‘Fig’ reflects a transformation in my perspective on life. In the past few years I have matured enormously. I have become more self-aware, no longer hating the freckles on my face or shape of my hands, as they are strong, functional and actually existent. I have noticed the beauty of the rain in its sound, not merely the cold, wet clothing it brings. I have learnt the importance of protecting the earth from diminishment. I have grown to appreciate my home. Once critical of my mum’s taste in interior style, I am now grateful to have an interior, a roof over my head. I no longer view the term ‘maturity’, as the boring, looming persona clutching to my back; it now represents clarity and calmness in my thoughts amongst chaos. It is about optimism, trying new things and pushing my boundaries, whether that is an action or a thought. I wanted to show things I have changed perspectives towards in my piece. A fig was chosen as the visual embodiment of this ideology as it is the most recent example I have of trying something new. I always thought I hated figs. Refused to try them. I never quite realised by not ever attempting to taste them, I was unknowingly stopping myself from enjoying something so delicious. Figuratively, ripeness [of a fig] may also be associated with maturity.

I did not expect viewers to recognize my film’s abstract intention so I envisioned them reading this text beforehand, but due to the nature of a blog, I could not always control what they experienced first. However, I did expect some feelings of warmth and nostalgia to be incited due to the quiet piano music. The audio was the biggest obstacle I believe. I originally wanted something with a beat [camping light sound at beginning] but mastering Logic Pro was hard in mere days. I came up with a piano tune on the spot instead. I would like to record it more professionally next time. The effect of this alteration was to change the mood of the music to a calmer, classic sound but also, unfortunately, a more generic one.

Rather than a linear narrative/montage style piece, I wanted to create short clips with sharp cuts in order to jar the viewer and allow them to concentrate on each image as it contrasted it’s prior counterpart. I did so through contrasting cuts and also the illusion of a jump cut [the images of the figs] though they were still images rather than footage. With other still images I also tried to allude to movement as I enjoy video. An example of this is the three photos of the hills that disappear with each transition to the next shot. I tried to make the dissolve between the similar shots as fluid as possible. I do wish I had attempted some graphic matching, but with the content filmed, I found it difficult. I would love to master it for brief three.

Last night I learnt some basic skills in Logic Pro X. “Basic” being the operative word. My boyfriend is studying music and offered to show me a few things to help me manipulate my sounds for the media brief #2. He chose to show me this program rather than Pro Tools (for a reason I cannot remember for the life of me, but it must have been important..) and as we got into it, I noticed that it seemed pretty similar to Final Cut Pro X, a program that I am familiar with, but only all the edits were of sounds rather than clips. The major difference was that I don’t have a great knowledge of music. I can play a little piano to get me by, but the technical side to sound quality got pretty overwhelming, fast. Too many buttons for one brain to handle. I’ve decided that I will need to keep it very basic for my next assessment as there’s too much to practice with, in only a few mere days. Back to iMovie and Garage-band land for me!

In our contemporary media landscape, the online world of social media is renowned for driving the growth of viral global sensations. Amongst the YouTube propaganda piece, “Kony” (2012), and also Metro commercial, “Dumb Ways to Die” (2012), one of the latest online phenomenon is the controversial “Blue and Black or White and Gold” photograph, otherwise dubbed on social media as, #TheDress.

The image originally posted by Tumblr blogger Swiked, gained world-wide attention on February 26^th 2015 after the influential social news and entertainment website Buzzfeed re-posted the image to their site, it received an enormous 200 million views. The hype of the dress increased due to rapid and constant sharing of the image amongst social media users, particularly by popular celebrity figures such as Taylor Swift. Berger and Milkman (2012) state that, online virality is propelled by physiological stimulation. They consider that information eliciting vastly positive or negative emotional responses is more likely to go viral. The notion that viewers, including the famed, perceived the dress to be contrasting colours created huge publicity due to its inexplicability.

Group identities also formed based on the observation of different colours. Historically, the Internet predominantly functioned as a tool for collecting information. However through this constant process of globalisation and growth in accessibility, we are now able to utilise technology for our own social needs, such as building rapport. Identity and a feeling of belonging can now be perpetuated in not only physical interaction, but also online. Allsop, Basset and Hoskins (2007) report “59% of people report that they frequently share online content with others”. Whilst we know people must have shared the image privately, conversation around the dress can also be seen in public online behaviour such as playful witticism like tweets, hashtags and memes. This viral sensation has functioned to create a sense of belonging for users online. The self titled teams “Blue and Black” and “White and Gold” illustrate this notion.

The virality of the dress stems from two things. The first would be the innocent amusement people gained from it. It was an image that contrasted the horrific images of worldwide news that are reported daily. It formed group conversation and jokes, and not at the expense of a person. Secondly, the image did not discriminate or divide people based on personal characteristics; it merely split people on what colour they saw. Therefore, online users could form a connection with other world-wide users within the online community. It could be viewed from almost any country of the world and could be relatable to the people seeing the image.

We presented our Project Brief #1 to our peers today. It was awesome viewing others interpretations of the task. People came up with such introspective, abstract reflections of self which highlighted the fact that I was in a real sea of creatives. What was I thinking?!?!? That I would be fine to hand in my “no-videos-due-to-copyright’, sloppy-old-photo work…. Thank goodness this one wasn’t being marked. I was plagued by writer’s block and instead of pushing through, I did as all good optimists bad uni students do and hoped for the best whilst completing the bare minimum.

We used also utilised De Bono’s 6 hat system to give feedback to our peers for the project. The system helps to separate thinking into 6 distinct categories, allowing the group to give feedback on someone’s work in a vastly different way. Listed below are the 6, however we only used 4 due to relevance.

Black: is judgement.

Blue: is used to manage the thinking process

White: is information needed

Yellow: is positive feedback

Red: are initial feelings and gut reactions

Green: is the creative or alternative possibilities

I loved being the red hat. It’s how I would usually give feedback anyway, from whatever gut feelings I experienced. Hearing feedback from the green and black hats was also great, as I learn through sharing ideas and therefore need critique/alternate possibilities in order to improve my work. However, it was difficult to be the black hat, aka the bearer of bad news, and risk offending someone. I noticed for myself, and even people in my group it was tempting to do a combination of both red and black or yellow and black (to soften the blow of the critique)

My identity is a big mash of contradictions. My decisions and the things I do are usually guided by my feelings and intuition, and I like to get things done when I feel like it. I think that will be my biggest issue at university- self discipline.

This brief was a profoundly difficult task. After deliberating what characteristics of myself to convey, or people I love (weighing up which were more significant as I was limited to four) I ended up gravitating towards using images of past times that make me feel like a happy, fulfilled human being. Though this may seem like a depthless interpretation of the task, I thought that this reasoning would give the most thorough reflection of my identity. These images are predominantly centred around being outdoors. When my lungs are filled with fresh, crisp air and I am out in nature, I feel my best. Originally, I had written over 500 words describing these pictures. When I write I have a tendency to babble, and just blindly write as I am thinking. However, I have decided to pare it back and let the images speak for themselves. 

Collectively the show my interests in: nature, being in the water, camping, music festivals, friends, markets and even the use of disposable cameras and (not pictured) film to create photos. I enjoy the look of the photos, the challenge of trying to capture an image in one go and also the excitement associated with printing the photos.

Would never have guessed it, but almost a week later… I am still thinking about William Merrin’s thoughts on Me-dia. Yes, it’s true.

You see, for the past 6 weeks I’ve been in quite a pickle with my Apple products. In attempting to update an embarassing email address haunting my iMessage (“elise__love”… we’ve all been there) I’ve managed to find an accidental loop-hole in Apple’s updating procedure. I half deleted an old account whilst half creating a new one, thus somehow merging and locking them both. Skills, I tell you. After having no luck from Apple’s base in Brisbane, the Philippines and their fraud team in solving the issue, I have been trapped for over a month with an unusable Apple ID. It is on all my gadgets, yet cannot be removed, and cannot be logged into. I’ve been left unable to access my iTunes, iPhoto, iMessage, App store or any updates.

Aside from this tragic work in progress that I like to call my technological life, Merrin comes into this about now. At approximately 9.15pm, realising I could no longer get onto iCloud (got it back at 10.37pm yay) I thought about actually losing every photo I’ve ever taken. Essentially this online storage service, and everything it contained was lost into oblivion with my Apple ID account for all I knew. I thought about the ephemeral quality of contemporary media.

Merrin comments on a digital world plagued with fragility. Not only in media’s use, attention and relevance but also a physical sense. In a society so ingrained with online media, when things go wrong… Where can we actually find our stuff? It is a frightening thought…

Today’s media lecture featured a presentation by Annie Lennox on copyright. Her words altered my perspective on the topic as I began to see copyright laws as a way of protecting one’s rights and hard work rather an annoying-bunch-of-rules-that-stop-me-from-using-songs-I-like.

I was also reminded of a blog post and affiliating article I read in 2014, regarding a copyright violation by band, The Red Jumpsuit Apparatus. Photographer, Rohan Anderson, claimed the band had infringed his rights when they used and edited an image he had taken at one of their gigs. He stated the image was used and edited without his permission, but also without any credit. Supposedly, when he confronted the band, he was met with a very unprofessional response.

If like me, you’re having trouble relating to the importance of copyright laws have a read of the following link. Whether the post be 100% factually correct or not, put yourselves in the shoes of someone who has had their work stolen.

http://www.rohanandersonphotography.com/red-jumpsuit-apparatus-copyright-violation/