Education

Take A Picture

Leave a Comment / Education / October 2, 2022 / By

Well, September came and went, didn’t it?

Work has been somewhat stressful, school has picked up, and I discovered an addictive life-sim game called Disney Dreamlight Valley that has consumed basically any of my free time that isn’t spent working or schooling. And I guess just somehow, some way, the entire month slipped away from me without much to say about it.

Portrait of my father.

I will say that my photography class has been great. Learning how to actually use my camera in manual mode rather than just shooting everything in automatic has been incredible. We’ve taken on several assignments so far including blurred motion, short depth of field, high contrast, and all kinds of other technical projects that have occasionally made me go, “Wow, I can’t believe I did that!” Without a doubt though, the series that I was most proud of and that I impressed myself the most with, was this most recent assignment where we had to do a little bit of low-key, high contrast, black-and-white portraiture. I chose to photograph my father for the assignment. For posterity mostly, but also because he just so happened to be nearby and available, so why not utilize him as a subject model? As of this writing, the assignment is still ungraded, but I already know these will be photos that we hang onto of him, whether the academic world likes them or not.

Photography isn’t exactly something that I was looking into doing professionally. I wouldn’t necessarily mind it as a career choice, but taking this course wasn’t really my decision. I had taken Photography in high school and, with the exception of the awesome field trip to shoot in Brown County, I hated developing prints in the dark room and trying to find interesting things to capture. I like taking photos, but I’ve always pretty much been an amateur. I take selfies and photos of friends and maybe a landscape or two. I’ve never been great at the “art” of anything and that definitely includes photography. Plus, I really didn’t want to have to shell out the money for an expensive DSLR camera. But since it turns out that Photography is one of the requirements in the Visual Communications program that I’m enrolled in at the college, I didn’t have much choice. Surprisingly, the subject has been way better and more interesting this time around. No more dark rooms with smelly chemicals with digital photography, for starters. And I guess just generally taking it more seriously this time around and learning what different settings do has been an eye-opener.

It kinda makes me glad that I bought my camera after all. Assuming I don’t break the thing somehow, it should last for years and definitely provide for a new hobby. I don’t know whether I’ll ever pursue any professional photography gigs or not because, quite frankly, I’m still learning and I don’t know how good I am at the whole thing, objectively speaking. I’ll need to put together some sort of portfolio or something. We’ve scratched the surface a little bit in this class, but later this semester, I’m also taking a course learning how to work in Photoshop, so I’m excited to learn how to not only take the picture but also do more interesting things with them later on in the editing process.

That’s where my head’s been lately. Now unless you want to learn how to maximize your island’s profits growing canola in Dreamlight Valley, get on outta here! But remember — just in case I disappear from this blog for another month or so — Twitter is probably the best place to keep up with what’s going on with me. I’m the most active there so be sure to give me a follow.

Until next time…

The Miseducation of Jiggyflyjoe

1 Comment / Education, Life / June 5, 2022 / By

Since my previous post was a little bit of a downer, I thought I would take today as an opportunity to share what is hopefully a little bit brighter news: I’m going back to school!

That should actually say that I’m trying to go back to school.

Until around this time last year, I was enrolled at a local community college as a part-time student studying Visual Communications. I was actually quite enjoying it and was looking forward to completing my Associate’s Degree and maybe even transferring to a university to finish a four-year degree when my time was cut short by the financial aid department. For whatever silly reason, they have rules in place where, if you’re a student for so long and still haven’t graduated, they place you on a hold where you can no longer use financial aid to pay for your classes. I tried to reason with them, but they weren’t interested in hearing anything unless I went through an “appeals process” in which I had to prove that I had some extenuating circumstances as to why it was taking me “so long” to complete.

Keep in mind that I was only going part-time because I also have to work and sleep like a normal functioning adult. I had also changed my program (I was initially going for Software Development), which slowed my progress down a touch. But I was very nearly complete — I think I still need to take my college-level math courses and a photography class to finish up. Now that it’s been a year, I’m hoping that they’ll let me re-enroll and actually use some financial aid to finish up. If not, then perhaps figuring out a “payment plan” for my last couple of classes won’t hurt my wallet too badly. I have a meeting with my advisor this evening, so hopefully, I’ll be able to figure it all out then.

I really enjoy going to school so I’m looking forward to the possibility of going back. The last couple of semesters were especially fun since I got to learn how to do a lot of the basics of filming and editing video in Adobe Premiere Pro and graphic design in Adobe Illustrator, both of which were really up my alley and were taught by a couple of really cool teachers. The photography class that I still have yet to take sounds like it would be a blast as well, though I don’t look forward to having to finally complete my college math courses. Math is the one class that gives me the biggest anxiety — and I’ve already completed two remedial math classes to catch up to being college-level. I’m looking forward to it being finished though so I never have to take another math class again!

All things considered, I know we live in a society based on capitalism, but I’ve really got my fingers crossed that the government decides to cancel student debt. The thought of eventually having to pay all that money makes my stomach hurt. Why is college so remarkably expensive, anyway? That’s a story for a different day though, I suppose.

Until next time…