Photography Day

Woke up early to catch the shuttle, caught the shuttle, hung out in the computer lab before my new Photography 2/4 class started. Turns out there was 4 of us, and another girl might join next week. There was me, a girl from my old class that is also a beginner, and from New Jersey. There was Vivian, the girl from Hong Kong that I live with, the original student in that class by herself. There was the teacher. And there was me. The teacher is gently pushing us to do level 4 stuff, but of course helping us out and knowing we are just beginning, so I hope it will be a great experience. I have to make a miniature scene to take photos of and tell a story over three shots. One is the mini, another is an object that relates, and the other is a body that relates. I already have an idea. A library scene. We'll see how it goes. Vivian did her photo shooting today, having already made a mini dance studio. It was pretty good. I have no idea how she made the ballet slippers from scratch. In class we took a bunch of shots of food and did the lighting in different ways. Then we watched Vivian work on her thing. Then we used "models" which ended up being Vivian's friend that dropped the class, leaving her alone, and Vivian, and Jess, the girl from New Jersey. The teacher told me to go up but as I left the chair, he changed his mind. Not sure why, but I said that was fine by me and got some laughs. He used models and showed us different lighting terms. Rembrant lights (angled off to the side so a triangle appears below the eye next to the nose--called this because the painter Rembrant always painted this way), butterfly lights (lights directly in front of the person and super high up but angled downwards so a shadow appears under the nose and it looks like a butterfly--and it's quite a stretch to call it that), and side lights (exactly what you think it is). Interesting stuff.

After that class, I bummed around the library and ate my lunch. Then I went to my old photography class for old time's sake. Actually, because they were going on an "excursion" 10 minutes away to the University of Sydney (the school I thought I was going to instead of UTS), where we took shots of some buildings good for architecture. I hope mine are good. I was only going to go to this class and be done, but next week they aren't shooting any more, they are just working in Photoshop on the shots we took today, so I think I'll go to learn whatever I can.

After that I stayed at school and read for my class tomorrow. I caught the shuttle home, went online quickly before dinner which was...Shepherd's pie? I think that's what it's called. Basically lasagna without tomatoes. (Aussies always say "toe-mah-toe" instead of "toe-may-toe" by the way) I was bummed it wasn't lasagna after I missed my one chance at Spiro. We have had Shepherd's pie at least three times now.

After dinner I did a lot of reading and am ready for tomorrow. The internet became really slow so I moved over to the common room and now I am typing this blog after having a cup of Milo which I will sorely miss back home in November. Tomorrow night a bunch of us are going to see The Dark Knight (my second time) and I'm almost as excited as the first time through! And I'm a little proud of myself for throwing it together. Should be fun.

I miss lasagna and flavored yogurt.