Alright, above are a couple more developed logo ideas…still not 100% confident with them but this is where I am at for now.

Tonight I have been working on my dress….which is no longer really ocean pollution but pollution in general…probably more with littering, actually. I dyed this floral print dress…adorable frickin dress…blue last week and since then have been sewing stuff too it. I began with sewing scraps of paper, wrappers, etc into swirl patterns below the bustline down and then in the back i sewed chiffon, and plastic bags to make a sort of train or whatever. I also stained it with black ink..same swirly pattern. I even have a giant flower made from dryer sheets. As it dries in the living room I know I created something great, but there’s more to be done before crit on Tuesday.

I never took my self portrait this week. However, I found a great new location to shoot in. My friend Nik moved to an apartment above a funeral home…and everything about the building is gorgeous. Ideas are storming about in my mind, like mad. Expect photographs. Also, Nik’s father, who donated a new door to our darkroom is also a photographer and gave me some 3200 ISO black and white film. Playtime? Yes.

Now. Dishes.

Today I revisited an idea because I fell in love with another costume I grabbed from the basement of my house. I still want to use my mom’s old bridesmaid dress, but I still was fascinated by the poofy petticoat i found and definitely the little red riding hood cape hood thing. And I had an itch to shoot, particularly because the week prior I had shot so much I was in some sort of habit or consumed by some fever that caused an adrenaline to just photograph…and constantly. So I talked to my lovely friend Greta, who is also my future roommate and has modeled for me before and many others, and she’s a great model because she will do anything. This shoot was particularly familiar to her…she’s had her share of playing fairy tale characters that are “bad to the bone”. Last semester she appeared in a classmate’s series of photographs where Little Miss Muffet was taking her revenge on the spider. Anyways, she was Big Bad Little Red this time. We took our story to set at the famous “Church in the Woods”…which is literally this old chapel in the middle of the woods…it’s still maintained by the descendants of the founder’s children…it’s been there since 1925. Unfortunately it’s become a sex pot and beer shack for some students. Or a place to shoot, for me. We may have been a little disrespectful…Little Red pointed her gun at a statue of St. Francis.

In other news, I can’t find Jezebel’s lenscap. Anywhere. It’s a snap-on cap that I HATE because if it gets bumped it falls off. So while I was moving my stuff back into my apartment after spring break it probably caught on something. So I need a UV filter at least to keep it from scratching. Especially since I plan on reshooting at the church. The other news is that I came up with this idea, and I’m going to shoot a self-portrait every week. Sure I’ve used myself as a model but I don’t have them labeled as self portraits nor are they meant to be. I’m a body that can fit into my clothes and be available whenever I want it to be…so…yeah. Tomorrow I’m going to shoot the first one. We’ll see what I come up with.

I don’t get critiqued til April 6th….so I’m printing the first Little Red photo and the “She Came in Through the Bathroom Window” One. Four 11×14 prints are being processed of the toy images right now. They should hurry up so I can have them!

Today the lovely Miss Clarissa and I went over to the Purloin Studio in the Falls to shoot some portraiture…the gallery offered colored panes of glass and all sorts of artistic odds and ends that resulted in some rather interesting portraits of Clarissa. The process of the shoot was basically putting whatever we could find on Clarissa…including scary grandma dolls. Needless to say it was the most random shoot I had done in awhile aside from the shooting randomly at midnight that one time earlier in the semester. I want to try more.

Tomorrow I am heading back to Green Bay, which probably means less shooting…but I must get my Graphics page layouts done and my Textiles project completed. The semester will pass by quickly, so I must finish strong.

Come May, I’ll shoot everyday again. I can hardly wait.

Today my friend Clarissa and I ventured down from the coffeeshop to shoot at Lime Kiln park by the waterfall. We had no ideas in mind, just bags of costumes and our cameras. We found one surefire image, that I added to the Characters portfolio. We may have found another character with Clarissa wearing a fluffy white petticoat but I am still thinking more about those images and who this person could be. I like the Little Red Riding Hood character because she doesn’t necessarily have to be Little Red riding Hood. The cape is a symbol that brings out more question about Little Red’s identity…if this girl by the waterfall is in fact Little Red or not.

We plan on creating more characters today inside the coffee shop, who we will find, we don’t know. But right now all I can think about is how much my stomach is growling.

Above is a shot taken this morning…a LOT more is happening tomorrow. All day. And I have no specific goal in mind. Right now I am feeling a little lost because I am pretty sure I left my idea book at the coffeeshop. Luckily the staff and owners know me pretty well, and I was in the store after it closed so it should be safe. It has only been 3 places all day anyways: my house, Amy’s car, and John Harbor’s. Either way I have to get it back so I don’t feel more mentally insane than I already am.

Today was another very productive day thus far (it is only 5:40)…I shot what I consider to be my best digital image as long as I have been shooting with my DSLR, and shot another selection of shots that have a very magical storybook character element to them. The image in the bathroom came from the idea of the song title “She Came In Through The Bathroom Window” by the Beatles. This is the image that I am most proud of. The battle I fought with this image was that I wanted natural lighting from outside through the window, but I didn’t want to wash out the figure from behind with too much backlighting. So I used a halogen lamp with the foreground to illuminate the figure’s face. of course the battle was having two very different light sources illuminating the same image. I chose a period-style dress to reflect the time that the song was written and since there were plants being kept in Tuckie’s bathtub, the green floral print compliments the plantlife in the bathtub and balances the color pallete within the image.

The second photograph was more experimental, more with creating characters out of costumes and environments. Prior to shooting in Lime Kiln Park, we tried some more shots in Tuckie’s yard with a very elegant red dress…but nothing about these images spoke to me, hence I’m not going to use them…they’re “pretty” but nothing comes from them. With the ones in Lime Kiln park, we see a figure walking through the woods in very near-renaissance clothing…this asks the questions of who is this girl, what is she doing in the middle of the woods? Is she from another time, why is she dressed like that? My goal with these photos is not to assign too much meaning although the above image was inspired by a song, although in the end I don’t feel like it was created for that reason. After all, I do not intend to title the photograph “She Came In Through The Bathroom Window”…there could be any other story…why did she come in through the bathroom window.

Earlier today I visited the highschool again, I sat in Advanced Placement Portfolio and Computer Art. I helped the students and I feel more secure about going into Art Education. I loved learning and am really content with what I am working for. I hope to keep observing and keep learning…and perhaps I shall end up student teaching there someday.

Tomorrow, more photography will happen in this beautiful weather that has finally melted the snow. It may also be my last night in Milwaukee until Easter or the end of the semester.

I created a series with occurences at the watering hole which happens to be a sink…and the animals are only toys. I wonder what other concepts these photographs hold. After I put the box of animals I randomly found away…I found another box of animals. Oh we shall see what happens tomorrow…I plan on observing more at the highs chool and shooting with Tuckie as my model.

No shamrock shakes until next spring.

My brain is on full-drive for photography…it’s slightly rediculous. The above photo I found more of a story with it, and the more I thought about it, the more I wanted to share it. I might make it black and white, but I am not too sure yet.
Tonight instead of drinking green beer or shamrock shakes (all 3 Menomonee Falls locations are OUT!) I read an article on postmodernism and the body and got more of a sense about my work…the costumes, the use of female models, identities…
And of course, browsed deviantart, and found a spectacular photographer to stalk:

www.larajade.co.uk

I just ventured into my basement and found a box of toy animals. I think the sink may become their watering hole. I am about to go experiment…sure, you’ll prolly see a new post soon, but I’m okay with that. I may just be an obsessive-compulsive-blogger with my art as my medicine that drives the insanity further.

I thought for a minute and decided to post the photograph taken on Monday…the process that created this particular piece is similar to that of the milkmaid photographs. I gather random costumes and see what stories I can create with them. Tuckie, who modeled for this photo seen above, also provided jewelry so I created a story based off an engagement ring, a fur coat, and a dress that looks like it came from the 1940′s.

Tomorrow morning, more of these photographs are happening…outside.