Introduction
The Explorations project introduced juniors to the question, “How can you find, explore, and/or expand your passion?” Each student would explore their own passion and improve on a particular skill set that addresses the 21st Century Skills.
For my Explorations project, I focused on addressing the 21st Century Skill of visual literacy. Specifically, I decided to create a macro photography series of 4 photographs, focusing on the elements of nature which are Fire, Water, Air, and Earth. I chose to do macro photography because although I have some experience with photography in general, I’ve never done macro photography before and I thought the Explorations project would be a good opportunity for me to experiment with it further. Furthermore, I chose to focus on the elements of nature because I thought they would be a good fit for a series of photographs.
Process
The first part of my process was creating mood boards for each of the 4 elements. These helped me visualize the type of feeling I wanted to go for in each photo and were a good source of inspiration as well. For fire, because I couldn’t photograph a natural fire, I decided to use a lit candle as my subject, and wanted to go for a soft yet mysterious feeling. For water, originally I wanted to photograph a body of water with a serene and calm feeling, however the final product is very different from my initial idea. For air, I wanted to photograph blowing plants or falling leaves to give a refreshed feeling, and for earth I wanted my subject to be a plant sprout to convey the idea of growth.
After creating the mood boards with inspiration, I used two different locations to shoot: Filoli Gardens and outdoor areas around my home. While I was taking photos, I was mainly experimenting with the macro lens and using any subject I thought could potentially be used for one of the four elements. Then, I used Adobe Bridge to look through my photos and decide on the final photograph for each element. During this process, I was looking for the images that effectively conveyed the feeling and aesthetic I was going for, and not only had a good technical composition, but were interesting and allowed for interpretation.
Finally, I edited the final photos in Adobe Photoshop and adjusted settings such as exposure, brightness, contrast, vibrance, and saturation.
Final Production
My final production consists of the four final photographs and my Explorations Presentation.
Reflection
Reflecting on this project, while I’m happy with the final result, I also encountered challenges and came away with takeaways. Some of the challenges I faced included dealing with my camera, which had no zoom feature. When I was taking my photos, even if my hand moved a little bit, the result would be blurry. In addition to that, I initially struggled to figure out how I would photograph Air. Because I wasn’t able to use my original idea, I needed to come up with something else in a short amount of time, and the final photograph didn’t have the macro aspect I intended for. From this experience, I’ve come away with a few takeaways. One of these takeaways was that photography never goes as planned, especially when photographing natural objects in natural environments. Even though I planned out potential subjects and aesthetics for each photo, when I actually went out to shoot, I wasn’t able to completely follow those plans. Furthermore, I also learned that camera settings such as ISO, aperture, and shutter speed are crucial in creating a successful photograph, as I found myself adjusting those a lot in order to get the shot I wanted. Finally, I learned that photography is not just about composition, but also telling a story. This is essentially what I aimed to do through my macro photography series.
Music Recording
The Music Recording project in Digital Media was for students to gain experience in the recording studio on campus. For this project, I partnered with Estelle and Zoya to record a cover of A Night to Remember by Beabadoobee and Laufey.
Collaborative Artist Statement
Starting this project was a bit daunting since most of us haven’t had much experience musically, so when we got into our trio we started collaborating and brainstorming on how to work around our strengths and weaknesses. All of us wanted a song that was lighter, had drums for Zoya, piano for Sophie, and vocals for Estelle. As we went through all the songs we were thinking; we decided on A Night To Remember by Laufey and Beabadoobee. We liked the jazzy tone of the song, and the slower pacing that would be easier for us to keep up with.
However as Zoya and Sophie tried to practice the instruments for the song, they figured our cover would sound better if they sang vocals too. Due to everyone’s schedules becoming busy, we only had 15 minutes to practice before our recording session, however we harmonized the best we could and adapted quickly. It took us about 4 recording attempts to come to something we were satisfied with once we got in the studio. It was interesting seeing how the emotion of the lyrics is what really sells the music. All art is some tangible form of emotion, as a film student Estelle was used to understanding that we get sold a feeling whenever we watch a movie. Although, it never quite occurred to her that we did the same with music, so all lyrics need to be sung with intention and make listeners feel something and be in the moment with you.
Relaxing in the recording studio and just singing for enjoyment made us all feel inspired. It’s fun to just mess around with friends and laugh over mistakes with no pressure. We think environments like that are healing for creatives when they’re used to their talents becoming a job or a chore. We look forward to more memories in the recording studio.
Reflecting more on this project, it was a little bit intimidating because none of us like singing solo in public but we learned that singing with a group wasn’t awful. Our voices harmonized pretty well for the first time singing together.
Poetry
To kick off the poetry unit in English, Mr. Greco had a Poet-in-Residence, Christine Moore, give a few workshops on poetry. These workshops consisted of three lessons: Introduction to Poetry, Cento Poetry, and Ars Poetica. A key takeaway I gained from the Poet-in-Residence visit and the poetry unit as a whole was that there’s no right or wrong way to write poetry and that all poetry is meaningful and beautiful in it’s own way.
The poetry unit also challenged each student to produce their own poem. For my poem, I decided to create a Cento poem, which combines lines from multiple poems to create an entirely new poem. Furthermore, I wanted to make this poem about nature and focus on the imagery of flowers in the spring.
Final Poem
Flowers
By Sophie Lam
(a cento poem)
The rose is a secret the earth remembers.
Each petal folds like silence, slow.
Lilies bloom between stems of green,
motionless under the widening sky.
The air is full of after-singing.
A field of daffodils beside the lake,
fluttering and dancing in the breeze.
The bloom is brief—but the scent stays.
The silence was sunlit, and the grasses
held the heat like memory.
Works of: W.S. Merwin, H.D., May Sarton, Louise Glück, William Wordsworth, Sara Teasdale, Sylvia Plath, Ted Hughes