Chemistry

Photography has a strong base in chemistry. When it was first developed way back when in the 1800's, it was more about the science behind the image than the art behind the image.

To develop negatives, and then individual images, one uses three chemicals that i know only by photography names (not by actual chemical names, unfortunately). They are, in order of usage:
developer, stop, and fix

they must be with the negatives/photo paper in the correct quantities and for the correct amount of time. To fail to do this will result in really destroyed images, or happy accidents. More commonly than not however, the former. So it's important to pay attention to what you put into your light-tight film canister, or baths for print making.

My parents came to visit me on thursday! I was so excited to see them. First we went out to lunch, then I had class, then I met them for dinner. I wanted to take them to this japanese-korean place i liked, but it was full up, so instead we went to this great tapas restaurant that was completely bustling with activity. Yummy sangria (or beer, in dad's case) and tapas all around. Neat fact: there is a drink at this restaurant that has something to do with coffee and alcohol in a shot class, on fire, that you drink with a straw. while it is on fire. weiiird.

Friday morning I went to class, and then the three of us met up and went to "cathedral des images," which is this old stone quarry which now houses these amazing light shows set to musique. The subject of the one we went to was van gogh's paintings. it was incredable. Afterward, we went up to the local castel on a moutain with an adjoining medeival village. views a plenty. Then we took the hour drive back to Aix, where my parents met my host mother, and then out to dinner at the Korean-japanese place. There we met these girls from vassar and welsey who i exchanged numbers with, and then went back to their hotel room, then back to my house. We planned to go to avignon in the morning.

unfortunately, I hadn't watched what i was eating close enough or something, because at about 5:00AM i woke up with some really horrible poison sickness. needless to say, avingon was out of the question, and i spent 90% of the day in and out of sleep in bed, hardly eating. good times abound, n'est pas?

sunday morning i woke up feeling a lot better, and we decided to do the avignon trip. It was good, but after lunch i wasn't feeling too hot, so instead of walking we took a little train around. yes, we saw the pont d'avignon where one dances where one dances. overall it was a good day, finished off by italian food on the cours mirabeau, the big main street in aix. i had a whole bowl of pasta without feeling too ill. success! but unfortunately i tasted too much of my parent's deserts. big mistake there.

monday morning i was supposed to leave for paris with my parents and spend time there with family (tuesday was armistance day and no one had school, so i was just taking monday off). Unfortunately, i wasn't feeling too hot and decided to stay in Aix, where i sat on my bum for two days. feeling much better now!

so that's that. I gotta watch what i put in my mouth a little closer i guess. the figurative film of our weekend together was somewhat messed up by some stupid food. ah well.

in other news, i emailed Gary, boss from the summer, on what chicago was like right now. he says the museum's doing great and that they're looking to house the obama campaign materials! very exciting. He also recommended some good ice cream places in Paris. :-)

Entry NOT about photography....

SO. VACATION UPDATES ARE HERE.

Ive decided to skip the photography relation in these next few entries because i just want to give you guys just basically how everything went everywhere, and a few notes about life the first days back. maybe i'll throw in some photography relations. maybe.

so.

VENICE:
Friday: so my train/bus schedule to get to venice went as follows-> leave saturday morning on a bus to Marseille, train from marseille to nice, nice to milan, milan to venice. little did a realize that instead of my bus being at 6:30 in the morning, it was in fact, my train from marseille that left at that ungodly hour. thanks to a little help from Marie-Claire, all went well. though i was hacking and wheezing and sniffling my way through planning how i was going to get to the station.
Saturday:
(travel day 1) hopped on the bus to marseille at 5:45 AM and listened to the bus driver to the sounds of already drunk highschoolers on the back of the bus, who were seranading us along with the radio the song "eye of the tiger." what a wake up! made my train (just) and slept most of the way to nice. on the train from nice to milan, i sat in a group of four with a french woman and her two kids. they were really nice, and one of the kids, the girl, was in a language centered high school. trying to copy what she had seen from american TV shows, every five seconds was punctuated with a bored "ohmyGOD." pretty funny.
At one point on that train, an italian couple sat down in the group of four across the aisle from us, facing an australian couple. the older italian couple spoke no other language, the same for the middle age australians. and so, i got to be translator with the french woman. the italian couple spoke to her in italian, who translated to me in french, who translated for the australians in english. it was a lot of fun, and after it, i talked a lot with the french family. I told my FIRST JOKE IN FRENCH! it was awesome.
On the train from milan to venice, i sat with two vietnamese women, who i swear looked like they were my age, when in fact they were both at least 10 years my senior. we talked about the differences between asiatic cultures and european ones, and a little bit about vietnamese sentaments about the vietnam (or as they call it: the american) war. she said they're mostly over it, and that it's more our guilt trip now. i don't know how to feel about that honestly. i'm glad it's still a guilt trip for us. keeps us in check to a certain point i feel.
Arrived in venice around 7:00 and gasped outloud. it was everything i could have never imagined, yet thought about my entire life. I spent a total 10 minutes there walking to the two buses i would have to take to get to my hostel.
Got to my hostel, (camping d'alba oro or something), checked in, and wrote a brief note to you guys letting you know id gotten in. went to my cabin, went to bed.
Sunday:
(venice 1) I woke up with the morning light, as i was on a very uncomfotable top bunk in a cold cabin (the heater didn't do much for me when i was next to a tiny, air leaking window). Spoke with my roommate for a while, her name was carolyn, and she was columbian, just finished with a bus tour. She told me that two of her friends from the bus tour were actually staying at the same hostel as us, and invited me to go explore the city with them. I agreed, and spent an amazing day just wandering around the city with them. That night her two friends left, which was sad, but a huge busload of australians, new zealanders (kiwis), brits, and south africans roled in. there was a big party that night, and i made lots of friends. I was referred to as "love" for the first time in my life. "Hey love, what's your name?" good times had all around.

Monday:
(venice 2) The second day my roommate left and it was just me in the cabin. I walked around venice by myself, just taking pictures. Walked from one end to the other. good day, but not as good as the previous. that night hung out more with the aussies, though i had completely NO voice whatsoever (the cold i was getting over and previous nights party had kinda taken care of that). After most had gone to bed, one of my new friends and i stayed up a little later and watched "The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou" on my laptop. good times, once again.

Tuesday:
(travel day 2) On tuesday i said goodbye to the aussies and left for florence. it was a rainy voyage and arrival, but it was soooo good to see jasmine waiting for me at the train station. We hugged (not air kissed!) and she helped me find my hostel, just about a 10, 15 minute walk from the station. It was the same company, but a super nice hostel. i was staying in a mixed room (boys and girls) of 8 people. when i arrived, the people staying with me were mostly girls from the US traveling for their week break, and a seargent from the UK. The girls were really...uh...vapid so i tried not to spend much time with them. Instead, i talked to the seargent and mary and jasmine that first day. since it was raining, i tried not to go outside too much. ate my umpteenth pasta dinner (a la arrabiata, for you eddie izzard fans) and went to bed. (this night, punctuated by the least amount of sniffling and coughing yet!)
Wednesday:
(florence 1) On wednesday i met mary and jasmine at the train station in the morning, and then they showed me around some of the markets in florence, and we ate lunch at this delicious (and cheap!) sandwhich place. it was so nice to see them. SO nice. When they went to class, i continued walking around for a little bit before meeting some of my roommates at the Uffizzi gallery, where we say birth of venice and spring by botecelli, as well as some other gorgeous artworks. Later on, when i ate dinner, i sat down with this lovely red headed fellow, Owain. Recently graduated, he was "woofing," or traveling from organic farm to organic farm, working in exchange for food and housing. He was taking a break and meeting his girlfriend in a few days. We had a great conversation that branched all over traveling, shakespeare, farming, chestnuts, and other things. We finished the night by watching some def poetry jam and reading some ee cummings before agreeing to meet up to climb the duomo the following day.
Thursday:
(florence 2) Thursday i woke up a little earlier and went to see "David" and some pretty paintings at the Academia. David was...amazing. I couldnt even imagine the detail that was in his hands. I blinkedm, but i could have sworn i saw him breath. Afterward, i met mary and jasmine a little bit later at their school (which is in this amazing old building thing) and ate lunch together. Afterward, I met up with Owain and we climbed the 423 steps to get to the top of the duomo. it was...tiring, and a little scary climbing up all these little mediaval steps, but amazing once we got to the top. Because the weather had been kinda crazy, when you looked off of one half of the duomo it was dark and stormy, but the other side was bright and sunny. cool. Afterwards, because he knew the city, owain showed me a delicious and cheap place to get gelato, and then we went back to the hostel where a note from mary was waiting for me on my bed (she's so shady) telling me that a bunch of folks were meeting up at the duomo later to go out to a bar where a band was playing. My old roommates had left at this point and had been replaced by Kirsty, an australian woman who was at the end of her trip, Mr. Argentina, who was, as you can guess, argentinian, Martin, a really sweet german guy who had just left a couple in their 60's he had been staying with for a while, and Adrian, a guy from australia somewhere in between the end and the middle of his trip around europe. Owain, Martin, Adrian, and I decided to head out to dinner together, and afterward head out to meet mary and jasmine and folks. the night that followed was a lot of fun, even though we were a little concerned about exactly how much martin had drunk. it was a great time though. Said goodbye to Owain, who was moving into a hotel for a few days with his girlfriend.

Friday:
(florence 3) what did i do on friday...i honestly don't really remember. I woke up late, walked around a bit, met up with mary and jasmine. That night, we went to a halloween party at a bar. It was a good time. Jasmine got "mama mia"ed. that was seriously entertaining.
Saturday:
(travel 3) I left florence with a sad goodbye to mary and jasmine at around 11 in the morning. Unfortunately, due to two late trains and a missed bus back to aix-en-provence, i only got back home around 2 in the morning. I slept until 12:00 on sunday...the longest i've slept since.

all in all the vacation was AMAZING. I had such a good time. Unfortuantely, now i think i realize exactly how lonely i feel here. I was so easy to connect to the people i met on my trip, and of course to actually see some friends...but now that i'm back in aix, i have a full view of what life could be like NOT here. and that's both a blessing and a curse. I think it might have been better if i skipped study abroad, and just backpacked for a few months. would have been a better experience i'm sure based off of this little one i had for a week.

Lili, the program head here, had us all write evaluations of the program before we left. Unfortunately, due to my condition of stress and annoyance, i was probably a little more honest than i wanted to be. she, in turn, now wants to talk to me about it. god...i really hate this woman. the only reason she wants to talk to me is to play god and be intimidating. trust me on this one.

that's all the updates for now...see you guys sooooon! I'll be back in town on dec. 22nd.

IM IN FLORENCE!!!

Im in florence now, checked into my hostel, found mary and jasmine, and i'm chillin with jas while mary's in her last class. it's raining. poo on that.

i started speaking with a strange australian-ish accent because a) my voice is weird in an after-throat-sick kinda way and b) because i havn't been speaking that much english, and when i started speaking a lot of it it was only around australians. who were, by the way, awesome. i had the best time ever in venice.

all updates will come after i get back to aix, in two very long entries...so look for them!

love to all

ps: i think venice photos are gonna be good!

IM IN VENICE

...and none of you are on skype....

for like the 5 seconds i saw of it before getting onto the bus to go to the hostel, venice is AWESOME. i cant wait to start taking pictures!!!

Location 2

So we've already talked a lot about location, seeing as i've kinda been all over the place, and to talk about location when one is traveling is kinda...well, ever present. well, the time has come to yet again change location.

I (now) find that changing ones physical location is key in seeing things differently. Like, I can look at a square in the states, and i can look at a square in europe, and see them very differently based on their location. or, i can just see a square.

i find that differentiating between seeing different squares and seeing the same one is very important. It's important to recognize that in this world everything affects everything else, so it may indeed be the same square i'm looking at. yay! unity!

or, they can be two different squares. yay american upbringing full of uniqueness!

in any case, next week i'll be in Italy, and i probably won't update. I'm very excited...I get to see mary and jasmine and venice and florence! yay venice! i hope my hostel is good. I'll be taking lots and lots and lots of photos.

speaking of photos (and I always seem to be) this week my photo class went really well. The girls relaxed and everyone was just having a good time being artsy-fartsy and looking at things like composition. i managed to teach! it was fun.

also, i entered a contest. my entry, as well as all the others, can be found here: http://zemotion.deviantart.com/journal/20980761/
(just scroll down a little...mine is the one from the same shoot as the photo this week...bright red shoes!) i hope i win.

miss you all, hope everyone is healthier than me at the moment (i hate colds).

ps: i cut my hair
pps: it's cute

Wanting the same old thing but delivering differently

...I really want a crepe.

but besides that.

so yom kippur sucked, and i'm not going to go into more detail then: a) was obviously starving and b) was alone.

I did a shoot yesterday of a girl in my group, hayley. She's also a photographer (but does more landscapes) and she's got this great hair. So together we headed out to the park. overall it went well, but i'm taking the same kinds of shots. it makes me sad cause i really want to start looking at things differently, getting a new angle, something more exciting than a pretty portrait. I like pretty portraits, but I've gotta start doing something different. so i tried some new, less realistic editing techniques, and i'm really liking them. I'm gonna start doing that more.
(<- except for the ones when she was hangin upsidown. those were new ideas)

tomorrow is my first day of photo class. Kinda nervous, but i think i can handle it. i think if i keep thinking about it that way, i'll do better. i hope.

i also think i'm gaining weight...my host mother wanted to go on a diet, but to her the diet was eating whatever the diet food was...plus dinner. cause if you didn't eat that, you'd be hungry! so...i'm not so sure she gets that. i try and walk everywhere and get my exercise, but she cooks with a lot of cream. and breakfast is bread and butter with jam. starting to need to eat some special k or something. maybe i'll buy some. maybe today i'll treat myself to a crepe like a "good luck with the start of your trying to loose healthy weight!" and then tomorrow really start. yea, i think i'll do that.

something that's really frustrating me about this program is that all the students are supposed to be out friday and saturday nights. but money for buying healthy food is a problem, and what ends up being eaten is fatty, cheaper food. it would be less expensive and healthier for me to buy something and cook it at home, but we're supposed to give our host families a break from us, and i don't have a kitchen somewhere else, and if i did cook at home i'd have to make enough for marie-claire also, thereby not giving her a break...etc.etc. it's really frustrating. can't i just make myself a salad with some chicken in it instead of a cream soup, meat, bread, fruit, salad...the list goes on. it's delicious, but i'm gaining weight. and i really don't want to cause i worked hard to loose the few pounds i did.

i hate delicious food. sometimes i wish marie-claire was a terrible cook so i wouldn't eat as much of it. also, she doesn't eat a lot but makes more for me so i feel obliged to finish it cause she looks at me funny when i don't. or at least i think she looks at me funny. hard to read expressions sometimes.

her granddaughter comes to live with us today. maybe she can help me finish the food.

...i ate raw meat. like hamburger meat. apparently an Armenian delicacy. never again.

Teaching Photography

I am mostly a self-taught photographer with help from my father, teaching me things about aperture and shutter speed (and most recently flash, landscape photography, and how not to lean on a tripod when taking night pictures). I've only had two official courses in photography which were last semester...one digital (documentary photography) and one darkroom (photo 1). I got good grades in both, and spent a large majority of my time either shooting, digitally editing, or darkrooming it up. my hands had a permanent smell of darkroom on them.

teaching art is difficult. no one can say something is good or bad, but more "well composed," or, "the technical aspects of this work are really sound." things like that. With other subjects, like math, something is right or wrong (or sometimes, partially right) but with photography or art things get very very difficult. can't insult the student's work, gotta build the confidence, but also have to show them how to use their tools, give them space to experiment (most good things come by accident), but also give them spaces to jump off of. I have been in a few art classes (currently in 2!) and all teachers have a different approach.

For the study abroad program I'm in, all the students have to be involved in both community service and local clubs, to help us become integrated in the community, as well as help our colloquial french continue to improve (nothing like a bit of practice, eh?). My club is going to be tribal style belly dance lessons (beginning tonight!) and my community service...well...that's the story of this entry.

A few weeks ago, we were all given a list of potential community service listings, and a few positions landed at a local catholic high school, sacred heart (lycee sacre coeur). The positions were helping in some after school clubs there, among which were theater, dance, and photo. I jumped at the opportunity to help in a photo club, and i was placed there. The first class was supposed to be next week, but the woman in charge of the clubs (and also, the teacher of the dance class) wanted to meet with me so that she could talk to me about what to expect, change the night of the club, and show me around. So she showed up at AUCP yesterday to give me the tour.

while we were talking, she kept asking me about my experience in the field, and what things were neccessary in order to run an adequate darkroom. I was a little confused about why she wasn't asking these questions to the teacher, and instead to me, so I thought maybe I was missing something in translation.

"euh, je suis desolee, mais j'ai un question." (um, i'm sorry, i have a question)
"je t'ecoute." (I'm listining :-) )
"Est-ce que je suis le prof? ou est-ce que je suis un assistant, ou quoi?" (Am I the teacher? or am i an assistant, or what?)
"Oh, tu est le prof pour ce club. Est-ce que ca ce bien?" (Oh, you're the teacher, is that okay?)
"Oh, oui, bien sur!" (oh, yes, of course!) ::inner panic hidden::

so...now i'm teaching photography to a few high schoolers for about 2 hours every tuesday before my belly dancing class. WHOA. I'm really excited, but also incredably nervous. My french isn't that good, and with photography vocabulary...it's all a little overwhelming at this point. After I found this out and the meeting was over, i raced back to AUCP (my school) to shoot off a few panicked emails to fellow photography students asking for advice, and called dad. he didn't seem to sense the panic.

I see that this is a golden opportunity, and I intend to make the best of it that I can. I'm going to prograssively take them through things, making results for a show at the end of the year. while balancing classwork, clubs, and vacation planning. oh lord.

other things are pretty good. Marie Claire has got a cold, which doesn't bode well for me, but i've been giving her zinc and assorted oils, which she says helps a lot. Classwork is getting better, and yom kippur starts tomorrow evening (i got an excused absence for thursday. HAH.)

hope everyone had a lovely week of repentance, and I wish all an easy fast. Bonne Chance! A bientot! ( good luck! see you soon!)

ps: i saw a dior ad. looked really similar to my photo. see shots below.