Irene Godofsky

A Few Meager Scraps for the Unwanted Child

Dear blog, excuse my negligence. No one reads you anyway.

A really cool stop motion video using chalkboard illustrations.

http://irinawerning.com/back-to-the-fut/back-to-the-future/

(click to see full image)

Some recent experiments:

With the scanner:


(click to see full images)

with the new digital!:


(click to see full image)

Smorgasbord

(some color photographs from the last few weeks of summer vacation and the first few days of school)

I Believed the Skies Were Doorways Home

Finished up shooting/printing for Environmental Portraiture this week.
We had critique yesterday, which went pretty well.
(I think)




(There's another image that should go here, but...I forgot to scan it. Dang.)


I'm excited about our next project: Painting with Light. Already thinking about possibilities.
I don't know if they actually use this technique, but it reminded me of the cats in this music video:



Speaking of music videos...
(nice segway, huh? I thought so)
One of the branches of photography that interests me most is video. And since we're apparently supposed to post a bunch of external links on our blogs, here are a few videos (music and non) that have caught my eye as of late:


This is the opening credits to the show Dexter. It's been one of my favorite little video montages for a while. It depicts mundane life in a dynamic and beautiful way, but in a way that mimics the slow steady nature of routine.

Music video for the song "Cruel" from St. Vincent's newest album Strange Mercy, directed by Terri Timely (frequently commissioned for St. Vincent's videos in the past). I really love how the concept of this video, its arrangement, lighting, composition (lot's of symmetry!). It has a very eerie quality. I mean, the actually content is creepy, but the cool, detached, unflinching way the camera is handled exacerbates the already creepy subject matter.
Terri Timely has some short films one their site that I'm really curious about (but haven't had a chance to watch), so don't be surprised to see me post something about one of those soon!


when i was just a boy still owl-eyed
i liked to drink the rain to taste the sky
i tried to count the stars while in my bed
to keep the thoughts of monsters from my head
and i believed the stars were wishes
i believed the world was good
i believed things hid in the dark
and that all would turn out just how it should
i believed in all your stories
i believed you'd never lie
i believed if i could climb the trees behind the house,
i'd touch the sky

Okay. First of all. Shame on anyone who knew about this band and didn't tell me about it. Because they're freaking incredible.
Second, I love this music video. It's very simple - not elaborately constructed like the video for "Cruel" - using available light, and a semi-candid subject matter. The children had some direction, yes, but they are performing actions that can only be controlled to a degree (running around, jumping, etc.). The unsupervised children in the woods (with their haphazard, seemingly self-made wardrobe) remind me of the Lost Boys in Peter Pan.

That's all the videos for today.

Now for stills!


http://h1pstertr1pster.tumblr.com/
My friend Joi sent me a link to this girl's tumblr, and I really love the stuff she posts
All I know about her is the information she has posted at the top of her site, and I know this is just stuff she is reposting but she has a really beautiful and distinct point of view.
It's half like a memory, half like a dream. Maybe as one would remember a dream (or dream of a memory).
What I mean is there is not a lot of specific people (there are people and a consciousness of people being present, but their faces are rarely seen), a strange color cast (kind of sfumato, if you can apply that term to a photograph), representation of every day, mundane things mixed with a few oddities. Like the clipped images on sees when trying to remember a dream.

Now I just have to go through and find the actual photographers...

Shiny Shiny Shiny Boots of Leather

I am tired. I am weary.
I could sleep for a thousand years.
A thousand dreams that would awake me,
Different colors made of tears.
(I only slept two hours last night...I'm a little sleepy.)
Anywho. Day two of printing. I haven't shot my Environmental Portrait assignment yet, so we were just practicing.

Uno:

This is from a roll I shot at Thanksgiving in Arkansas. My mom, and Gramps, who passed away earlier this year.
The print could be more refined - I know the bottom right corner could us a little burning. I probably could have used a higher filter too, but, honestly, I don't mind it they way it is.

Duo:

This is from the roll we shot last week in the park. Just athrowaway shot really -it was the last on the roll - but I liked it so I printed it. I did a test strip with the default 2 1/2 filter, and decided the image was a little flat, so I bumped it up to a 3. That was really all I had to do.

Tres:
I shot few rolls the summer before freshman year and developed them about six months later. However, I hadn't been in the darkroom for an equitable amount of time, and I kind of screwed up the processing, so the negatives were really thin.
Still, I was a little attached to the pictures (though I could barely see them). I honestly really like how the print came out - it reminds me a bit of tint-type-y, old-fashioned processes (which I'm am quite a fan of).

(Oh, yes. They're all full frame - did you notice?

I Turn My Camera On

If the span of time between this post and the last is not telling enough, I will clarify and say that I'm not much of a blogger. I never really kept journals and keeping a sketchbook is something that I struggle with. Unless it is required. Like for a grade. Oh, yeah...that's what this is.

It's week three of the fall semester, and we started printing in Photo 1 today.

I printed about 6 of these trying to get it right - I had to burn the top corners 6-8 seconds each and then dodge the figure. But because I didn't have a dodging tool, I had to use my hand, which meant I had to go back and burn the bottom left corner where my wrist had been.
This is the final print I got.
(I'm really liking the full-frame negative carriers, I think I'll start using those more often)

The End

Well.

Here we are.

Or should I say "Here I am"?

Either way, it's the end of the semester.

The last day of class, the last blog post for Drawing 1 that I will ever write.

Just like that.

And after putting myself through this first semester, can I say that it was worth it?

I think I can.

It wasn't easy, but I learned some really important lessons.

About drawing, about life.

Pretty key I think is time management.

It's not perfect, but the improvement is pretty significant.

I've learned to pick projects that I can handle within the time limit, both in class and out.

My perfectionism is slowly being weeded out.

Perfectionism isn't inherently bad, but I've let it hold me back.

More specific to drawing, I've learned to be much more conscious about my use of line.

Line can be emotive.

Line can create volumes.

Line can create value.

And the importance of perspective (I've never worked with formal perspective before).

One thing I would have liked in the class is more freedom in homework assignments, which might have generated and held my interest more, and more emphasis on the sketchbook, a discipline which I feel is sometimes more valuable than the number of finished large drawings we were required to complete.

All in all, I appreciate Drawing 1 for what it has taught me. But would I repeat it if I had to?

Hell no.