"My Stars!"

Just if you're wondering, the title of my post comes from a Looney Tunes episode in which bugs bunny is impersonating a manicurist in order to get out of being ripped apart by the monster he's giving a manicure to. :] Anyways, aside from cartoons, I'm trying to evoke one's love of the inner child with my last project for my photography final. I decided to photograph origami stars that I used to make for countless hours as a kid (good activity for long trips)
I had actually done what could be called a "test shoot" two weeks before, which went horribly wrong. I began to have a migraine 15 minutes before I entered the studio (good timing, huh?) I tried to do what I could, but every time I would tilt my head to look through the view finder, I could feel my head violently spin, as though I was losing my balance. To make the story short; nothing was accomplished...
Today, I decided to try again. I started where I left off and realized that my vision just didn't translate well on paper. After a lot of adjusting, trying and more adjusting, I finally found my image!

Advertising Photography Final

It's finals week. A slightly more legitimate reason to be neglecting this poor blog of mine. I do at least have some photos to share with everyone! I have some portrait photos that I took of a friend of mine. She is gorgeous and was so sweet to be willing to sit for me. We tried a series of 4 different outfits. My favorites are the ones that you see here. I went for a free spirited, fresh look and the other image is more of an ethnic worldly look.

COLOR!!!

I don't know why I'm just so exited about printing in color. It probably has something to do with my high school darkroom days. I can remember being told that processing and printing (particularly processing) is a pretty toxic process that involves a lot of toxic bleach. Plus, printing requires a machine that automatically takes care of presenting you with a color print without ever having to touch a drop of bleach.
I have learned from my one day in the color darkroom at CSUN that, you need to rethink how you look at a color image and how to balance it. From what I understand so far, you need to think about colors in terms of a color wheel and the complimentary relationships that colors share. Therefore, if you have way too much blue/cyan/green, you need to in fact reduce the amount of magenta. Why? Because, magenta is the complimentary color of green. In some ways, if you want to bring out the magenta in your print, you need to reduce the amount of magenta the enlarger is exposing onto one's photo paper.
All this color stuff is still something I'm trying to wrap my head around... still, I had so much fun today. I'd recently shot a lovely ballet dancer who happens to be a CSUN kinesiology grad student :) I shot quite a few rolls but the two color rolls I shot, I decided to cross process the slide film roll.
When I looked at the proof sheet of the x-processed roll, I decided that I couldn't wait any longer. I was going to make my first visit to the color room.. dramatic music*
This is what I've had the chance to make so far:

455A

Right Now I'm taking a Studio lighting class. We are required to bring our cameras to EVERY class.. It can get annoying when you have other classes during the day. This habit of bringing multiple bags every day reminds me of when I was in high school. I was a self proclaimed "bag-lady". I was always bringing bags whether it was of photo/art supplies, books, gym clothes or everything all at once O.o
The class has been pretty fun.

These are just some photos of my classmates in class fumbling with their cameras. Hopefully they don't mind ^^;

This was my classmates hair. I just thought it was so cute how the hair spun around :>

The professor :) He's such a sweetie. Even though he'd like to think he's a meanie. lol

Sukkot

Long time not write. I've really been neglecting this blog!! I'm often so unsure of what I want to write and simply have been a bit busy. Some good news though! I'll begin working at CSUN's photography lab next week!! It'll be a great way of spending even MORE time at the lab :P Not to worry, I don't mind. It'll be at evenings so, I lied; maybe I do mind.. Still, it feels nice to have a job again. Plus, it's connected to photography, which makes me happy.

Anyways, just last Saturday I celebrated Sukkot at my house. Mom and dad invited their friends and I invited a few of mine :] During Yom Kippur, we normally designate the day not just for fasting but for making decorations for the sukkah. This year, I decided that paper ring chains weren't sufficient. No longer was I 7 years old and capable of only gluing strips of paper together. While looking through the etsy website, I was awe struck by these adorable heart chains made from the pages of a french poetry book. It was just so adorable that instead of paying 20-something dollars for the creation, I resolved to diy! I then ended up commissioning my mom to make them ^^;

She didn't have a hard time making them though. We simply snipped through the pages of old catalogs and and made these butterfly/flower shapes. She then sewed down the middle of the layered patterns.

Here's the result <3

it's been a while!!

last beach escape

Ori's b-day

end of summer picnic

It's sad how all summer I completely neglected to upload any new photos. It's like this blog doesn't even exist... Since my fall semester just started today, I'll try to change that. Summer has come and gone. Was In israel, took a summer course and hung out with some friends. Now, it's back to business!

Kinesis

Things have been pretty crazy these last few weeks. The spring semester is finally coming to a close. This of course is not without the craziness of finals, projects, essays and in my case, rehearsals. I was swept up during the semester into a classmates dance. It has ended up being a pretty fun experience :) When I was photographing the above images, there is this beautiful morning light from the east that floods into the studio. It makes everything feel soft and dreamy.

JOSEPH

I was surprised by how much I loved processing these photos in the lab. I was playing with toning, bleaching and lith developer :D

Spring

I thought I might as well post what I've been doing since the beginning of my semester. This is from a project titled essence. I decided to focus on the essence of sleep. The funny thing is, my model (brother) actually ended up falling asleep as I photographed him! It made it hard to change his pose but still awesome. I'll try to post more

Lith

This image is from a recent project of mine. I was playing with the idea of the 'Altered State'. This never made it into the final, but I still like it. In this image I was using Slavich photo paper with Fotospeed lith developer. The results are pretty fun.