Today, we had to choose whether to join the Photo Society and pay the money or stop attending the classes. I have decided to do the latter. With about forty people present, they are too big to get through any decent sample of the work in just an hour. Also, while some of the things being discussed are at a level that would be useful for me, a lot of really basic stuff gets talked about as well. I don’t need to spend an hour and pay £3 to learn something about Photoshop that Neal taught me in two minutes. If I was going to use the dark rooms, the £30 a year fee would be very reasonable, but the last thing I need is some other pursuit to draw me farther away from thesis and seminar reading. Indeed, I have a date with the latter for the rest of tonight that I expect to take a good chunk of it.
After my final PhotoSoc session, I had dinner at Lady Margaret Hall tonight with Richard Albert: a Canadian, formerly at Yale, doing the Bachelor of Civil Laws degree. Confusingly, it is a master’s level program, and it is entirely about common law. In any case, conversing with him was most interesting – an experience that will hopefully be repeated before our respective tenures in Oxford come to an end. Talking about Canadian constitutional law definitely tested my memory of classes with Gateman and Tennant. It is the sort of thing entirely too interesting to be devoted as little attention as can be spared for it.
No more attention can be spared for anything, at this moment, When your seminar is the next day, and the possibility of having to present fills you with dread, you know you are in for a long night of reading.
[Update: 1:00am] I think the page on the wiki for the Developing World option is starting to shape up nicely. It should be a good reference, in the end, for paper writing and exam preparation. Fellow members of the program, feel free to use it. Even better, sign up and add something to it.
[Update: 2:00am] Yes, I do realize that today’s photo is a perfect demonstration of why, instead of using the B&W mode built into my digicam, I should shoot in colour and then render into B&W using Photoshop’s channel mixer. I wish there was a mechanism by which I could compose with the LCD of my Canon A510 in B&W mode, but have it retain colour information for such purposes.
I think the best thing for your photography would be to spend some time doing it other than ‘by accident.’
Pretty much all your stuff was taken in places you happened to be for other reasons, under existing lighting. Actually setting some things up could make it more varied and interesting.
I agree. Not to make excuses, but having a friend who is interested in either participating in some planned photography or modelling for some helps a great deal.
One presentation down this afternoon, three tutorials tomorrow and another presentation Friday… Welcome back to term time! Oh for next summer…
Ben,
My sympathies. With Oxford terms so short, and so much happening, there is little opportunity to do anything particularly well. Of course, if I had more time, I would probably spend it on things more engaging than schoolwork…
Given your politics, I thought you might enjoy this Rolling Stone article (the cover story for this issue).