The End-of-Summer Report

The summer break is two days away from being over! Woooo!

In one word, I can say that this summer was pretty successful - I managed to raise my grades to where I could stay in Denton, went to several parties, went out to the bars and even drank before class, draw naked chicks (and guys, I GUESS), found a job, and even got to see my family when I have had all this going on! It's been really good. More importantly, I get to spend my last break days with my babycakes. When she's not complaining about trivial things, we actually have a pretty good time together; she's really cute and sweet, and she's also pretty funny. I like cuddling with her at night and waking up with her and kissing her all over.

I've had a lot of fun this summer; and even when I didn't really have a summer break, so to speak, I'm ready to keep going with what I want and have to do. Last week I got my first DSLR camera, a Canon 20D. It's a really good camera even if it's a 4-year old camera. A 4-year old Canon. Now my little heart can take artsy, hipster pictures to its greatest content! And by that, I mean I'm gonna harass my girlfriend until the end of time with it. As well as her other roommates. Oh yeah, I have my photo class footage ready to go.

But yeah, I'm really looking forward to taking photo, as well as computer art, advancing in general. And doing "spit art" as Laura calls it. That's it. I'm out.

P.S. A picture of the camera.

Best experienced as if Morgan Freeman is reading it to you

I enjoy walking by myself on the town square, late at night. Everything of it is comforting. For one, you can walk by yourself because we're all tired to do wrong or right. You can comfort yourself under the blanket of air that's warm from the traces of smiles; you can read the phrases of saxophones beyond the smoke thanks to the light of glowing eyes. The soothe that comes with the last caresses of the town square says more about us than the public prowling of the day.

Rabble rabble rabble

Okay, so, where did we leave off last time?

I survived last semester... sort of. Details aside, I miraculously survived Design II thanks to my ridiculous stop-motion project (and maybe the sweet mercy of my teaching assistant, but I might be wrong). I stayed in Denton over the summer to get ahead on some of my classes, so I took Art Survey I and did really well; now I'm taking Figure Drawing, and it's taken me almost to the end of the class to unlearn how I've drawn years before, but how little I've changed is actually liberating and not as dull and plain-looking as I used to draw. Hopefully I get a decent grade by the end of it.

Also, I'm finally about to start the photo classes and the photography class is mainly digital, so I have to get a new digital SLR; which is GREAT and would be greater if only I could make up my damn mind about which one I wanna get - or rather, if only I had enough money to get a camera in the kick-ass spectrum and not the bare minimum range, but now I have a job and if things sort themselves out I might get a D90 or a D300 by the end of the year (hopefully). Or a D60, prior to that. I really want something that lets me shoot HD video, and those are great candidates, aside from just being great DSLRs. I'd like to make movies. Kinda like Michael Bay movies, only worth sitting down for plot and not the super-expensive special effects; now if I can get started on creating stories...

Now, in the subject of photograhy, I've been doing a bit of thinking, particularly after something I agreed on with my drawing teacher; he was talking about the "dangers" of having art that one created being regarded more for how "pretty" it might be and not for the message it tries to send. I also remember someone in one of those tight-knit internet communities that I go to, who said that photography was the lowest form of art because it usually fails to find meaning. Mind you, I find the guy to be a dick and most likely a troll, but after seeing a lot of pictures (and thanks to the internet, a lot of pictures really is A LOT) and the advent of digital photography, most photography still is portraiture and landscaping, he's (mostly) right! And it sucks. It sucks because digital photography has so much potential, and yet a lot of it ends up being the same old thing.

Anyway, I'm mostly just rambling, and this all has been said before for sure, and surely there's photographers out there trying to do something else, but I know from this point that whatever it is I end up doing has to go beyond the point of being just aesthetic, and possibly beyond the personal, too; I want to make art that communicates more than just "pretty" no matter how much it confuses or enrages people. I just want to say I'm mostly done with capturing the common and wanting to do something more. Just as, I'm sure, other photo artists (and other artists) have thought before me. Rabble rabble rabble.