My first project in my senior year at Freestyle was the reflections project. For this project we were really told to explore the question "Who am I?". In English we did a lot of brainstorming exercises to help us answer this question and then finally wrote a personal essay. We also read two books "Blink" by Malcolm Gladwell and "Citizen" by Claudia Rankine and after reading "Citizen" we interviewed someone who has a different identity to you and wrote a lyrical essay in the same style as Rankine. In Design we explored how to shoot and edit HDR photos. We took practice photos during class and edited those for practice for our big project. This project was to make a dyptic based off of our personal essay. In Digital Media we were assigned to make two After Effects videos one which was based off an English brainstorming piece we did called Five Things I've Learned in my Life so Far. The other was a Perspective video where we wrote a two minute speech on anything that was important to you. This unit was really fun for me and too see the growth I've made from last year to this year already is amazing and has been a source of pride for me. If you scroll down you will see all of the work I completed in this unit and get a glimpse of who I am, I hope you enjoy!

Personal Essay

Here is my Personal Essay on my trip to Northern Tier and everything that led up to it.

Click here to view my Personal Essay.

Five Things I've Learned

Below is the first After Effects video I made about the Five Things I've Learned. I hope you enjoy.

In English after reading "Citizen" we were assinged to write a Lyrical Essay emulating Rankine's style. We were told to interview someone of a different identity then you. I chose to interview a friend of mine who has parents of different religions. I wrote the essay using the second person as this is a common theme in Rankine's writing. I hope you enjoy it.

Rubber Band

You’re a rubber band, pulled and stretched in different directions. Trying to find a perfect balance, trying not to break. Each family pulls you to their side trying to get you to choose them. You want to please both sides, but it’s tough. Every decision you make, they think you are choosing a side, even though you aren’t. You value both cultures and religions but at times they don’t see that.

As you get older you make your own choice but that comes with consequences. Your family accepts your decision eventually even though there is some anger still. You go to a new school, which you think will support your beliefs but they look at you different because of your family's background. They think that having parents of different religions isn’t right. You can’t practice two religions while attending a religious school. They discriminate.

But you’re a rubber band. It sometimes hurts to get stretched out and pulled by so many different things and people but you still find away to return to your normal shape. You accept that you are different and love that you can experience different cultures different things and find what works for you. All the pulling and stretching all it does is makes you stronger.

In Design, we had to create a black and white diptych juxtaposing two images that are in discord and/or harmony using a piece of writing in English. An HDR image is commonly made by taking multiple photos of the same scene, each at different shutter speeds. This makes it so you have different exposures of the same image. Adobe Photoshop then combines all the photos to bring details to the shadows and highlights both. I took inspiration from my personal essay to create this image.

Click here to view my HDR Photo.

My personal essay was about my trip to Northern Tier, the training I had going into and how that led to leading a successful rescue mission. For my first subject I choose to photograph roots of a tree because the main portion of my essay was about the trainings and how they were what made me capable of accomplishing my rescue. That is why I choose roots because they are the bases of the tree and what keeps the tree going, which is what my trainings have done to me. For my second photo I took a picture of my old Cub Scout uniform and my current Boy Scout uniform to show the person I have become today. It also shows where I got these trainings and the growth I have made from these trainings which is the basis of my essay. The two sides speak to each other because the roots were how I was able to make this transformation. To create my compositions I started by taking HDR photos of my objects, meaning I took 5 pictures of the object at different exposures and then combined them into one. I struggled a bit with this because my first time shooting my tripod moved a bit while taking those pictures so I had to retake the photos. After taking the photos I went into Photoshop and made the photos black and white and used an adjustment layer to changed the balance of the image. It was tough to make it so the images weren’t too black and weren’t too over exposed. It took a while but I feel like I struck a good balance at the end. I would maybe try and find a way to show more of my former uniforms which is what I originally wanted but overall I was happy.

In Digital media we were assigned to make a Perspective Video using After Effects. The assignment was to make a video on something that is important to you, it could be about anything. I chose to discuss mental health awareness. I started by writing the speech and then I recorded the audio, and made a 3D picture based animation. This is one of my favorite projects I have done here at Freestyle click bellow I hope you enjoy.

Click to see my projects page which will take you to all of the websites I have made.