WEEK 10

WHAT I DID: Last Fri I did a photo shoot and got what I wanted to capture. I'll be adding it to my portfolio. These photos are posted above. I couldn't muster up the courage to go back into the Harley dealership with a camera. I met with a biker from the HOG charter and talked to him about himself and the project.

WHAT I DISCOVERED: I hate this. It totally sucks. Biker Dave was a really nice guy. I learned a lot about him and the biker world. But, I was uncomfortable and wishing it was over the whole time. As for photographing him- in order to get him doing his hobbies in a timely manner it was unavoidable that I would have to go out of town to a house in the middle of nowhere to be alone with a guy who is 3 times my size and owns guns and my conscious told me that was not a good idea. I emailed the class to see if anyone would go with me and no one volunteered. I'm not blaming them- I know how busy everyone is and I would've felt uncomfortable even if I had someone with me. I know not every situation would be this dramatic, but it got me thinking about how a huge portion of this project is spent thinking about who to get, finding people, getting people to meet me which is around their schedule, getting them to talk to me, setting up a shoot on their schedule, and only spending an hour or two per person actually making images. This is not how I want to spend my time. I've been dreading this thing called my IP project and that's not how I want to feel about it. It was too much all about other people and not fun for me at all. If this project should be one thing it should be fun- at least sometimes :)

WHAT'S NEXT: I've changed my project. I picked something that was about me, that I would enjoy every second working on it and is for the most part not dependent on other people. And how do I feel you ask? Relieved. Excited. Nervous. Nervous because I feel like every project idea I had in the beginning wasn't good enough because it didn't have some world purpose or deep meaning that I could ramble on about. I am one of few words and no project that I enjoy making will come with that ability. That's not what art is about to me. I get inspired by visual elements and it's these visual elements that are the main motivation for my art making. So for my project I'm going to do a series of 5-10 (I haven't decided yet) photo sets. Each one will be about a different thing that is personally important to me or inspires me visually. I will also be making a lamp to go along with each photo set inspired by that topic or the photos themselves. One of the photo shoots I had set up for my last project is still relevant to the new project so that's still happening. This week I'll be working on the first lamp, the new project statement and thinking about how to progress- either making sketches for another lamp or setting up a photo shoot.