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All this talk of alchemy had me thinking of this song…enjoy!
A description of this week’s media task gave me a false sense of confidence. Upon reading, I thought: No prob. Got this.
The challenge simmered all week and my camera roll is testament to my (futile) efforts to capture intriguing, unique images of the 4 elements.
For example, this beauty went right “down the tubes”:
And so, the journey continued….looking, listening, pondering….always falling just a little short of what I had imagined at the beginning of this quest….isn’t there earth all around me? Metaphorical water???
Flash-forward 6 days and I’m still not (fully) satisfied with my efforts. I had grand ideas that fell flat upon execution. I think I may have over-complicated this week’s task. (I did, however, learn how to make a gif!–actually, I made four.)
I recently had a new fireplace installed and I really wanted to use it. I’m so amazed at how, with the click of a button, I can have fire in my living room. Hence, the gif idea was born….something a still photo can’t capture. With gif mission complete, I decided to continue with the theme. Looking around my house with new eyes, I had a new appreciation for the things we very often take for granted like……
With gif mission complete, I decided to continue with the theme. Looking around my house with new eyes, I had a new appreciation for the things we very often take for granted like……
—running water. Not really “metaphorical” water, yet not exactly water in it’s most natural state (kinda like the fireplace….so not “natural,” yet real fire..it WILL burn)
And the air…I contemplated a balloon to show captured air (but I didn’t have one handy) and then I passed my fan. (we use this sucker every night..it’s really loud)
And then there’s earth…..Ugggh…I couldn’t bear to break the gif theme I was going for….I have a plant in my house that I wish I could have shown growing in time-elapsed fashion, but, uh, you know….I didn’t have a few weeks to work with so….I have no earth gif representation. FAIL.
So tonight was my niece Riley’s birthday party. I couldn’t resist the urge to show air and fire in the same gif. So here she is.
The Elements Embodied….just for fun
I played around with some other ideas…I was leaving the house earlier today and say a picture of my husband’s firefighting crew hanging by the door…FIREfighters??…..that could work…..my daughter’s a swimmer..ok, good…my son….is full of hot air most of the time???…no, that’s not nice….uhh..what else…I’m a mother so mother earth??…ok that’s a stretch…..here are the resulting pictures of pictures of people and pictures of people…
Last reflections…
Experimenting with photography has been a blast…I took a class in college (the first time around many, many years ago) and remember playing with f-stops on a (very) manual camera and developing film in a dark room…it’ss really bringing me back and fun to think about the world a little differently….we foget that sometimes (when we grow up, maybe?)
And the best part of all? My kids’ reactions to me standing on a chair taking pics of the chandelier, or videos of running water….Mom, what arre you doing??? Stop acting crazy!!! My son, the youtuber and I were making videos at the same time..priceless. Are you doing digital alchemy stuff again??? he asked. Just perfect!!!!!
Mia Zamora, Ph.D. said:
Laura,
My boys are doing the same thing. Are you making another video Mom? There is a kind of productive creative-competitive vibe rising in the house thanks to digital alchemy!
I am glad the photography spark is revived in you. 🙂
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CogDog said:
You definitely went the extra steps to do the GIFs, a great example of doing the assignment in a way I never imagined. We will do more GIF making for sure; so many people think of GIFs as something you search for and download, but I think it’s much more empowering to make our own.
So what are you using to make the GIFs? Are they from stills or video?
And few things make me happy when students families get involved / interested in the work they are doing.
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lopezla2015 said:
Funny story…I made a video of my faucet running. Tried to email to laptop but didn’t work…File too big. Uploaded from phone right to YouTube. Then uploaded to gify.com or something….repeat for fire and air. Soon I noticed I already had 4 views. Later that day my sister-in-law was like “what’s with your videos?” Me: “huh???” Then I realized people are watching everything….I had a good laugh…she though I was losing my mind!!!
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