"Hey! Sing me a nice Italian' song!"

Waking up a little late this morning threw me off but everyone else seemed as tired as I was as we walked the same six blocks to the Tisch building. This morning was devoted to our critiques for the digital portrait assignment where we had to make 36 self portraits of us taken in one day, a post card of our favorite portrait, 3 self portraits as a triptych and 6 portraits of other people. Everyone had a different take on the assignment and showed what they could capture on their digital cameras as their point of view. Some portraits had people posing in the studio at Tisch while others had people sitting in subways and walking in and out of porta-potties as strange as that is. Overall, everyone has improved in some way from week one and everyone is excited for our next and final assignment, a narrative.

The narrative assignment is our biggest assignment yet and everyone is looking forward to expressing themselves as an artist for the final show on August 8th. A narrative tells a story that generally has a beginning, middle and end which can be fictitious, convey a specific idea or be completely constructed. We can choose those options and whether or not we want to shoot with digital or film and whether we want it staged on the street or in the studio or just taken by accident. These images should illustrate a cohesive and complete body of work focusing on one concept. We will have to write two papers for this assignment with our project proposal due this Friday giving us only two days to come up with something brilliant and completely unique to create with our photographs. Everyone is thinking of different ways about how they can approach this assignment and the ideas are very broad. For example, Edward is thinking of using a poem he wrote about love while Martin wants to take portraits of street venders. Kelly wants to create a story about a girl running away while Jane is inspired by her book Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov and Sandra is thinking about taking portraits of children. Myself, who knows my story yet but I want to create certain feelings through peoples body gestures. This is just an idea and everyone is uncertain on what to do but at least we have something in the first seven hours of this project.

Later this afternoon, a local New York artist named Jamel Shabazz came in and talked to us with enthusiasm and excitement bursting throughout the room. Jamel had a very powerful presentation of his work showing us his portraits of teenagers in the Harlem streets, beautiful scenery of Morocco and his deuces collection of couples and best friends. He encouraged us to travel the road less traveled when it comes to photography, go against the grain and it does not matter what type of camera you have, but it all has to deal with the eyes and the ideas in your own head. Jamel's life gift of photography is to make people think and make his work a universal language for other people to read around the world. Jamel inspired us to take photographs with meaning but most importantly, love. Jamel might be attending our August 8th show and we hope he can because his work has inspired us and we would love to see him again.

Dinner came rolling around and once again we ate at the lovely Weinstien hall where every type of dorm food can be found. After that, we headed to Strand book store where there were thousands of books that can be stretched out into 18 miles of pure reading enjoyment. All the bookworms came out of us and we ran all over the book store to find any type of book you want from cooking to photography to Where's Waldo? Many of us could spend hours upon hours in that store but we only got 45 minutes of searching for books. I purchased One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest by Ken Kesey which Ryan recommended to me on the first day. Once I get some free time, I will be sure to enjoy reading this book. My amazing roommate, Liz, got two photography books and one of them is by Sylvia Plachy who came in and talked to us in the first week of this program. It seems so odd that this is the third week and next week is the final week all of us will be together as artists, photographers and as a family. As this week goes on, it will only get more stressful with creating our narrative story, more sleepy as we go to bed early at 1:30 a.m and more fun as we continue hanging out in the dorms and going to all sorts of new places. For now, I need to get to bed and laugh it up with Liz until the high heavens can hear us.

Kinda scandalous,
Blair

Work In Progress (Better Late Than Never)

Sophi & Ryan checking in!
This is actually Monday's update, but we forgot to write on this due to our obsessive immersion in photography (a.k.a. working our butts off), so here goes.
After having our individual weekly meetings with Nichole and Jessica, we toiled hour upon hour, eyes super-glued to computer monitors, striving to achieve portraiture excellence.
After what seemed like an eternity in the digilab, T.A.'s Sophie and Lauren presented their work. Sophie's work was centered around air travel and people in transition. Lauren's work ranged from portraits of herself, family and friends. From there, she discovered her passion for art therapy and her work became more of a gateway to self discovery and deeper meaning rather than standard observation.
Then NYU graduate, Rian Dundon, came in to present the class with his photographs of a bar in Queens and his unique and unfamiliar insider's view of rebellious teenage culture in rural China. He explained how photography is more about connecting with your subject(s), surroundings, and vibe rather than becoming overly attentive to the technicalities. Rian was really down to earth and his edgy style gave us a different outlook on Chinese culture diverging from all the stereotypes we are accustomed to.
As the day ended, we strolled around east village, and then rushed to the dorms. We were overjoyed when we realized we still had a lovely reading assignment. The end.
---Soph and Ry

"Scandalous"

Currently we're working on our Portrait assignment that is due tomorrow, and I figured since I have nothing to blog about I'd post some pictures. The TA's think the blog is lacking.
I was really inspired for my self portraits by film noir femme fatales and focused on dramatic lighting in the studio (my favorite place on the 8th floor by far).
Each image is inspired by a different film, the first being The Big Combo



Each of us have to make a triptych of our self portraits and a 6+ portraits. So that's my triptych just to give you a taste of our studio work. Overall, I'd say the self portraits are very diverse, ranging from experimenting with low exposure and flash, "painting with light," costumes, and motion. The classroom walls are covered in our new prints which has proved to be a nice change from the purely black and white prints that we had grown accustomed to. To me, it's pretty weird to have my work up for anyone to look at. There have been a couple incidents where I've almost ripped my stuff down out of pure frustration. But hey, I think we've all been there.
EDIT: Literally seconds after writing this, I walk into the classroom to see that all of our prints are off the wall and bags placed in the hallway. Apparently a beam had broken in the classroom and is currently off limits due to safety and construction reasons. Things definitely are staying interesting.
The digilabs are really hopping these days; presently I'm sitting next to a printer and it's shaking so much I'm concerned it's going to shake its way off and crush me. No joke.
On another note, the plan for today is visiting two galleries along with plenty of lab time. We're heading to the Bonni Benrubi gallery (bonnibenrubi.com) in a few hours, but until then we're slaving away to get our work finished and looking sweet.

Stay classy kids.
Annika

As the bright light shined through each of our windows early this morning, some of us rushed to grab our cameras and take a picture of ourselves. As artistic photographers, one may be quick to think that such a spontaneous, unplanned action would be out of the realm of mainstream art. However, throughout the day many students took a picture of themselves every half hour. These images will culminate in a final project that combines these images to create a progression of the person's day. So, as we dragged ourselves out of bed-some earlier than others-we were sure to take a timer in an effort to systematically complete the assignment.

When we reached 721 Broadway-our third home- we were met with a two stunning presentations by two of our amazingly talented TA's. Both Alicia and Michael showed the class their past and present work. Personally, I thought it was extremely interesting to see the images created by these artists during their high school years. Anywho, we should all know by now that the photography kids are never simply being lazy. So, following this regiment, shortly following the two presentations, we set out for the Bronx museum of art. Inside the museum, there was a magnificent display of Jamel Shabazz's work. This artist definitely served as an inspiration for myself and I am sure others in the group. I'm also sure that everyone is very excited to meet him when he comes to visit our class next week.

Oh and I must not forget the famous box lunches we consumed while sitting on the sidewalk outside of the museum. Interestingly enough, the sandwich improved for some and for others-not so much. Such a fluctuation may be caused by the new and "improved" form we now fill out while ordering the lunches.

Following the museum visit, we took the subway back to NYU. As always, the ride was full of flash fighting and hilarious conversations. When we arrived at Weinstein, we quickly had dinner in the dining hall and then we were yet again off on another adventure-the New York Mets game. Our seats in the back of the stadium were definitely situated with some real fans and those wearing red were probably a bit scared.

As we returned to the dorm, everyone looked exhausted, but the cameras were still flashing and the voices were still echoing. Although our eyes may be half closed, we are always ready for the image.

So, I'm sure a lot of people are just finishing up taking their last photo of the day and I myself am extremely tired.

Until next time,

Britt

After lightning and thunderstorms through the night, we were awoken to more rain. Everyone was hustled out of bed and onto the wet sidewalks at 9:00 AM to begin our day-long journey in Brooklyn. Luckily for our group of 20+ people we were catching the subway when rush hour had ended and didn't have to pack in as we had become accustomed to doing. When coming out of the turnstile, I dropped my camera for what must have been the fifth time during our course. I picked it up to inspect the damage and I realized that I couldn't use the zoom on the lens--it was locked into place. I forced it from 24 mm to 55 mm, and with a crunch I knew it was completely broken.

Our subway ride to from lower Manhattan to Brooklyn was brief and the botanic garden was right outside the subway station. The rain ceased while we were underground, but everything at the garden was muddy and sodden. On the other hand, all the flowers and shrubbery smelled fantastic after the shower. The Brooklyn Museum--only a stone's throw from the botanic garden--was our next destination. Although I am a native New Yorker, I had never been or had the interest in going to this museum. I find myself more interested in paintings and photographs at museums than the ancient stone sculptures and jewelry that were on display at the Brooklyn Museum. I think that it is astonishing, however, that some of the pieces they had in their collection were from the ninth century and one dating back to the first century and still completely intact.

Our day was only halfway over. We walk to the apartment of Lori Nix where she has her art studio. Lori is an artist who creates miniature models and scenes of cityscapes, dreamy settings, and inspiring thoughts from her childhood. Each and every set she makes is created by hand and takes approximately 7-8 months. When she is finished, she uses a view camera with an 8x10 inch negative to capture her models in all their glory.

Next, we made our way to Lorie Novak's studio near the Manhattan Bridge. Lorie is a photographer whose work is completely her own. Some of the ideas that she has come up with are fantastic (projecting a giant image onto trees in the middle of the forest and then photographing the effect, using double exposures on her film negatives). She gave us things to drink as well as a slideshow showcasing her work.

Both of the artists that we met were very affable and inviting. We headed back to Weinstein Hall on University Place for dinner. Following dinner we were off again to the 8th floor of the Tisch building for a lighting demo from our teacher assistants.

Writing down all the things that we did in one day is astonishing.

Man, I'm tired,
Martin

Holy crow!

Hello friends!

This blog is coming to you a little late because Wednesday was a terribly hectic day and blogging slipped my mind! So, starting from the very beginning, Chasky and I woke up on time, we're still very proud because that trend did not carry over to today. But what can yah do? Anyway, once we were in our sacred home at Tisch of room 805 we had a little chat with PA's, TA's and other important folks. As it turns out, the photo fam has been a little crazy as a group lately so we all took the time to reflect and think about ways to improve ourselves, as well as how to make the most our of experience together. Then we moved on to our first critique!! Everyone had been working non-stop on the place assignment so we were all really excited to share our results.

I still need to finish this...

Catch you on the flip side!

Callie

Our P.A.'s