Week Three Summary: Photography and Cat Noir
Throughout this week, I had the chance to learn more about photography as it pertains to noir. Personally, I have not done much photography behind the camera as I have in front of one, but after this whole project, I would be interested in testing out more of my photography skills (if there are any present! :D). The following link can allow you to see where I am with my experience in photography and what aspects of noir I initially planned to focus on for my photo safari and how it may have changed or stayed the same. http://janellegelino.com/thoughts-and-ideas/personal-experience-with-photography-summary/
When I watched the films “The Hitch-Hiker” and “Killer’s Kiss,” I became kind of immersed in the stills I was analyzing for their cinematography and how they related to noir. I have prior knowledge of cinematography through my film studies class last semester, so this definitely had me interested. I was able to apply my familiarity with film to help analyze shots I chose to look into. It was somewhat enjoyable for me when I was writing up my thoughts and ideas as to why some of the cinematographic choices were made for a specific shot in the film. http://janellegelino.com/thoughts-and-ideas/reflection-on-cinematography-in-the-hitch-hiker-and-killer-kiss/
It has been interesting to see just how the past two weeks’ material connected to this week’s study of photography and noir; having read and watched noir-themed material in the past two weeks provided a good ground to stand on when it came to photography, especially when we had to present our knowledge of noir in our photo safaris. My favorite part was definitely the photo safari. I learned that this kind of style of photography is something I’d want to experiment more with and I am a bit more interested in taking more photo shoots in the future. As I was taking the photos, I began to realize that I wanted all of them to connect with the same general theme of finding oneself in darkness. It made sense in my mind to go into the project this way since we as humans experience times of trouble or a metaphorical darkness and it is those moments that are very raw to me. I think that we learn most about ourselves when we are faced with dark times in our lives and this is a concept I wanted to express through my photos as well as an eerie feeling since darkness is something that is sometimes feared. Also, I have an interest in the idea of human complexity and how I believe that everyone has potential to give into the darker 
sides of themselves. Recognizing that we all have this within is another step in truly understanding yourself as a person and this is something I wanted to go into a bit through these photos. The following link can allow you to see my album titled “Found in Darkness,” which I chose to use “found” rather than “lost” because of how I feel there is a lot to be found within darkness, literal and metaphorical. I also provided a personal quote on the page to better illustrate this idea. http://janellegelino.com/thoughts-and-ideas/found-in-darkness-photo-safari/ On a side note, I’m happy I got to be a cat for a day for the sake of photography. My roommate got to have a pet in our dorm for about an hour xD.
One other portion of this week’s work was to complete visual assignments. I had a ball with these! Any chance I have to further develop Sebastian Crane is so exciting for me (and my friends since they are in love with his character. They want me to submit it all to fan fiction, but we will see about that one). All three visual assignments I did centered around Sebastian, which was perfectly fine by me. The first one was “What’s in the Bag” and this was an opportunity to show Sebastian’s personality and past experiences through the simple items he carries on his person. You can tell a lot about a person by the things they keep, so I remembered this idea as I chose items that would best begin to reveal aspects about him (http://janellegelino.com/assignments/visual-assignment-whats-in-the-bag-sebastian-cranes-treasures/). The next assignment was “Post-It Notes and Grocery Lists,” which had us lay out sticky notes that would further reveal qualities about our characters. I changed the fonts to indicate Sebastian’s writing as well as his secretary’s, interested employers, and awe-struck women’s to diversify the notes. Most of his personal notes , for example, were family or work related, showing he puts family and work before anything else. (For more information, click through the link below and if you are unable to see the photo, my apologies! It is linked to Flickr and if you click the photo on the page, everything should be legible). http://janellegelino.com/assignments/visual-assignment-post-it-notes-and-grocery-lists-sebastian-cranes-to-dos/?preview=true&preview_id=125&preview_nonce=e8ab976ac7&post_format=standard. The final writing assignment was my favorite of the three: the photo collage. Within this collage, we had to be able to convey a story and I chose to explore Sebastian’s heartbroken past through this assignment. In his character dossier, it mentions that the reason he became more cold or egotistical was because of the heartbreak he experienced with his ex-lover, Maragaret. In choosing the photos, I found 4 pictures on Google of Scott Eastwood in the new Nicholas Spark’s film The Longest Ride and had Margaret portrayed as his love interest in that film. With the other photos on the board, I searched key words, such as cheating and placed them on the board. This piece is titled “The Lover and the Cheat” and there is a bonus storyline written below the collage on the page. http://janellegelino.com/assignments/visual-assignment-storytelling-collage-the-lover-and-the-cheat-sebastian-and-margaret/
Below is the list of my Daily Creates I completed this week:
- Doodle: https://www.flickr.com/photos/janellegelino/16189653547/
- My 2048: https://www.flickr.com/photos/janellegelino/16202900769/in/photostream/
- My silent movie: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6EfufSaYICk (this was very cool to edit together since I had all of these personal clips for my project).
As for participation this week, I posted two of my Daily Creates on Twitter the day I made them as well as my visual assignment “The Lover and the Cheat,” and my “Found in Darkness” album (this album is also posted onto my Facebook to show my friends and family what I created). I also posted on comment on someone’s blog page this week for her character’s sticky notes. http://ds106.kendallparker.com/ds106/jot-it-down-with-jewel/#comment-14
I am really enjoying this class! Each week, it’s fun getting to really think about developing my character I created. Plus, I get to exercise both my creative writing and communication major all in this class. 
#everythingisawesome