for.life

Today I joined a sorority. My roommate all day has been saying how she "can't believe this day is finally here." I agree. She says that because joining a sorority is something she has dreamed about for a long time. I agree because I never thought I would be in one. As of this last year, I came to the realization that I tend to get along better with guys, I'm not a super girly girl, and I hate pointless rules. I was pretty sure I was destined to be anything but a sorority girl. I signed up for rush simply to meet more people and make more friends with no intention of actually pledging anywhere. But the girls at the Delta Zeta house made me feel at home and I realized I wanted to be one of them.
This shot was taken today which was Bid Day. It was quite the sight and quite the experience, just as this whole recruitment week has been. But now it's over and greek life has begun. It ain't four years, it's for life, baby.

in.a.flash

         Time is one of those concepts that has always been a mystery to us. It’s an uncontrollable force, something that has a mind of its own and a freedom that no civilization can mimic. Clocks have been created to measure it, novels have been written about it, and inventions have been dreamed up to master it. Nobody has been able to do a damn thing about it. Except for one guy.

         Harold Eugene Edgerton was a genius. During his lifespan from April 6, 1903 to January 4, 1990, he revolutionized the worlds of science, art, and everything in between. He devoted his life to inventing, developing, and applying his work to the stroboscopic flash.

An electrical engineer with a doctorate of science from MIT, he couldn’t have known he was changing art forever. Before the strobe, photographers struggled with providing bright light and had to deal with the limits that shutters created. Edgerton replaced mercury vapor with xenon and argon in flash bulbs, which created brighter flashes for less than a microsecond. With his strobe he could create remarkable images that people had never seen before. Edgerton could essentially freeze time.

This included capturing multiple flashes in still photography, which created an image that showed the progression of something, such as several of the positions in a golfer’s swing in one frame.

He could also use motion photography to create stop-motion images or slow motion, like a boy running.

Edgerton’s flash did everything from creating spectacular images in National Geographic, helping science labs to study subatomic particles, gearing up World War II, aided Jacques Cousteau by inventing a sonar device called the “pinger” to measure distance to the sea floor and later the “boomer,” which mapped out layers of sediment beneath the ocean floor. Last but certainly not least, he revolutionized photography that would end up in well-known art galleries around the world and in the hands of 18-year old girls who grew up in small suburban towns such as myself.

shadows.of.reality

This is from my FYS class' field trip downtown. I took copious amounts of photos of some very cool places, some of which will be showing up here shortly when I have to write about them as "Cultural Events." Ah homework. Anyway, we spent some time just strolling around 16th street and taking pictures of everything. I believe this particular one was taken when we made a pit stop for Starbucks. Again, light is taking over my life. I've always had a tree fetish when it came to photography. It has since been tamed but in this case, I am loving the shadows that the leaves make on the ground. I've gone to 16th street three times since I've moved to Denver. I think I love it so much because it reminds me of the familiar Pearl Street in Boulder that I'm so used to. I have to admit that Pearl is better, but hey, I don't wanna bring my sandwich to the table.

light.and.enlightenment

Yesterday was my first day of classes as a college student. I felt somewhat cool, except for the fact that I discovered I am far too uncoordinated for a bicycle (to the point that I almost killed several helpless civilians), as well as the fact that I had my standard caffeinated English breakfast tea that morning followed shortly by a Red Bull. Needless to say, I had wings. As I sat quaking with caffeine shooting through my bloodstream, trying to look calm, cool, and collected in the coffee shop, I attempted to focus by taking my picture of the day. Yes, it had been a while. But dear old Roddy has poisoned my mind lately with the idea of light. I can't be anywhere without thinking about the lighting anymore, so as I sat in Beans, I realized just how cool the lighting was on this girl studying by the window. Being a creeper is sometimes the sacrifice we have to make for the sake of photography.

Aryn

"Live life to the fullest. And most of all, have fun." That's the motto of Aryn Tuinzing, one of the 14 amazing girls in my First Year Seminar class. She's originally from Bellmont, CA but came to Denver from her home of Portland, OR, however, she someday hopes to live in either Italy, Argentina, or Chile for at least a year. An aspiring National Geographic photographer or physical therapist, she chose to come to DU because "it felt right." When asked about the best night of her life, she describes her 17th birthday, a night of trespassing into a pool at two a.m. and having a fun-filled evening. Talk about adventurous. I was beyond glad I got to interview Aryn because it got us talking about our shared liking for swimming and we even agreed to arrange lap swim dates in the future. Although I know I can never replace the friends I have back home and spread out all over this country, I'm finally realizing that there are some incredible new friends right here--like Aryn.

Albums: A response to "In Plato's Cave"

“It’s not much, but I thought you might like it,” my best friend said. I unwrapped the graduation gift, unearthing it from it’s home of brightly colored tissue paper enclosed by an equally brightly colored gift bag. A photo album. A photo album in which she had already put a few photos of the two of us; from prom, from her most recent birthday, and from our trip to Grand Junction. “I got you started, you fill in the rest.”

And, boy, did I ever.  I decided to fill the album purely with pictures from my senior year, my best year so far. In every plastic-covered slot resided a photo from prom, graduation, Diamond Lake, swim meets, theatre productions--significant events with significant people. I wanted to keep these moments and these people with me as I began a new chapter in my life. That’s essentially what the prisoners in Plato’s cave are doing; only in their case, it’s by force. They know nothing but images put before them, shadows of what is real. I wanted to cling to the familiar shadows while reality came rushing in around me.

Probably the majority of my photo album is taken up by various road trips to Cheyenne, Salt Lake City, Mount Rushmore, and California. We (the people I went on these trips with and myself) found it so crucial to bring cameras on each of these trips. In fact, on the senior trip to California, all five of us brought each of our own cameras, even though we promised to all share our photos in an online album as soon as we got home. Thus we had duplicate (quintuplet?) photos of the same things. It was ridiculous, really. Why was it so necessary that we had five times the number of pictures we already had? Because these photos served as proof “that the trip was made, that the program was carried out, that fun was had.” We each had to prove it to our family, to our Facebook friends, and to ourselves once the trip was complete.

I also needed to have control of what got its picture taken and how the picture was taken on that trip. The same goes for any other occasion where a camera is deemed necessary). Being in control of a camera means being in “a certain relation to the world that feels like knowledge—and, therefore, like power.” And besides, it’s in my genes as a half-Japanese individual. Sontag’s theory that “using a camera appeases the anxiety which the work-driven feel about not working when they are on vacation and supposed to be having fun,” is a stretch. To say that the stereotypically “workaholic” ethnicities require “a friendly imitation of work” at all times is small minded. By the classic standard, photography is not a productive thing. It just isn’t. The world would continue to revolve if there were no pictures. It would be a tragic world, but life would go on. I have felt the Asian need for perfection, and taking pictures is just the opposite. It’s therapeutic. For just that moment, it’s only you and the subject in the world. It’s all about creativity and artistry and not many Japanese workaholics are working for the sake of creativity and artistry. They’re working for success, honor and other people—not themselves and the subject.

If anything, the appeal of playing photographer for workaholic ethnicities may be that of achieving what all humans desire: immortality. Seeing an event is significantly different from seeing a photograph of it. Visual memories fade because, like movies and television, they move and shift--they change. Taking a photograph seals one millisecond forever in an “image-world that bids to outlast us all.” It is more difficult to recall every person, every detail, and every movement in a witnessed moment. But pictures are more concrete and can be viewed over and over again, thus committing them to memory. In fact, photos may be viewed so many times that we may begin to feel as though we were there, even if we weren’t. Take the famous Kent State Massacre photo. The Burning Monk. The soldiers lifting the American flag at Iwo Jima. The Execution of a Viet Cong Guerrilla. A viewer can feel himself or herself in the moment, smell the gunpowder, hear the screams, taste the disgust—but only thanks to imagination. Photos “are inexhaustible invitations to deduction, speculation, and fantasy” for they can offer us the visual side of a moment, and that is all. The rest is up to us.

            That’s not to say that photographs don’t move something real in us. Whether that is sympathy, anger, sadness, amusement, or nostalgia, pictures are a release of built up emotions in a modern and cutting-edge world where real connections are difficult to come by. This is why I ordered 200 pictures to fill my photo album with. What if I can’t connect with the people I meet at college? I know I can connect with the people in this album. The problem is, they’re only three inches tall. They’re shadows. If we blind ourselves to reality and stay in the cave, we won’t experience all the wonders that await us outside. We “linger unregenerately…in mere images of the truth” and that can keep us from exploring the actual truth.

            Yet, photographs are proof. They hold evidence that the actual truth does indeed exist. I can look at these old shadows and see that I managed to find amazing people to share incredible experiences with. It makes me sad, it makes me homesick, but it gives me faith that I am on my way to finding more amazing people to share more incredible experiences with. I got my life started, I’ll fill in the rest.

Two last posts from home...

This is my home. My high school auditorium stage. The last three days, I was helping my old theatre director cast the fall play "Robin Hood." Not only was it a great learning experience (who knew casting a play was so difficult??), but I got to see all my underclassmen theatre pals one last time before I leave and just be in the theater. I've grown so accustomed to the smell, the temperature, the audience chairs, the glow of the lights from the aisles, the creeky sound and precarious feel when one walks on the apron. I say this is my home because it was in this theater that I grew up from a shy and confused freshman, completely beside myself as to who I was or what I wanted to be. By senior year, I was thespian president, running the show (if you'll excuse the pun), seeing how the wee freshmen looked up to me the way I looked up to the seniors MY freshman year. Ah the circle of life...

This is what I'll miss from my REAL home (or at least one of the things I'll be missing)--watching my sisters grow up. This here is Victoria, or as we call her, Tori. My mom took me and the littlest sis to lunch the other day at a mediterranean restaurant (my favorite) and Tori whipped out her coloring book and crayons. In turn, I whipped out my camera. I really love the perspective of this shot. The blinding window light is the downfall.


I know I've been slacking on posts lately and I don't plan on doing it tomorrow since it's my last day to get my life together before I move in (!!!). So I guess this is the last you'll hear of me from my home turf. See you on the other side.

Good Riddance

The permanent closing of Subway (in my life at least). Last night I worked my last shift after two years and three months of "Six-inch or footlong?" and "Any chips or drinks with that?" I am quite happy to be out of there. It was a decent job--very lenient and I only worked the hours I wanted--but serving what were sometimes incompetent people and getting up at the crack of dawn to go prep onions were not my cup of tea. But I will miss some of my co-workers. It's hard to believe another constant in my life has come to a close. Ironically, almost every time I'm going through a "last," the song "Good Riddance" by Green Day plays. On my last day of high school, my co-host of the morning announcements and I played the song to introduce our last PSA. Coincidentally, it played on the radio last night as I was closing as well. I love it when music that is just perfect for the moment happens to play. I digress.

Once I had closed up shop, flicked off the lights, and locked the gates for the last time, I turned around and got a snapshot of my last look at my place of employment. It has been quite the experience but...good riddance.