Chelsea's Digital Media Blog

DMF Final Project

2008-12-05T16:43:00.000-08:00

Well, here it is. I did my best even though I have virtually no clue how to work InDesign.

All photos belong to me, the girl is my friend Sara and the horses are her's.

Burn, burn like a wicker cabinet.

2008-11-23T16:13:00.000-08:00

So I know we're supposed to make two blog posts a week and I know I have been seriously neglecting that, but it's hard for me to update this regularly because I forget about it.

I rarely even blog on myspace and I'm on that ALL the time.

So I'm in a rut. I have no idea what I want to do with my life right now. I'm taking a break from anything Communications related next term because DMF and my Journalistic Writing class seriously burnt me out. Don't get me wrong, DMF is cool and I learned a bit from the lectures, but I don't feel like I accomplished anything during the labs. I've been working with digital editing software for a long time, and though I only recently got into using photoshop the basic principals are still the same and so I've been kind of bored.

I've also been in a rut photography wise. I need to just take a drive and take photos. Photography is my passion and I've done nothing with it since July, other the some photos I've taken for class.

I need something to inspire me, and although Ashland is beautiful it isn't particularly inspireing.

Anyone have any suggestions? Maybe I just need to drive around and find stuff.

InDesign Table of Contents

2008-11-19T11:57:00.000-08:00

Took a bit to get used to the program, but I'm pleased with the end result.

I have to say I'm turning into quite the Adobe fangirl.

Letters

2008-11-05T11:27:00.000-08:00

So I screwed around with photoshop and slammed some letters together. The whole thing pretty much gives me a headache and I didn't have much of a plan. I'm also a little upset with the jpeg compression, but whatever.

Movie Poster

2008-11-03T11:13:00.001-08:00

Just making fun of the "theory" that says the world will end in 2012.

Font from: http://dafont.com
Images: http://justmeina.deviantart.com/, http://falln-stock.deviantart.com/, sxc.hu

I voted!

2008-10-23T11:31:00.001-07:00

I just want to share with everyone how excited I am for being able to vote for the first time. I guess, it's not that big of a deal since I'm a Washington resident I vote via absentee ballot. So I sat in my dorm room and filled the damn thing out, then dropped it off at the post office.

I really believe that every vote counts. Even all the dead people in Florida that manage to vote. See, that's initiative right there, voting from beyond the grave.

Seriously though, I want to hope I'm making a difference because so many people my age, and older, are so apathetic. They figure that they don't need to vote because thousands of others will, so their vote won't make a difference, but that isn't true. One vote could cause the other guy to win... Although you could also pulled a Christine Gregoire and have the votes recounted three times and somehow only win one out of three recounts but still manage to become governor.

Hah, whoops, did I just interject a not so subtle distaste for Washington state's governor?

And now I have to go on a slight tangent. So, I was watching the most recent episode of Family Guy, "Road to Germany", last night and it pissed me off. Yeah, I know, Family Guy, there's your problem.

If you haven't seen the episode basically Stewie, Ryan and Mort end up in Poland the day the Nazis invaded. Two things about this episode struck me. One being an obvious crack at our middle east invasion, the other a disgustingly obvious political opinion on the part of the show's producers. The trio needed uranium for Stewie's time machine in order to get back to their current time and this is the dialogue as follows:

Stewie Griffin: But where do we find uranium in WWII Europe?
Brian Griffin: There's only one place, at the top secret atomic research facility, in Berlin.
Stewie Griffin: Wait a minute, Germany's building Weapons of Mass Destruction?
Stewie Griffin: Well, why doesn't America go in there and kick their asses?
Brian Griffin: [Turning towards the viewer and squinting his eyes] I dunno, maybe because they don't have any oil.

So that I found slightly humorous, but the bit that pissed me off was when Mort, Stewie and Brian put on Nazi uniforms, in order to blend in, and Brian's appears to have a blue button of sorts. The camera pans into it and the button says, "McCain/Palin."

Sorry but, Republican party does not equal socialism and yes, I still would have been irritated had that been an Obama/Biden button.

I know Seth MacFarlane has as much right to free expression as the next person. But I feel if your show is that influential, and I know it is, as ridiculous as that sounds, you need to make fun of people equally and not imply that German socialists would have supported McCain.

tl;dr: I voted!

Photo Montage

2008-10-22T12:15:00.000-07:00

So, I'm not entirely satisfied with this, but I have 20 minutes of battery left and so I'm going to call this image finished. It feels like it needs more, but I don't know what to add...

My cat, sleeping in the rose bud and my horse who has seemingly sprouted wings and antlers.

Flogging Molly and Falling Leaves

2008-10-20T10:16:00.000-07:00

This last Thursday I headed south to Chico, CA for a Flogging Molly concert. If you've heard of the city at all (which you should, since it's home to a CSU campus) you might also know that its neighboring city, Paradise, was victim to recent wildfires that spread through northern California. There were 2,700 individual fires that burned about 1,157,930 acres, and was the result of lightning strikes and three years of less than average precipitation.

I find a strange beauty in the aftermath of a wildfire. The landscape charred and desolate, but still holding the potential to sprout new life. I found north Cal, in general to be gorgeous and I wish I'd taken some photos of Mt. Shasta because it was absolutely breath taking. Aside from seeing my friends again, I know I need to plan another trip down there simply because I want to capture the amazing scenery.

Now onto the falling leaves. When I got back to Ashland, on Sunday afternoon, and pulled into the Greensprings parking lot, I noticed how vibrantly coloured all of the tree leaves were. The region of Washington I'm from is lacking in decidudous trees, so it's nice to be here and see that.

So I suppose, for visual interest, I will post a few photos from the Flogging Molly concert. Which, by the way, was absolutely amazing and incredibly intense. These photos weren't taken by me, but by a friend of mine.

Picturing the Other

2008-10-15T11:09:00.000-07:00

So this is Richelle. I met her in my USEM class and coincidentally she's from south eastern Washington like I am.

Over the weekend I think I might take some more photos for this assignment.

I'm being shamless again.

2008-10-08T11:54:00.000-07:00

I just want to share one of the photos I took when I should have been taking photos for the Alphabet Soup assignment. You'd never guess it was overcast and drizzly yesterday, huh?

Alphabet Soup

2008-10-08T11:22:00.000-07:00

Here we have my Alphabet Soup photos. Admittedly I cheated a little and used a couple photos I took while in Europe because I wasn't satisfied with the majority of photos I took specifically for this assignment. The bench, the car grill and the wheel cover were taken here in Ashland. The view from the window is at the Louvre in Paris and the photo at the top of this entry is in London, but I don't remember what it is specifically, probably a church.

I hope is easy to see what letters I was going for, if not they're as follows: W, V, T, H, and B.

Just Walk Away

2008-10-03T14:55:00.000-07:00

So call me shameless for plugging my personal art into this blog, but I want people to see what I can do and I want to be able to share my perception of the world the only way I know how.

This is one of my favourite photos from my ten day stint in Europe this last summer. Ironically England wasn't even my favourite country I visited, but I sure love this photo.

I have a fetish with sunsets, if you ever happen by my DeviantART gallery you can see that it is mostly composed of sunsets. Sunsets are like snowflakes, you never see the same one twice. My favourite sunsets are when the colours are incredibly dynamic and composed of the most vibrent oranges and purples and contain shillouttes of buildings or trees. But this one really doesn't have either of my favourite elements. What I love is the glow, of the barely setting sun, illuminating the Tower Bridge, the nearby buildings, and the River Thames.

When I think of England, more specifically London, this is what I will picture in my head.

Scratch Assignment

2008-10-01T12:16:00.001-07:00

Here are my two DMF "scratches." I did my best to attempt both basic techniques demonstrated in Monday's lecture. I must say, I am pretty proud of my coffee cup.