galler-tree

for my final project for film photography class, i decided to take a picture of every single tree along my street, following the route that i take to get to school. i shot a close up of the trees mid-trunk, creating abstract prints of bark. because i didn't realize how much work this would be later, i shot 35 trees and paid for it in sheer time making all the prints. i spent upwards of 15 hours in the darkroom last week making prints of bark, like a crazy person, and then like an even crazier person, i went and nailed them to the trees from whence they came. the idea was to create an enigmatic neighborhood art piece to draw attention to the beauty of the trees, which it seems like no one ever notices. so yesterday i went and nailed the prints up and had some interesting (and encouraging!) conversations with passersby. i think i made a couple of old ladies pretty happy.

however, i came back a couple hours later only to notice that 3/4 of the prints had been removed! enigmatic indeed. i was a little upset but also intrigued and bemused - who had taken them? why? to me it either seemed a strongly worded declaration: either strongly against or strongly for my prints. did someone steal them or remove them? i will probably never know. but alas, trees on trees!

cross-country compositions

a couple weeks ago i went to visit my boyfriend in ottawa for his birthday weekend, and i brought my film camera with me. i was happy to see that my prints came out almost as magical as they felt when they were taken! here's a few from walking around downtown, surreal, vivid and exhilarating.

(sorry for the grain; my scanner eats film quality for breakfast.)

self portrait

now that i'm actually (finally!) getting to study photography in school, maybe i'll actually (finally!) write some consistent blog posts.

i'm taking two different photography classes right now: digital, and film. they are quite different from one another, which is refreshing. however, they focus on enough of the same technical stuff that manual aperture and shutter settings are finally starting to click (ha!) in my head.

for my digital photography class our first project was to do a self-portrait. i struggled with ideas for a bit at first, but with some skype help from my lovely boyfriend i figured out what i wanted to do. i borrowed the projector in our classroom and projected a picture of some writing (a phrase i made up for a similar, albeit theatrical, project i did in high school) from my journal onto it. i then stood in front of it, letting the words fall onto my face, and had someone take my picture. the idea was to let my own words create a better portrait of myself than i thought i could with a camera (seems like cheating, i know!). i'm glad with how it turned out, especially since other previous attempts at self-portraiture have rendered me with somewhat of a self-esteem complex as i didn't realize quite how awkward i actually look in real life (and you know what they say - the camera adds ten pounds: only in my case, it's more like ten awkwards).

anyways. it's done, i don't have to think about it anymore, and i'm pretty glad with how it turned out! (this version, unfortunately, wasn't the one i got to submit since it had to be in colour, but i like the black and white one more.)

les arbres

trees are one of my absolute favourite things to photograph, barring lyndsay and flowers, of course. here are some pictures i took a while back and just found on my computer:

che(e)r(r)y blossoms

one of the most exciting prospects involved with moving to vancouver was the promise of cherry blossoms in the spring. and lo and behold, they are blooming right now! i think my face was the pinnacle of enthusiasm when i spotted the first opening buds. anyway, i followed the now normative course of action for going on a photoshoot: (1) grab lyndsay. (2) grab camera. (3) take adorable pictures.
here is the result!