Author: bumble_b

bumble_b-FinalProject

I asked people to write me a secret— any secret— and then erase it…

Some Secrets

My idea for this website was to have a wall of secrets, almost like the wall of a bathroom stall where people say things they perhaps wouldn’t say without the guarantee of anonymity? And yet, their handwriting keeps a piece of them there forever…

When you hover over a secret on the website, it shows how the person wrote it. It’s an interesting study to see where people may pause to think, or hesitate before continuing.

I also asked the participants to erase their secret after writing it. I feel it’s cathartic to let a thought out into the world and then erase it from existence.

I’ll be honest that though I really like this idea and concept, the execution is all but complete. I’ve been having a really hard time keeping up with my life and school right now, and I started this much later than I’d like to admit. My original proposal is completely different as well, and I never got the chance to talk to Nica and Golan about my change of plans (which I so totally apologize for… my lack of communication the past couple of weeks has been completely on me). I want the chance to flesh out this project more, get more secrets, fix up the website, and make this project more than just the little demo it is now.

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The past couple of weeks, I have been working on a friend’s passion project, which was to make a mini karaoke box. My portion of the project was to make a receipt printer print a little receipt of the user’s session once it was complete, with the date and time they visited, the song they chose, a random lyric from the song, and a photo of them singing!

The installation will be up and running by the night of 12/06, so stop by Purnell if you’d like!

bumble_b-FinalProjectProposal

I’m making a picrew.me-style avatar maker for fun, called “Mini-Me Maker”, and I thought it’d be really wonderful to take pictures of people after they make their avatar and showcase them side-by-side to see how people represent themselves in cartoon form! For those who don’t know picrew.me, here are some examples (and go and make your own; it’s super fun!):

This process will entail actually creating the program (and since I’m not a strong artist, I have a friend creating the artwork for me), setting up a station for people to make them (I really want to use my iPad and have it sort of tethered to something like they do in stores so I don’t have to supervise it constantly), and capture pictures of some people after they create their character to showcase them side-by-side.

I’m not sure yet how I want to stylize these images. Since I want it to be a representation of self, maybe asking the participants to take a selfie for me would make more sense? Or I could take a photo of them with a nice camera but tell them to pose however feels right/natural?

 

bumble_b-PersonInTime

CRYING ON CUE

Idea

I set out to capture actors, who claimed to be able to cry on cue, to cry for me on camera. I’m really fascinated by crying, and I wanted to see how they would go about it, from the moment I called action to the moment I called cut. The video of the woman from Andy Warhol’s Screen Tests, who was crying from not blinking, inspired me.

Setup

I used a Sony A7 III camera and a wireless lapel microphone to capture each actor. I tried to get them in front of a blank wall in the Purnell lobby, but there weren’t many blank walls, so I sat them in front of a “Push to Open Door” button hoping their bodies would cover it, which worked most of the time, but not all the time (which you’ll see). That one tiny detail really bugs me, actually. If I had more time, I would edit the videos in After Effects to remove the button, but I did at least edit the photos.

Experience

This experiment really sparked a sense of competition and challenge within the actors. I would go up to a group of them and ask, “Can you cry on cue?” and the conversations almost always went one of three ways: “It depends on the day, and today I had a good and happy day, so I don’t think I can” or  “I can’t, but you should ask ____! They can” or (when I went up to the person they told me to go to) “Wait, who said I can? That’s so weird they said that. I can’t, but you should ask ___! They can.” It was an endless loop.

To the few people who did say yes, I would say, “Great! Can I record you doing it then?” They’d always respond, “Wait, right now?” And I’d say, “You said you could cry on cue. This is your cue.”

At one point, I had actors lining up to try then chickening out then coming back then chickening out again. One person who ended up trying but couldn’t do it even asked me to not use their video because they were embarrassed. They got really competitive (with themselves, not each other) about it.

End Product

I attempted to format the videos like so: 1) I would call action, 2) they would begin, 3) I would let them do it for about 2 minutes and 30 seconds, then 4) I would call cut but keep rolling to see how they got themselves out of that place. I got a variety of videos, from people who got themselves to a sad place but without tears, to people who got tears, to people who gave up because they knew they weren’t going to get tears.

Along with the videos of each person, I have a 3-photo series from when I called action, their saddest moment, and their reaction after the cut.

Person 1 – P made it to the end but did not get tears

Person 2 – A made it to the end and got tears

Person 3 – S cut themselves off because they couldn’t keep going

Person 4 – O cut themselves off after getting tears

Person 5 – W cut themselves off because they couldn’t keep going

Closing Thoughts

I’m not very good with a camera (as I’m sure is evident), and I don’t enjoy working with them either, so this project ended up feeling kind of like a chore for me. The videos didn’t excite me that much after the fact, so after playing around with some ideas and landing on the 3-photo series, I ended up being a lot happier with the project.

bumble_b-PersonInTimeProposal

As all the rest of my ideas in this class, this idea comes from one of our instructors (Golan this time!).

I’m an absolute crybaby. I cry about everything. I cry when I watch game shows (it makes me happy when they win), I cry when I’m angry or frustrated. Hell, I’m crying right now while typing this (okay, jk).

Crying is a really important part of my life, and sometimes when I’m feeling a lot of emotion, I just make myself cry because I know it’ll instantly make me feel better. Basically, I love crying and am so totally fascinated by it.

Considering I also happen to be in the School of Drama, I know many-a-person who claims to be able to cry on cue. Golan thought it would be interesting to put those claims to the test… by recording someone crying on cue, from start to finish (start being when they begin trying and finish being some sort of condition, perhaps that a tear must reach their chin or when they just can’t cry anymore… this finish condition is something I’m still trying to think through).

In my head, I see this looking a lot like Andy Warhol’s Screen Tests… in terms of framing, not quality, considering that project is from the 60s.

I’d also be interested in what different cameras we have and perhaps if I can capture people’s tears in some interesting way with any, like maybe being able to zoom in super close to them or see them in slow-motion.

bumble_b-Reading-TwoCuts

I’m honestly not very good at interpreting readings like this, so I may be completely misunderstanding this… but from what I gather…

In my typology project, my two cuts were the following:

Opening cut: The observer is asked to come into a room and open a box. They agree to these conditions and open the box. (Setup)

Closing cut: The camera inside captures the reaction of the observer once they realize what is inside the box. (Capture)

bumble_b-TypologyMachine

My project, conducted in Carnegie Mellon’s School of Drama, was intended to capture surprise.

This idea went through many iterations. Originally wanting to capture curiosity, I thought of hanging a box on a wall that looked kind of weird that people could peek into or having a box on a table that people would open.

I eventually landed on the box on a table idea because I was really interested in capturing photos at this angle:

The next challenge I faced was… what would be in the box? What would be worth my participants’ while? With Nica’s help, we landed on a kind of ridiculous idea that also shifted my project from the concept of “curiosity” to “surprise.”

I would be inside the box.

The next challenge was… how the hell do I get inside a box?

I decided to construct my own trick table out of a big cardboard box my roommate happened to be throwing away (she bought a bookshelf or something). I cut holes in it for my head and hands (hands to hold the camera) and also bought some tablecloths from Target that I could cut holes into to match.

I stole a box from the School of Drama building (sorry), cut a hole in the bottom of it, and boom.

I had my table…

…with a little surprise.

I recruited my friend Reiley to help me get participants since, you know, I was in a box.

We set up a decoy camera at a different angle to make people think that’s what we were recording, since we needed to ask if they were okay being recorded and it’d be suspicious to ask that when there was no camera in sight (we did actually record from that angle so we had record of consent, which proved helpful in more ways, which you will see at the end).

We did a couple trial runs only to realize that me snapping pictures from that angle was getting the edge of the box more than anything and not really a clear picture of the participants’ faces.

There was also that ugly light in the way that we had to do some finessing to fix.

After more trials, we realized that people were interacting with me and the box in more significant and interesting ways than what a picture could capture, so I reimagined my setup.

We turned the table around so the camera was above me, and we let it record video of the interactions so I could have a more impactful snapshot of my participants.

Enough rambling… here are some of the actual results:

The really heartbreaking part about all of this is that, the next day when I went to put all of my videos from the SD card onto my hard drive to begin working, something went wrong and about 3/4ths of the footage got corrupted even though they were all working the day before (I think something went wrong during the transfer).

I spent an entire day scouring the internet on how to get them back but couldn’t figure it out. I was so heartbroken because this was such a wonderful and fun experiment that I put so much thought into, and I was so thrilled with the interactions and results I got out of it.

Most of the useable and interesting footage was gone, like when somebody opened the box and kissed my forehead or when somebody kept opening and closing the box like they were playing peek-a-boo with me.

I still have a little hope that I can get the footage back someday (though I did have a nightmare that the SD card snapped in half and there was no hope left), but thankfully, all the interactions were recorded on the second view. Though the second view wasn’t set up to take a good shot or be a typology in any way, I’m happy I at least have proof of the cute interactions I had.

This is definitely a pretty heartbreaking end to one of my favorite projects I’ve ever done, but like I said, I’m an optimist and have a little hope left in me!

That’s all…

…for now!

bumble_b-TypologyMachineProposal

My idea is to capture curiosity.

I want to make a box people will peer into where a camera will capture their face. My current idea is to use a fish-eye lens, resulting in images like this:

I like the way the fish-eye lens distorts the face and is also shaped like an eyeball and the hole people would be peering into. I’m not set on this type of lens yet, though, and am open to developing ideas. I think this would work more so if I have a box hanging vertically on a wall with a big hole in it that people can look into. If I end up deciding on a box sitting on a table where people would open the lid, I think a different camera lens/look would be the better direction.

Another crossroads I’m facing is whether I prompt people to look into the box and reward them with something inside that’s worth their while. Does my box say “LOOK IN HERE” and have, say, a funny or cute photo inside?

OR is my box unassuming? Camouflaged? Just off enough within the environment to make people wonder what it is and go inspecting it?

In other words… am I trying to capture their reaction to the surprise? Or the curiosity itself?

bumble_b-Reading-1

If I’m being totally honest, this reading was not the most exciting for me, and I have been struggling a lot to find a part of it I’m passionate enough to write a blog post about. However, I did find a strike of inspiration from an Instagram post I saw the other day about how the importance of photojournalism in preserving history is wildly under-appreciated.

When I think of photography, I mostly think of it as an artistic field. I often forget the importance of photography in other, perhaps more technical disciplines. The way this reading focused a lot on the use of early photography in scientific fields reminded me of that again. This makes photography much more interesting to me (I’m not that interested in it as a form of artistic expression).

Here is an incredible video where the owner of a pawn shop was given an album of photos from the Nanjing Massacre (TW: rape, murder), a historical event with only a handful of known photographic evidence, resulting in widespread denial of the event at all. Basically, this discovery is so massive that a lot of people are worried for this man’s safety! The power of photography is seen right here.

@pawn.man

PLEASE HELP ME #nankingmassacre #historicalphotos #worldwar2 #pawnman #museumtreasure

♬ original sound – Pawn Master Kail

bumble_b-SEM

I brought in two samples, one of my beloved cactus Peanut, and one of a bug I found dead on my wall that broke into pieces the moment I picked it up.

Here is a photo of Peanut from over 2 years ago when I first got him. (Home Depot treated him poorly, so he looks terrible in this, but he is much healthier now.)

Here is how a small tip that I chopped off him looks under the microscope:

My favorite thing about the bug I found is how there are so many holes in his body from where all his limbs fell apart. It’s actually kind of sad, but I’m happy to know it at least happened after he died. You can see those holes here:

Here is his eye (with a little piece of guck):

Here is a piece of pollen we discovered on his body:

And here is Donna’s favorite photo that we found at the way end. She was so excited that she made herself a copy:

bumble_b-ProjectToShare

I’d like to share the work of an artist, Jasper Léonard, who specializes in a specific type of photography I love, miniature faking.

Miniature faking involves manipulating a tilt-shift lens on a camera in a specific way to create a miniature effect on a normally-sized subject. Léonard captures life-sized scenes in this fun and inventive way, and as a lover of all things miniature and scale model (things that are smaller than they should be are just so darn cute), this process of capturing the world really speaks to me.

Yes, these are actual photos of New York City that are made to look like toys!

He has a few books that focus on specific cities captured this way, such as New York Resized, Antwerp Resized, and Belgium Resized. I have New York Resized, if anyone is interested and wants me to bring it to class!