Recently I bought a sweet new camera, and although I had plans to use it, it hadn’t happened yet. Enter photo essay assignment and here is my first use of my new camera, and consequently, engagement in my community! As seen my photo essay is a process- specifically dinnertime. As everyday as it seems, Dinner (can be) a great event, for me it is. I like cooking. I like the creation aspect, I love the flavors, I like experimenting, and I like eating food. Our lives seem to revolve, partially, around food and in turn, as do our environments/communities. This assignment was conducted completely in my kitchen, making my community interactions really out of the ordinary, but still awesome.
I chose my kitchen because it was relatively easy and accessible, yet still interesting. I was also considering doing “A day in the life of my chap stick,” which I gave up on and got frustrated with because I couldn’t take a wide enough photo of my self, and “trees” which really didn’t seem a person, place, or process, and didn’t seem to posses enough potential for story telling, therefore, I dropped it and took on dinner time.
Ideally I would have had more structure to my photos- stage one, washing the food. Stage 2 cleaning, chopping it, etc. something like that. But themes my photos did have were creation, mess, sporadic, chaos, disorder, confusion, array, conception, and other good adjectives. I would have liked to had a final product- a dinner plate with a completed meal, but alas, it was not to be. I wasn’t that handy with my camera. Nonetheless, my photos did have some structure, and definitely common themes within their processes.
If I had more time, I would have done “Day in the life of Tasso family ski day” and taken my camera skiing and gotten some INSANE shots of my little brothers doing sweet tricks. Alas.
In conclusion, I engaged in my community (my kitchen) in a new way because I looked at details- details of mess, of fire, and of fun. Also, I had the lights off half the time which made me pay more attention to my surroundings.
Even though you didn’t take pictures of your little brother doing sweet tricks or of the completed meal on the table, your pictures are still pretty dang awesome. It’s funny because I look at them and think “Man, I wish my kitchen was as cool as his” even though our kitchens are probably about the same quality—low. Seriously though, I feel like your kitchen could be the kitchen of a five-star restaurant, but maybe I’m only thinking that because I’ve never actually seen a five-star restaurant in person, I’ve only seen them on TV, edited and enhanced. So I guess what I’m trying to say is editing and enhancing makes simple things seem higher quality even though it’s not how we would see it in person (or maybe you’re just a good photographer).
ReplyDeleteI like this one the best. I like how you used different styles to capture the same subject. You use black and white in some shots. And some with slow shutter speeds so you get that blurry feeling of motion. I also liked the hipster style pictures, but not really because I'm morally opposed to them. I think the excellence of your camera makes it seem like you are an equally excellent chef, but upon closer examination you are using Great Value products and your stove looks like it's broken, so maybe you are a better photographer than chef. CLEVER WORK.
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