got as quickly as we could to the corner of Dekalb Street and Washington Street where it was filming.
I tend to overreact a lot.
One of my greatest fears is probably public speaking. Of all of my fears– death, needles, infectious diseases, fluorescent lighting– public speaking might be the worst. I don’t know what it is about me and public speaking, but I tend to make it a bigger deal than it actually is and psyche myself out into being nervous to an insane degree. There have been times when I’ve gotten up in front of people only to forget everything I was about to say and times in which I’ve been unable to continue talking because I was shaking so badly. This is why I was a little less than excited when I found out I would need to speak in front of forty strangers on this past Monday. I’m sure that sort of prospect would make anybody nervous, but for me, I think I would have preferred being dropped into the middle of a snake-infested lake in the middle of the night with only a flashlight than speak in front of those people.
So. Some explanation. My friend Katrina sent me a message on Facebook a few weeks ago asking me if I wanted to be a photographer in this upcoming shoot she’s doing. She explained to me that it was a project for some fashion styling students at LIM College and that we would each be the photographers for three groups of five students. There would be professional models and the students would obviously be styling the shoots themselves. This was pretty exciting and I immediately agreed.
About the middle of last week, Katrina sent me an e-mail with a forward from the woman who is basically in charge of this whole thing, Adrienne. In the message, Adrienne left her phone number and says that she would really like to speak to me as soon as possible to gauge my “aura.” I called her and was ultimately talked into skipping class on Monday and coming down to the Fashion Styling club to speak about my photography. She also mentioned that I would need to bring my “book.” I don’t have a book. Or any kind of portfolio, for that matter. Cue freak-out.
The internet is a soul-devouring monster that I want to stab in the heart with a wooden stake
Sometimes I really just can not stand the internet. And computers. The whole thing is designed to make communication easier (kind of), but it really just invites a whole new slew of issues for artists and designers to get stressed out about. Digital photography and the internet = hell.
I really have no patience whatsoever for completely manual photography. I mean, I really enjoy it from time to time. Using film, developing negatives, printing in the darkroom…. all of it has a really nostalgic, organic feeling to it which is fine. In moderation. A huge problem with the photography curriculum at Pratt is, though, that the emphasis is really directly on old darkroom photography and not digital. I really don’t understand this because, at the rate that technology is going and its present state, digital images are just as good if not better than film. Also, just in terms of future careers, I think that having a good knowledge of digital photography is a must.
Anyway. I need to get back on track to my original point. Why my relationship with digital photography is a love/hate one. I prefer digital photography vastly over analog photography and I’d bet that a good amount of students at my school would like to see me hanged just for saying that, but I think I’m entitled to my opinion. It’s more immediate, you don’t get as messy, and I honestly think that photoshop gives me more control over my images than I could ever get in a darkroom environment.
So. Anyway. Digital photography is all fine and good until it comes to printing or uploading images to the internet. That’s when it becomes so irritating that I end up wanting to screw holes into my eyes with a power drill.
