Technology

Photography is all about technology. From its inception in the industrial revolution, the development of photography has been about refining the camera and the film's technology. All this refining has led to sharper, more exact images, faster film (ability to shrink shutter speed from minutes to 100's of a second), digital cameras, photoshop and other types of digital post-processing...the list goes on and on.

in case you didn't know yet, my internet is finally set up. yay technology!

not having the internet has made me feel so out of touch with the city - now i can go online and search for cultural events happening, stay up-to-date with my friends, make plans...all this was possible without internet of course, through phone calls and newspapers, but newspapers can get out of date, people don't always pick up the phone, time differences, etc. The internet is a really important tool (and time waster extrodinare!) for me, and I'm glad to happen. Like taking photos in film and digital...it's like comparing apples to oranges. they're both fruit, but very different types.

hopefully this means that I won't be hit on by the argo tea guy anymore ;-)

more updates when I have some :-p

workflow

so. back at the argo tea. it appears that the internet didn't turn on, and doesn't intend to. i've been told to buy a month to month plan by my sublessor, and that she'll refund the rent and lower the month-to-month cost. she fricken better put that in writing.

you know, this is the second time this year that i've been somewhat promised internet service (or at least asked if it was an important aspect in a homestay) and it hasn't been there. I don't like this pattern at all.

the guy who made me my deeeeeeeelicious mojitea (mint tea with bubbles and delicousness!) is trying to flirt with me by trying to involve me in a conversation about video games and anime. My not really likeing anime, and deprivation of video games isn't helping is case.

(funnily, i just wrote that and he came, sat down, and started to chat me up for like....20 min. then he blamed his forwardness on espresso.)

anyway..................workflow!
I really like the gallery where i've been working. it's a pretty small community - maybe 10 people total including myself, and not everyone is there everyday. The athmosphere is really relaxed and everyone acts like they're part of a family. I'm learning the culture fast, and I really like it. Everyone is pretty young too, so that helps on a relation level (and they all deeply sympathize with my internet issues). Things generall jump from one thing to another, getting small bits of everything done. Next week we're taking down the show that's up right now (richard hunt - sculpture/old man in his 70's extrodinare) and exchanging it for one that looks AWESOME called "Golden Ratio." I'm super psyched. So far i've gone through submissions from random artists, sent out rejection letters, updated databases, wrapped some peices for shipment, participated in meetings, and a whooooole bunch of other stuff. but i have a lot to learn about the artists so that i can really answer questions when people come and look around the gallery.

So far I havn't seen many people around that i know...Sherrick, the scholar from beloit (my year) is here which is nice and we're hanging out. DJ (another scholar) just arrived today, but won't be around until the weekend. Emily (my roommate) gets in on sunday, and then Timila (another scholar) won't get in for some time yet i think. My friend Saika is visiting this weekend, and things are starting to get rolling. we even had some sunshine today!

regardless of the internet situation, things are finallllly starting to move along. now hopefully this awkward barista won't ask for my number.

love to all, shabbat shalom!

Memory

Photos are big. really really big. usually. the ones i take are generally on the larger side. the larger they are, the more detail they tend to include. unfortunately, each one therefore takes up a lot of memory (if they happen to be digital).

so I'm back in chicago. I arrived to find the appartment kind of messy, the futon broken (though i think it may still be usable as a bed?) and the internet not functioning (though recent communications say that it WILL START TOMORROW!). while all this made me panic-y and upset yesterday, today i'm feeling better about it. the building is GREAT, very nice with a super gym on the 3rd floor. i can see the HUMOUNGOUS AND AWESOME supermarket from my window, and we live downwind from a chocolate plant (which, i recently discovered, DOES SELL CHOCOLATE).

the flight over was very easy, regardless of travelocity's attempt to make everything go wrong, and i got the the appartment quickly and easily. I sat between step-siblings in the exit row. great for my legs, but one of the siblings was wearing a caluculator watch, was in his 40's, and hadn't flown in something like 30 some-odd years (except for the flight he took to the east coast a few days previous) and kept fidgiting trying to look out the window. at the beginning of the flight i offered both of them gum, which i then placed in the pocket in the seat in front of me, only to have him halfway through the flight lunge forward and grope around for it before turning to ask "oh, was that gum yours?"

now that i'm back in chicago, all i can think about it last years experience. the bus stop i stood at, the museum, my old building (which i have to admit, at least at this point, i liked living in more. while this place i'm staying in now is more decorated and furnished, i definately like the location of the old building more.)

this also makes me think about the home in NJ. I probably slept in it, ate in it, and showered in it for the last time. this is weird. I wonder how i'll feel at the end of the summer, when i'll still probably be in the area a fair bit, but not living there. will i even find a reason to ever go by my house? what will i do with my keys? It was a big part of my life. the memories there take up a huge part of my life. the memories in chicago are also pretty large. france too. where am i gonna store this all? can i buy a harddrive for my brain? should i invent the Harry Potter "pensive" bowl to "collect my thoughts"?

enough's enough. catch ya on the flip side

While I don't regret...

...learning french, going to italy, meeting Marie-Claire, seeing family...

a lot of the time I really wish I had gone somewhere different. Like Australia or New Zealand. When else am I going to get the time to go? And why didn't I think of it earlier? People who go there are looking for different things than people who study in Europe...why didn't i think of it?

Lost People

"We try to grab pieces of our lives as they speed past us. Photographs freeze those pieces and help us remember how we were. We don't know these lost people but if you look around, you'll find someone just like them." - Gene McSweeney

some of you guys may recognize the above quote as the one that's always on the right hand side of my blog, right next to my photo. When i made this blog, i was searching for a quote that resonated with me to put in that spot, which is marked "about me." I didn't know exactly why i thought this quote represented some facet of my personality, but i chose it originally because it had to do with photography, grabbing snippets from all around, and then reflecting on them a little bit. I liked the message it gave about photography.

this entry is about reflecting on how i've changed. Pulling over if you will. I'm hitchhiking and picking myself up at the same time.

At the beginning of last year, I was as low as i had ever been. The second big friendship trauma of my life had taken place, and I felt very alone. I had little to no self-esteem left, and I wasn't sure who to depend on. thankfully, some very good friends picked me up, put me in the oven (of love), took me out when i was good and baked, and let me cool for a while until i hardened back up with a soft interior. I was a cookie. but a good cookie. I would prefer that to roadkill personally.

after i got my feet back on the ground, it was time to ship off to chicago, where, while it was difficult at the beginning, i now remember with much fondness. I started to gain my confidence back, I became super comfortable with public transportation, and I started dancing again. I also got my second and third real photo jobs, which is always really exciting. working for Gary was also a dream.

then i came back, and it was time to go to france.

I've written a lot about finding my location, not loosing control, looking at the same things from a different angle, and nerves.

i feel a little bit reborn.

being a cookie was good, but at the same time, i needed a fresh start. as much as i hated it in the beginning, i needed to stick myself into an unfamiliar place, and figure it out again. Baby steps was good, learning to talk was good, but what i needed was to remember who i was, to recreate myself. to let myself learn the same things again with the knowledge that it's possible to fall apart. but what i gained was the knowledge that i can rebuild myself again. even if it makes me miserable, i can deal, i can get through, i can succeed, and i can even make friends. i can make friends that i think will last. and i can be confident in that. and confidence is something i've been missing for a little while.

I also learned a language. In fact, i learned two. I learned how to speak french, and I learned to speak myself. what do i need right now to get over this. what do i need to realize, what do i need to think about.

sure that may sound a little selfish to only be thinking about myself. but when you're re-learning almost everything you've ever learned about yourself, learning how to listen to that and follow through is a good thing to know how to do.

so i remember how i was before my friendship traumas. and i remember how i was in every transitional phase since then. but i think i'm officially done being in transitional phases. i'm still going to change obviously, but i think i've healed the old wounds. i can wake up in the morning, do every sort of boring and non-boring activity it takes to be a student, develop a routine, do it, and have that be enough. i can do that.

about continuing this journal...i have NO idea. i'm honestly not that big of a writer. i think that maybe when dane and i were young she used so many words that i learned how to express them in other ways, dance and art (and screaming, occassionally). so i'm not sure if i'll ever feel compelled to write in this again. but if i am, if i've got something to put out there, i most certainly will. so feel free to check back every now and again.

this is liora, signing off.

PAINTINGS I MADE THIS SEMESTER

here is an image of alll the paintings i did this semester minus a few.

click on the image to see "alll" of them. the blog cuts a few out.

Film Speed, or ISO

When taking pictures, digital or film, one has to think about ISO (aka: ASA or Film Speed). The ISO refers to how sensitive the film (or pretend film) is to light. And since photography is all about capturing light, logic says that the more sensitive your film is (aka: the higher your ISO), the more light is captured in your photographs.

example:
for shooting in bright sunny outdoor light, one would use an ISO of about 100-200, not very sensitive. there's already a lot of light!
however, if you want to shoot, for example, a skyline at night, or a portrait with not a lot of light, one might use an ISO of anywhere from 500-3200. depending on quality of the camera and amount of light.
if you decide to shoot at ISO 700 on a bright summer day,typically, you're not going to get anything at all because your film is too sensitive. it just will bleach out. unless you're magical.

some days in aix i feel like my ISO is just changing all over the place. In some classes i'm well exposed some might say, balanced, well composed. In others, I'm just not there at all. Due to constant criticism with the notes "there are still a lot of errors" on all of my papers (regardless of how much i've improved the paper and how little errors actually remain, the critique is constant) in Expression Oral et Ecrit, I have simply ceased to care. I'm gonna study hard for the final, but why even bother trying to edit a photograph that simply isn't well exposed to begin with? that's what i feel like sometimes. Whereas, another situation, art class. I'm not the best, but the critique isn't "your eyes are always too big." it's, maybe try this way. how about another go?

While I'm ready to come home in a BIG way, i'm also really nervous. I'm heading back into an environment that i know is realllly stressfull (and with good reason...if you're gonna stress, this is stuff to stress about) after coming out of a situation that's really stressful, and then heading back to school in the US (which can be also seen as stressful). I'm not sure that i'm equiped to make all of these changes and keep my sanity. One of the girls here tells me that i may just need to take some "me" time. While that may be true, i'm not sure what it'll do. I'm not sure what's going on at home...all i know is that things are crazy. very very crazy. again, with good reason. what is going to be expected of me? pack up everything i know...but also be a responsible family member, girlfriend, friend, earn money (since i'll definately need it to buy books next semester), and take me time to still be sane. I don't really know what's going on any more. this is crazy. constantly switching back and forth from one situation to another. Not like i'm the only one, but still.

see you all in 14 days.