I Deserve Chocolate Cake

Six weeks and one day after I started my adventure here at Brooks I await the final class. Today's class consisted of the Final Exam and the grading of the final assignment, Window Light Portraiture. I passed the assignment, passed the Architectural Detail reshoot, passed the Magazine Cover reshoot, and aced, and I do mean aced, the final. At the worst, I missed two out of 100 questions. And those two I made educated guesses on, and I am pretty educated at this point.

The only thing that remains in this session is the presentation of the Final Five. The Final Five consists of five boards, six images. I have two of the six completed, one that needs to be mounted, one that is a choice between three or four possibilities, and that leaves two black and white images that I need to pick, print, and mount. I actually feel like I am in a really good position. I know what one of the remaining two is going to be, I just need to print it. The remaining one image will be a challenge, but I am pretty confident that with all of the roles I have taken I will be able to come up with something that will at least be worth a B, if not an A. Which should mean that I will be at an A average for the session. That is pretty good. I am happy with that.

Hence the chocolate cake. It is in my fridge now. I am waiting for my lunch fullness to subside.

So, let us recap. What have I learned over the course of the past six weeks?

What have I learned about photography? This would be the obvious question. I have learned tons about basic daylight exposure, the handling and operation of a 4 x 5 camera, and characteristics of film and photo papers. I have learned that 68 degrees for developer means 68 degrees. I have learned that photo flo (which reduces water spots on film) is ESSENTIAL in the processing of negatives. I have learned that if you don't fix your negatives correctly the first time, you will have to reload strips of five negatives onto a reel and re-fix them, re-hypo clear them, re-wash, and re-dry them. This is worth a little extra time on the front end to ensure that the fix is 70 degrees and to fix them for at least five minutes.

What have I learned about Santa Barbara? There are very few drive thru's in Santa Barbara. This means that when you are starving after eight hours in the darkroom of solid printing, you have to actually GO IN to fast food restaurants. Very annoying. This results in frequent dinners of Cheez-It's and Fudge Stripe cookies because I happened to buy some one time when I had time to go to the store. Seriously. That was dinner for three nights in a row. Turns out, Cheez-It's for dinner lasts about four meals. (They were also lunch one day.) I still have the Fudge Stripes, so I don't know how long they will last. I have learned that on crystal clear days, where you can see out past the oil rigs off the coast to a clear and distant horizon, you can pick up 94.9 from San Diego on the 101 South between La Cumbre and Carrillo. Sweet.

What have I learned about myself? Hmm. Perhaps the most difficult of the questions. I have learned that I really want to be the best. So much so that I often push myself to crazy extremes when I begin to question my work. This becomes a problem when I have perfected a print from one specific negative, but the negative is lacking something. In that case, perfect printing can't save a questionable negative. It can, however, drive you crazy. So now I know that I would rather reshoot a negative that I like to make it perfect than stress myself out over a bad negative. There are, however, times when you must use a bad negative, so the practice in printing a bad negative will actually come in helpful. I have also learned that I have a much thicker skin now than I did in college. Mona would be a good instance of a negative criticism that didn't really bother me. I have had one other such instance regarding an image of my sister for the Window Light Portraiture assignment that I really liked, but I listened to the criticism and understood the problems with the negative. Based on the previously expressed logic, I reshot the assignment with SPF instead of my sister because I didn't want to push the negative that had some exposure and flare issues.

Oh, also learned that blogging takes time. Time which I will be severely lacking over the next three years, though I will try and blog as often as I can.