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Tuesday, June 12th, 2012

I searched for a movie scene that everyone would know and was from a movie that I enjoy. I used Photoshop to insert myself in this famous movie. I used the scene as the background and used the lasso tool to copy myself out of another photo. I then pasted my image and moved my picture around to the right spot. Yet, it still was not quite right. I used the same technique that I used to cut myself out on the suitcase in the background and pasted that onto of my image. So it looked like I was actually in the scene rather than pasted on top.

I love Forrest Gump. It makes me laugh and it always moves me to tears. You watch as Forrest goes through his life, making friends, overcoming obstacles, and wandering through history without a clue. So just for a moment, I will be someone that sits and listens to the story that Forrest has to tell. As Forrest would say, “And that’s all I have to say about that.”

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Andy Warhol

Tuesday, June 12th, 2012

I took this photo with Photobooth on my computer and added the pop art effect. Quick, easy, and simple! Finding the subject worthy of being Warhol-ed though was a different matter. There were so many things I could choose from, including myself.

This is my mother’s grandfather clock that has been in my life forever. I grew up with the sound of it chiming. Too the point, where I know the the rhythm of the chime anywhere. It seemed worthy of becoming pop art. It stands at an angle in a corner and with every step or shift of weight on the floor it will let you know it happens to be there.

This photo combines classic and funky. And any photo of a clock makes the viewer think about time. We think about the amount of time we have, in a day or in a lifetime. I normally think about the speed of time and how fickle it can be. Why must it crawl in a boring situation? Why does it speed through when I am having fun? And why, oh why, must it stop when I have to give a presentation in front of people?

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My Week in Review (Week 3)

Tuesday, June 12th, 2012

Wow, was it a busy week! I may have bitten off more than I can chew this Summer but I’m trying hard to stay on top of everything. In addition to ds106, I am also taking a course at Germanna Community College to fill in some outstanding general elective requirements. That course is fairly easy for me and not too time consuming…at least not yet. I intended to take a third online course this summer as well, but I am seriously rethinking that idea! As desperately as I want to finish my coursework and graduate next May from UMW, I don’t want to set myself up to fail or lower my GPA. Yeah, I know I am hard on myself about my academics, but it’s too important to me not to be. Anything worth doing is worth doing right!

And when it rains it pours! Work has been a little hectic as I am now the only Proposal Manager still standing in our organization. One quit and walked out, the other just went out on medical leave for an undetermined amount of time. I am frantically trying to carry my workload and get up to speed and assume their former projects as well. I hope my upper management hires the replacement as soon as possible—I’m not sure how long I can keep all the balls in the air without dropping something.

The good news is that as busy and work-intensive as I am finding ds106 to be, I am thoroughly enjoying it! It is providing me the opportunity (ok, really the requirement) to be creative and contemplate things around me differently. I am still a little behind the curve, I think, due to my learning curve on some of the technologies and tools involved here, but I am having a blast learning this way.

So what have I accomplished this week, you ask? Well, here’s a rundown:

I managed the complete 5 of the 7 Daily Creates (tdc). My original goal was to complete them all but I intentional skipped the sound recording one, and the other, I just didn’t get to on Sunday. If my schedule ever opens up and I get a grip on this camp, I might go back and do some of the ones I missed. I especially enjoy the photography challenges. The photography tips tricks and hints were very helpful in getting better photo compilations. If you haven’t been following along daily, you can see a review of my tdc submissions from Week 3 in my last post: A Daily Dose of Creative Photography
For Visual Assignments, the requirement was do complete and blog 10 “stars” worth of project (or I like to think of them as challenges) from the ds106 Assignment Repository. Again, I wanted to do more, but time is my biggest hurdle these days. And since I haven’t done a lot of photo editing before, learning the ins and outs of some of the programs has been challenging and time consuming. I think my favorite to do was If you’ve got them… followed by Seasonally Friendly?. The Average of Lily and The First to Admit It (Checking Out) were fun and fairly easy to do, but it didn’t include any “original” work on my part…just following instruction and seeing want happens! I’ve had a little blogging trouble that apparently left Art that Pops sitting in a draft vortex way too long, but I realized it was missing and was able to publish it this morning.
I got Google Reader up and running and subscribed to all the ds106 blogs, but I am ashamed to admit I have not been as active commenting on my bunkmates’ and fellow campers’ blogs and assignments as I should be and/or WANT to be. I need to step it up a notch there!
I have also spent a significant amount of time this week investigating many photo editing tools, including web-based tools (Fotoflexer, Pixlr), free download software (Picasa, GIMP), and iPhone/iPad apps (Snapseed, Photoshop Express). It’s been a lot of fun playing with them. My strategy is to write a tutorial or two, showcasing a tool that hasn’t already been described in past tutorials. Especially for those of us who can’t afford to invest in PhotoShop or want to have a mobile option through apps.

I’m proud of this week’s accomplishments, but I’ve run into trouble along the way and getting lost in the forest once or twice. I will give Jim Groom props for twittering me a few links to help me with my blogging issues on Saturday. I’ve been having some issues with sizing photos in my posts. I *think* I may have figured it out, but we’ll see…

I usually avoid any and all virtual worlds, simply because my real world keeps me busy enough that I don’t have time to run a fake one! I briefly dabbled in Farmville, but gave it up when I couldn’t keep up and my crops kept withering! So Minecraft is foreign territory to me!!! I got it installed, but I am completely lost at how to move around, do anything, or find anything, or anybody for that matter. I need to do some further research on how to work that world! Maybe I can get in there with someone else, who knows what they’re doing, to help me figure out the basics. Since our next Campfire is being held in there…and finally at a time I can join…I guess I better get it figured out fast!

That’s all for now…marching forward with week 4….

Posted in bunk2, ds106, magicmacguffin, umwsum12, weeklyletter | Comments Off on My Week in Review (Week 3)

A Daily Dose of Creative Photography

Tuesday, June 12th, 2012

I tried a different approach this week for blogging my Daily Creates. Instead of blogging them one at a time, as I completed them, I am showcasing the whole collection here this week. I have been twittering the Flickr links each day but I will probably return to blogging each one separately in the future (in addition to twittering, of course!).

After camp announcements were posted on Monday, I did a little research and just kept clicking links, following a crazy curve path through the Web, absorbing as many tricks, tips, and hints as I could. The photography resources the Directors provided were great! I’m really learning to work my new digital camera as well as my iPhone camera! I learned some pretty cool ways to add interest and intrigue through photography. For instance, some of my favorite, most helpful lessons were:

Take photos of anything, ugly things, everyday things (anyone looking at my memory card might think a two-year-old was playing with it! LoL)
Change positions with your body to change perspective (I have stopped trying to center subject from straight on)
Keep all photos, even bad ones (I keep thinking these might be useful later)
Shoot like you don’t have Photoshop (I don’t so that’s easy, but my goal when photographing is to not think about editing the shots. I’m trying to get the shot I want with JUST the camera)
Always carry a camera with you and use multiple cameras (I’m now carrying two with my everywhere—my iPhone and my Canon PowerShot 260SX. I find myself stopping to take pics that I wouldn’t have bothered with before)
Last but not least…use the “grid” and “rule of thirds”. (this is helping me get more interesting and creative shots J)

And now for the instant replay:

tdc148—Create a photograph today where some/all of your subject isn’t in focus.

Cloudy Canine

You’ve met Duke in previous photo assignments. Here’s Gracie, my other Golden. Cloudy and out of focus. Had to play with the camera a bit, using the fish-eye lens, I had to be quick to beat the auto focus feature. Took me a while to get it but I had fun trying!

tdc149—ds106 day in your life – Take a photo at 6 minutes past the hour for an entire day.

Pix @ Six

I had a few ideas about how to do this one, so all day I took a few shots at 6 minutes past every hour. This way good or bad photos, I would be able to figure out what to do with them at the end of the day. Ultimately, I had to nix my original idea, which was to replay the numbers on a clock face with an image that I took at the corresponding hour. It was getting late and I was having trouble getting GIMP to cooperate with me to create the final image I wanted, so I changed in up a bit. In this collage, I show an image of a timekeeping device near me, displaying the time at xx:06 every hour for 12 hours.

tdc150—Make a monochrome photo (monochrome doesn’t have to mean black and white)

Mayan Calendar

In making a monochrome photo, I decided to attempt to actually take a monochrome photo, instead of using filters, B&W, sepia, or photo editing software. After wandering around my house and yard, taking a dozen or so options, I think this is it. A zoomed in pic of the Mayan calendar wall sculpture I bought in Mexico a few years ago. This is where some of the photography tips kicked in! Instead of showing the whole sculpture, I zoomed in on an interesting portion of it and used the Rule of Thirds to make it interesting and unusual.

tdc151—Take a photo of something that you are envious of (physical or metaphorical).

Beautiful Drive

The topic for this one gave me a lot of trouble. I was at a loss for ideas; so much so that I almost skipped it. But on my way home for work that day, I passed the entrance to Curtis Park in Stafford, Va. I have always loved the look and feel of a long, mature, tree-lined drive. Inspiration struck! I pulled over and started shooting (photos!). I played with angles and lighting, taking many pics so I would have at least a few good ones to work with. I chose this one because it captures the calm, serene feeling that I so envy and desire in the grand entrance to my home, my haven.

tdc153—Take a photo of the oldest building near you; use add filters to make your photo look even older.

The Lewis Store (est 1749)

This was Saturday’s Daily Create. I was just getting ready to leave for my historic downtown Fredericksburg Photoshop, when I saw it pop up on Twitter. I stop to do a little internet investigation. Knowing there are so many old, historic buildings there, I was curious to know…exacting which one IS the oldest. The answer is The Lewis Store, built in 1749. It is not only the oldest building in Fredericksburg, Virginia, but one of the oldest retail buildings in the United States. It sits at the corner of Caroline Street and Lewis Street. Again, I follow some of the photography guidelines I learned this week and took many photos, at different angles and depths, with different lighting. I was tempted to edit out the street signs, to give it a “less modern-day” look, but decided to keep the integrity of the image intact, just playing with the sepia filter to give it an antique feel.

Posted in bunk2, ds106, magicmacguffin, tdc148, tdc149, tdc150, tdc151, tdc153, umwsum12 | Comments Off on A Daily Dose of Creative Photography

Art that Pops

Tuesday, June 12th, 2012

I am sooo frustrated right now! This blog post has been sitting as a draft in my blog queue! Ugh! It was supposed to post yesterday!

Visual Assignment 340–Splash the Color (2 stars). I took this photo while on my historic downtown Fredericksburg photo shoot last Saturday. There is a empty lot on Caroline Street that is “sealed off” by a wooden fence/barrier. To add interest to this wall, local artist showcase 6 different paintings on this wall. I’ve always liked the little surprise that it brings while walking (or driving) down the street. On my trip through town, I decided the photograph the collection at an angel, adding depth perception to my image. Here is the orginial photograph:

After I got the photo image uploaded into FotoFlexer, it was pretty easy to turn the image to B&W and then make just one painted mural “pop”. All I did was turn the photo to black and white using the greyscale effect. Then I played with the greyscale advanced options. I selected “painted region” in the “apply to menu, selected “original” and marked the box to “invert”. I adjusted the brush size and was quickly able to recolor the one block on the image, the first mural, back to it’s vibrate colors. It really makes it stand out against the rest on the now greyscale image. This was a fun and fairly easy project to do.

Now I can’t stop thinking about all the ways I can do this to other images and create my own art to display!

Posted in bunk2, ds106, magicmacguffin, umwsum12, VisualAssignments, VisualAssignments340 | Comments Off on Art that Pops

Greetings from Beyond

Tuesday, June 12th, 2012

Dear Beloved Family,

I’m writing you following the third week of camp here at Magic MacGuffin. Above, you’ll see a postcard that I created that reflects my feelings this week. On the one hand, camp is a blast, and I wish you were here. On the other hand, I feel a strange, blurry darkness descending and I fear what will come next.

Allow me to explain.

I’m finding that my life at camp is beginning to get the better of me. I am so deeply embedded in the virtual and real world of the Mountain that I cannot clearly distinguish what is real from what is unreal.

Yesterday, I lost my glasses. I searched my entire cabin for them. They weren’t anywhere! I was really getting stressed, so I did what I usually do when I need to FIND something. I went to Google:

At the time, I was really mad at Google. The results it was giving me were TOTALLY unhelpful. But then, later, I thought perhaps Google isn’t what I should have used? I mean, I can’t remember if that’s how I usually search for lost things. I’m so confused.

Then, I was reading some amazing new posts from some of the campers on my iPad. I was so engrossed, I reached around to turn the page. But, there was no page to turn! Did iPads used to have pages? How I am going to keep up with the camp reading if I can’t turn pages, anymore?! Am I missing something…?

My head hurts.

Then, this morning, I woke up from an amazing and insightful dream about camp. I thought, “I have to blog about that!” But then I remembered that I had installed the DreamPress plugin, which automatically blogs your dreams, complete with dreamshots. BUT, when I went to check my site later, I couldn’t find the plugin anywhere! I couldn’t even find it in the official WordPress plugin repository.

Someone is obviously playing tricks on me. I hate to say it, but I suspect my co-director, Alan. He’s been very mysterious lately. He SAYS he’s at camp, but I can never FIND him. Sometimes, I hear him around the campfire, but when I turn to look at him, HE’S NOT THERE.

Today, he’s supposed to meet me at Shed #4 and introduce me to “Marco.” Does anyone want to come with me? I’m nervous…

On the bright side, we had a great week at camp learning more about photography and visual storytelling. I’m most proud of this picture I took after hanging my hammock outside of my cabin. I didn’t have the energy after putting it up to climb into it, so I lay down on the ground underneath and took a nap. When I woke up, this was the view:

Lovely, I think. I think. I think. I think I’ll take a nap.

Until next week,

Martha

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Slide Guy in the Sunshine State

Tuesday, June 12th, 2012

Thought I’d take a crack at another visual assignment before the focus shifts to Design. Given the recent avalanche of excitement generated by the slide guy assignment, I could resist the urge to try a doing a couple with some vintage postcards.

The postcards were found via Google image search. The minimal bit of editing was done in GIMP and the Slide Guy image came from the dropbox.

As Slide Guy’s head partially obscured the word “Keys,” I used the clone tool to cover it with the surrounding blue. The use of the definite article with Florida might make some cringe. Fortunately, there isn’t yet a grammar component to the grading of these ds106 assignments.

Posted in Camp Magic MacGuffin, ds106, magicmacguffin, openonline, VisualAssignments, VisualAssignments595 | Comments Off on Slide Guy in the Sunshine State

Venn? Now!

Tuesday, June 12th, 2012

I got this thing for information graphics. It’s a Zazzy thing — can’t explain it. At any rate, Alan’s assignment was just what I was looking for to express my lifelong fascination with old movies, aging TV series, and the inscrutable weirdness of the bible. Dig it:

Posted in bunk4, Camp Magic MacGuffin, counselor, DesignAssignments, DesignAssignments596, ds106, magicmacguffin, openonline | Comments Off on Venn? Now!

Branded Forever

Tuesday, June 12th, 2012

Today I decided to make leather pouches at the crafts table. Yet, I came across this piece of leather with a huge brand in the center. I was very deeply affected. This scar is still left years after everything else is gone. I understand back in the Wild West when cattle was free range and cowboys still existed, branding was used as a way to catalog and keep track of livestock. Back when people thought that animals don’t feel pain. But this is the 21st century, we have the technology. We microchip cats and dogs. We have the internet, satellites, radar, and instant information. Surely, we could find a better and more humane way to keep track of our livestock. Frankly, most cattle isn’t even free range anymore so there really isn’t a need to permanently mark an animal just so you don’t lose it. People worry about growth hormones and what goes into an animal before we decide to eat it. The whole point behind the organic movement. Yet, only certain groups of people worry about the emotional well being and life of the animal, instead of making tasty and healthy to eat. And there are still people in this world that think that animal don’t feel pain. That animals are some how inferior to humans. I just can’t see it. I have a dog and a cat that mean the world to me. Lucas, the dog, wants to make sure that I am safe at all times and Max, the cat, makes sure that I am happy. Always ready to comfort me when I have had a bad day. Animals give unconditional love and forgive easily. Appearances and disabilities mean nothing to them. How can something so compassionate be inferior?

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Venn Gandalf

Tuesday, June 12th, 2012

I’ve been all day peeking at the different design magic of Stephen Wildish’s site, I think we linked last year to one of his film alphabets, but all of his work has powerful elements of graphic design we are introducing this week to ds106 / Camp Magic Macguffin.

The one that got under my skin was the Yoda Ven diagram, which outlines the possible intersections of “Green”, “Small”, and “Poor Grammar”, and when you run intersections of these you get:

I knew I wanted to make this a new design assignment, so I did- Venn Pop Culture:

In the vein of Stephen WIldish’s “Yoda Venn” (see http://stephenwildish.co.uk/ for all of of his designs), design a Venn diagram of three circles, each representing an attribute, where each overlap defines a figure from popular culture.

I had a harder time coming up with three that worked, and gave my all the combinations. I then aimed to define the intersection of all three characteristics to get them all to describe Gandalf, and that broke down into “Old” “Long Hair”, and “Powerful”. Here is what I got:

I tossed out about 10 other starts that failed. This is not easy! Making the graphic was simple in GIMP, a gradient background, and three overlapping circle selections with fill and “multiply” for layer effect.

And what does this mean? Well everyone likes Gandalf, they want an old powerful wizard on their side. The hair? Works for me. The more fun relationships are the 2 sided cross overs.

So Venn will you do this assignment?

Posted in DesignAssignments, DesignAssignments596, ds106, Magic MacGuffin, magicmacguffin | Comments Off on Venn Gandalf

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