It feels like I’ve been doing my undergrad forever. I was decided last year to pursue a major in Fine Arts on top of my English degree, and it’s been rewarding. I took this class to get more familiar with different programs and technological media, I’m looking forward to exploring how these forms effect how one evaluates the work. I’m interested in images as a form of communication, how accessible this communication is between languages and cultures, and the hierarchy of images in a culture so saturated with images.
The image I picked does not look particularly interesting. In fact, when I saw it for the first time after I got my film developed, I was confused as to why I took the photograph. Then I remembered. I wanted to take a photo of this tree, which appears very small and unremarkable close to the top of the frame on top of a steep, sandy hill full of patches of shrubbery and rock.
Hours before I took this photograph, Vanessa and I were starting what we believed to be a very casual hike to see the Hollywood sign in Los Angeles. While there were quite a few people at the beginning of the trail, there were many forks on our path and we began to see less and less people. Eventually we ran into a guy from Finland who moved to Los Angeles to pursue an acting career, his name was Mattias. Mattias had neglected to bring water on a hot Los Angeles day, so we gave him some of ours and invited him to join our trek. Somehow, the three of us ended up behind the Hollywood sign, not quite what we had intended but we decided that that was fine too.
We decided to make our way to another viewpoint that was connected to our trail and hike down from there. Pretty soon we found ourselves next to the Wisdom Tree, but we couldn’t find any other trail but the one we had come from. We looked around and saw that there was a road at the bottom of this hill, but the way down was super steep and pretty sketchy looking. Mattias volunteered to go ahead and scout it out, and soon Vanessa and I couldn’t even see the guy anymore. We looked at each other, unsure because we were unwilling to follow this stranger down this potentially dangerous path. At the same time, we were worried about this guy and the fact that he didn’t have any water with him. About ten minutes later, we see Mattias and his plaid shirt appear at the very bottom of the hill. From where we were, he was not even an inch high and the path down looked very unpromising. We felt that we couldn’t just leave him standing there waiting for us, and if this guy wearing skater shoes and no water could get down, we could probably do it too.
It was sandy and therefore slippery, not at all like the friendly roots and dirt I was accustomed to on the North West Coast. Vanessa and I awkwardly scrambled down, getting sand in our eyes, sometimes hanging onto rocks and brush while dangling our lower bodies around looking for footholds. We alternated between fearing for our lives, laughing at our stupidity, and cursing this strange Finnish man for leading us down such a dangerous path. It took us more than an hour to get to the base of the hill where Mattias greeted us with a, “situations like these are why I’m glad for insurance”. We asked him how in the world he got down in such a short amount of time, and he said he had trained in the military for some time. Information that would have been helpful had he provided it before leading us off a cliff.
Though the image is not too remarkable, I’m very fond of it as a reminder of how Vanessa and I survived what went from an innocuous stroll to what could have easily become serious injury.
It feels like I’ve been doing my undergrad forever. I was decided last year to pursue a major in Fine Arts on top of my English degree, and it’s been rewarding. I took this class to get more familiar with different programs and technological media, I’m looking forward to exploring how these forms effect how one evaluates the work. I’m interested in images as a form of communication, how accessible this communication is between languages and cultures, and the hierarchy of images in a culture so saturated with images.
Week 1 – Image
The image I picked does not look particularly interesting. In fact, when I saw it for the first time after I got my film developed, I was confused as to why I took the photograph. Then I remembered. I wanted to take a photo of this tree, which appears very small and unremarkable close to the top of the frame on top of a steep, sandy hill full of patches of shrubbery and rock.
Hours before I took this photograph, Vanessa and I were starting what we believed to be a very casual hike to see the Hollywood sign in Los Angeles. While there were quite a few people at the beginning of the trail, there were many forks on our path and we began to see less and less people. Eventually we ran into a guy from Finland who moved to Los Angeles to pursue an acting career, his name was Mattias. Mattias had neglected to bring water on a hot Los Angeles day, so we gave him some of ours and invited him to join our trek. Somehow, the three of us ended up behind the Hollywood sign, not quite what we had intended but we decided that that was fine too.
We decided to make our way to another viewpoint that was connected to our trail and hike down from there. Pretty soon we found ourselves next to the Wisdom Tree, but we couldn’t find any other trail but the one we had come from. We looked around and saw that there was a road at the bottom of this hill, but the way down was super steep and pretty sketchy looking. Mattias volunteered to go ahead and scout it out, and soon Vanessa and I couldn’t even see the guy anymore. We looked at each other, unsure because we were unwilling to follow this stranger down this potentially dangerous path. At the same time, we were worried about this guy and the fact that he didn’t have any water with him. About ten minutes later, we see Mattias and his plaid shirt appear at the very bottom of the hill. From where we were, he was not even an inch high and the path down looked very unpromising. We felt that we couldn’t just leave him standing there waiting for us, and if this guy wearing skater shoes and no water could get down, we could probably do it too.
It was sandy and therefore slippery, not at all like the friendly roots and dirt I was accustomed to on the North West Coast. Vanessa and I awkwardly scrambled down, getting sand in our eyes, sometimes hanging onto rocks and brush while dangling our lower bodies around looking for footholds. We alternated between fearing for our lives, laughing at our stupidity, and cursing this strange Finnish man for leading us down such a dangerous path. It took us more than an hour to get to the base of the hill where Mattias greeted us with a, “situations like these are why I’m glad for insurance”. We asked him how in the world he got down in such a short amount of time, and he said he had trained in the military for some time. Information that would have been helpful had he provided it before leading us off a cliff.
Though the image is not too remarkable, I’m very fond of it as a reminder of how Vanessa and I survived what went from an innocuous stroll to what could have easily become serious injury.
Week 2- An Apple
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1cYBi1debswv05Cb7EW1hU9ZI8COXwXWRgFBOxlcZ5bE/edit?usp=sharing