I admit to be the biggest YouTube junkie. I love watching random videos on Youtube when I am bored or need a good laugh. Recently I have been obsessing over this YouTube celebrity named “nigahiga” and I find him extremely hilarious. He recently released a music  video called “Nice Guys” and sometimes I find myself humming that song in the most random moments. Since I love the song so much (and I don’t know why) I decided to alter the voice on garageband and make it sound even funnier.

Garageband is an application on Macbooks, so for those who have a mac and have not yet explored garageband – YOU ARE MISSING OUT ON LIFE.

It was very easy and fun to do. I recorded the song on garageband and then i was able to change the pitch of the voice. I made the pitch very high, then I uploaded it to SoundCloud. Hope you enjoy it. Also, check out the original version of the song Here.

Dear Mom and dad,

I can not believe it, another week of camp has gone by – so fast. This week has been hectic for me. Like every other week. But it has been a lot of fun, nonetheless. I had to do a safari of my daily activities. I had to take a photograph of various things alter them in ways that where I explored different design concepts. It was awesome to say the least.

I also learned about Creative Commons. It is a copyright group that permits individuals to redistribute projects and ideas legally without getting “permission” from the actual source.

That is pretty much all I did this week. I hope you are doing well. Talk to you soon.

Your favorite child,
Abir

In the past few months an internet trend of “what people think I do” has become viral. Of course I had to jump on the bandwagon and make my own meme, how could I not? I based this on my life. How different people perceive me. I have always been the type to keep a part of myself hidden from the world. I just feel safe not exposing myself completely. I find this interesting. What my friends think of me, is different than what my parents think of me, and what strangers (feminist) think of me, what outsiders (society) thinks of me and of course what I think of myself (which can be far from reality).

To create this meme, I utilized a website called “http://uthinkido.com/.”  I also used photoshop to alter some images, and adjust the image’s size to fit the websites upload requirement. The website however, did all the work for me. I inserted the “what … think I do” and uploaded the photos.

For this Design Assignment, I chose to make a creative commons image. I have falling in love with Creative Commons. I made the image below using powerpoint, which is a tool I have been using for a very long time. Surprisingly powerpoint has many interesting features that can be very resourceful. This image is actually of myself, it was taken by a friend who is a professional photography who allowed me to alter the photo in a specific way. On powerpoint, I used “Word Art.”

This particular picture was captured and used in a local magazine describing the role of Muslim women in society. The photograph, in my opinion, is pretty awesome. Even most photographers watermark their photographs to restrict others from using their images without permission. However, Creative Commons allows for the removal of those restrictions and gives people the freedom to express themselves while sharing their art globally. Maybe one day I will submit my work to creative commons to share with others.

What is the Creative Commons?

The first thing I do when I encounter something unfamiliar, I refer to google for answers, information and definition (and most of you can attest to this). Mr. google is well rounded and always (well not ALWAYS) but almost always knows the answer. Despite the long introduction, Creative Commons according to google is:

• A non profit organization that works to expand the amount of creativity,
• Also, allows the frame of work to be accessible to the public for free and legal distribution, use and alteration.

Google search engine also directed me to a website that is based on Creative Commons: www.creativecommons.org

Websites such as Flickr, Google, CNN, Wikipedia, etc have a saying that is “All Rights Reserved” is now “Some Rights Reserved.” This website included some of the “BIG” names on the Internet that use Creative Commons.

The vision that creative commons has in their mindset is to reach the full potential of the Internet. In other words have people be able to fully participate in a global movement of sharing creativity across the planet.

Dear Parents,

I honestly don’t  know what happened to me this week. I was definitely falling behind in work and the week just has been INSANE. The counselors here at camp are wonderful and they continue to teach us how to tell stories through visual creations, such as photography.

It has been a lot of fun exploring different aspects of photography and learning to make interesting images. However the course work is getting heavy and I haven’t been physically capable to catch up. I continued being sick this week, and that was not fun for me.

As I previously told you we have to complete “Daily Creates” of different things. There are daily assignments that needs to be completed and we chose five out of the seven to do. Mom and dad you already know that I love photography. Therefore I first focused on taking pictures of something that isn’t in focus or apart if it is blurr. I used my Canon t1i Rebel to capture the image then used Aperture to blurr some part of the image.

Then I took a photograph of six minutes past the hour. You know that we are a tea loving family and therefore I took a picture of a tea cup that has a picture of a clock six past the hour.

Thirdly, I created a monochrome photograph, this is my favorite feature while edited photographs. Monochrome gives certain images this element that makes you tell stories, even with the simplest of pictures. I again used Aperture, to conduct this feature.

and fourth create was to capture an image of something metaphorical or physical that I envy. My childhood is something that I truly miss. I still consider myself a big kid at heart (and mind) but I also miss the innocence that dies off as we grow into these heartless human beings. Being a child is a beautiful thing, and let’s be honest, I was a darn cute little girl. I took a picture of my friend on a swing at night, under the moonlight. This photograph explained my childhood pretty well.

Finally, I explored mine craft, a virtual world that I am able to connect with other campers while building myself a fortress to keep out the monsters, umm yes. Monsters come out at night to kill you, so I downloaded this game and I will eventually defeat these darn monsters. Maybe this is not a good idea after all. But I will let you know how it goes.

Also I forgot to tell you that our camp counselors showed us how to correctly use plug ins for our blogs. I learned how to install them. I installed twitter, recent comments and other plug ins to make my site appear awesome (hope it worked).

Alright, that is all for now.
I hope you are doing well.

Your favorite daughter,
Abir