Final Exam

1. Done

2. Done

3. Done

4. The "transformative" photo that I took this school year is this one  . This photo changed my view of photography. I realized that I could take an object as simple as an outdoor light and photograph it in a way that was new to people, and thus, make the object unrecognizable. I remember asking you, Mr. Farley, what you thought the photo was. You had no idea that it was so simple as a mounted light.

5. Shape is a figure made up of lines. Form is a general figure that many shapes make up. Form + Shape

6. Pattern is a network of the same shapes repeated over and over again. Repetition can apply to patterns as well, but repetition is a more generic term. Repetition refers to elements of art (any) that repeat itself in a photo. My pattern and repetition photo is the same.

7. Weebly about page here. A further, more comprehensive about can be found on the bottom of the about page, where you'll find a link to my About.me page
Other photographers' about page

8. http://mgmexchange.blogspot.com/   http://we-int.weebly.com/  http://we-int.weebly.com/media-gallery.html            These are the last 3 projects. Of those projects, the best one is the last one (last link). That was where I grew out of the comforts of home. I went to the Santa Cruz mountains over the weekend, and bought a small drone for $39 and I attached a GoPro camera to it. It took a crazy amount of time and effort to get the drone stable enough to take the photos. I realize that some of the photos have odd shifts in color and harbour a little blurriness. it's hard to control a small drone in windy conditions with a second hand camera attached to it. But I do believe it is my best photo because I worked the hardest on it. The last project affected me in a very interesting way. The beginning of the school year, I learned to see in the perspective of a camera. And the last project I learned to see through the lens of a drone.

On a final note, I don't know if you've ever tried drone photography, but you should give it a go. It's easy, yet versatile. Unlimited possibilities.

Student website review

First period: Aileen Hsu | photo | I like the lens flare.

Second: Ryen Teo | photo | I like the perspective of the tree, from the trunk up the center. 

Third: Hugh Smith | photo | Field in Kansas. Can't go wrong with that...

Fourth period: Valerie C. | photo | Pomegranate seeds in an ashtray. I don't know what the story behind that one is, but it seems really deep. Nobody, I mean nobody, puts pomegranate seeds in an ashtray.

Awaiting Photo Idea Approval.

Knolling: a type of organizational photography where topic-related objects are placed in a 90 degree fashion and laid out flat.

1. Adam Savage
2. Andrew Kromelow
3. Cole Ewert (photogallery here)

5 photos:
First photo: hardware related objects assorted by color, arranged in a knoll
2nd: Electronic hardware assorted by importance, arranged in a knoll.
3rd: Foodstuffs and kitchen ware arranged in a knoll.
4th: Furniture and textiles arranged in a knoll.
5th: Writing instruments and utensils arranged in a knoll.

All or most of my photos will be taken at home.

Best picture + favorite photographer bio

Michael Wolf: Architecture of Density

http://photomichaelwolf.com/#biography

Noel Barnhurst

http://noelbarnhurst.com/studio

Brian Skerry (Nat. Geo)

http://www.brianskerry.com/bio/

Joseph Calev

http://www.calevphoto.com/about.html

Muench

http://muenchphotography.com/artist-bios/

MSJ MCW Story

Day 1: Some random Chinese food.

Day 2: Some random Japanese sushi-ish type stuff

Day 3: Some random Chipotle stuff.

Day 4: I mixed stuff.

Story with a Photo -- Religion is Corrosive to Society.

In February, I met with Richard Dawkins in San Francisco where he gave a speech about how corrosive religion was to society. His speech was elegantly militant towards religion. Instead of touching on one religion at a time, he attacked religion as a whole. 

In the last blog post, I talked about how religion is the least multicultural belief. Dr. Dawkins brought up the separation of races in religion, especially in the holy places. I've noticed this too. For example, you have Korean Catholics, Black Catholics, White Catholics, and Asian Catholics. However, the churches are split in such a way. In Fremont, where I live, there are Korean Churches, Chinese Churches, American Churches, and Black Churches. If you go to a Korean church, all of the people there are Korean. And same for the other churches. Religion claims to bring people of all cultures together. I beg to differ.

I own 2 of Richard Dawkin's books: the God Delusion, and The Selfish Gene. The God Delusion targets religion's corrosiveness to science, and elaborates the corrosiveness of science to religion. The Selfish Gene is a more scientific, biological study on human behavior (namely, selfishness). 

I recommend both of these books to anyone looking for intellectual novels to read.

MW Story

Our school's multicultural week is pathetic. In fact, many multicultural events I have attended were all pathetic. Pathetic on the scale of nearing trash. This year's was particularly trash. To begin with, we have to pay for food with tickets, which are substituted in the place of money. Exactly what is the point of that? I don't see anything wrong with paying with money. In addition to this massive embodiment of idiocy, the multicultural week isn't really all that multicultural. Multicultural events are supposed to exhibit a wide variety of activities, according to the different cultures presented. A Chinese event would display fireworks and lanterns, as well as showcase traditional Chinese cuisine. A French event would display fencing and showcase some cold snails in a shell for your palette. And of course, an American event would display a range of overweight objects; giant trucks, giant food, -- giant people--, etc. 

What does our school have? Food. Food from where? Fremont. Made by who? Cheap mock-up Chinese, Indian, French and Spanish restaurants. The so called "Spanish" food comes from Chipotle, which, evidently, is American. It's quite obvious with the giant serving sizes. 

But what angered me the most was the fact that people were praying before eating, with their mock-up multicultural meals in front of them. Don't believe me? Walk around school this week, you'll find a collection of praying idiots hiding in the cafeteria, and other places. Praying? Really? We live in the 21st Century. It should have became evident 100 years ago that praying doesn't work. It is an awful waste of time spending hours a month on your knees praying to some nonexistent spook.

Before you say "respect other people's opinions", I urge you to think about all of the chaos caused by this fake construct of our mind, religion. KKK, Al-Qaeda, terrorists, war-- all of these have one thing in common. They all came to pass upon the foundation of religious purpose. So no, I don't have to respect your opinion or your religion. I don't have to respect your faith. 

"Faith is the great cop-out, the great excuse to evade the need to think and evaluate evidence." 

                                                                                 -Richard Dawkins

What does this have to do with multicultural week though? Religion claims to bring cultures together. Does it? Read the Bible. The Bible is unbelievably racist. Read other religious texts. They are unbelievably racist. Look at the majority of Catholics. They're white. The majority of Buddhists are Asian. The majority of Hindus are Indian. 

But the majority of atheists? The majority of atheists are not of any culture. So the most multicultural religion is Atheism. Thank you.