Each year, the department defines a theme upon which each of the mediums can riff all at once, in order to mount a show; this time it’s about barriers. See if any of these images inspire you.
(Our apologies for uncredited pictures. There are some mysteries in this are; we’ll rectify this as we progress.)
School is the perfect situation in which to take chances: you won’t go to jail, you won’t go to hell, and you won’t get beat up for trying and not succeeding. You have people around you who care, who are interested, and are there to help.
Don’t think of this class as one which educates your mind; rather, it will sophisticate you, which is different. Sophistication is knowledge that’s acquired in the course of having a purpose. You know why you want the information at the moment that you put your hand on it. You’re not just storing it up for a rainy day. Aspects of sophistication: love and style, spirituality and street smarts. Street smarts? Shrewdness and toughness? To protect something soft that is going to be in danger if it’s exposed at the wrong time and place. To protect a soul. You’re learning about the course of art, the course of society, the course of the world, the course of your life.
Set up a personal timetable for the semester and understand it. Break the term into days, weeks, months. You’ll be surprised how little time there is to shoot. Do it at the earliest opportunity you can make for yourself.
Don’t put off working on projects late in the day or at night that demand a lot of creative thinking. Attack problems and creative thinking when you are fresh and rested. At the beginning of each day organize your thoughts; write them down, if that helps.
Always try to understand that you are your own best enemy. Be nice to yourself when you are tackling the unknown. Realize that you are going to fail a lot before you succeed. Allow time for this to happen. Creative work is not mechanical. It deals with your subconscious, your view of yourself and your emotions. If you’re at odds with your friends or family and you are depressed, don’t do creative work. Do mechanical, non-reasoning, unemotional work such as cleaning up or organizing. Don’t try to do more than is possible in the time you have available to you.
Everyone needs to get out more.
Photographs are made in the light.
Making new negatives releases endorphins.
Where you stand and where you put the edges makes clear your intention. The center takes care of itself.
The earlier in the photographic process one takes care of details, the easier everything is.
“If you suffer any sense of confusion in life, the best thing you can do is make little forms.” -Robert Frost
“Making the simple complicated is commonplace. Making the complicated simple, awesomely simple, that’s creativity.” -Charles Mingus
There simply isn’t room for all the good work. Aside from drawings, paintings, prints, and mixed-media collages, when the Art Department faculty looked at work to enter into the Harper Art Show they considered over 130 photographs. The final batch of 43 pictures includes 16 photos by Haley Bulandr, Jack Foersterling, Fay Jenson, Melissa B. Jones, Caroline Horswill…
…Michelle Henneberry, Stephanie Walterman, Zach Rowe, Michael Colby, Mikayla Johnson, Justine Kaszynski, Lauren Captain, Rachel Parker, and Nikki Nixon.
Each school is awarded a first, second, and third place in both 2-D and in 3-D, plus six honorable mentions. For Barrington Huge School:
2-D: 1st, Stephanie Walterman; 2nd, Heather Ciskowski; 3rd, Caroline Horswill. Honorable Mention: Becca Mooney, Allison Monie, Maggie Mulica.
3-D: 1st, Alex Guzman; 2nd, Kaitlyn Fitzpatrick; 3rd, Tiffany Chen. Honorable Mention: Annie Graft, Tiffany Chen, Andrea Vizuet.
The reception and awards presentation is Wednesday, November 30 at 7:00 PM, and it includes music, food, and HGFOS,* some of whom may or may not be among these other winners:
Elk Grove: Taylor Bischoff, Cheryll Victuelles, Patrick Glennon, Elisabeth Puca, Emma Pierce, Margaret Jaryszek, Christi Erbacci, Carolynne Teters
Wheeling: Dasha Krayova,Salvador Maya, Yendi Delfin, Brandon Zaremba, Fonzy Noveron, Daisy Maldonado, Keara Myatt, Karli Falkner, Courtney Kalash, Daisy Martinez
Rolling Meadows: Iga Jedrocha, Jimmy Yeaman, Vinny Carbone, Rachel Weininski, Alex Connor, Lisa Kulvinen, Ivan GarciaMedina, Amy Vitale, Meaghan O’ Brien, Cassie Papciak, Amy Vitale, Nicole Gavin
Buffalo Grove: Mike Kotosev, Oliva Bueno, Starsky Correa, Polina Volodina, Felicia Kranz, Katelyn Berbert, Adam Hintzman, Michael Fisher, Ashley Jones, Angelina Ly, Patrick Boyd, Brittany Rakosnik
Palatine: Chava Krivchenia, Maddi Eppley, Ryan Turley, Itzel Lopez, Jennifer Stanton, Richard Agama, Alex Bogenberger, Emily McParlane, Nieve Heskins, Cornell Jones, Paulina Hernandez, Cody Rejman
Fremd: Sophia Kim, Gina Hublburt, Megan Moroney, Mana Juretic, Jeremy Davis, Sesh Mayo, Min Chon, Julie Comrath, Megan Majewski, Cassondra Pavlatos, Irina Andrianova, Corey Goetz
Hersey: Maddie Weber, Kayla Joo, Aimee Nguyen, Constance Heuer, Alex Lukawski, Tessa Joncas, Sky Baxter, Alexis Ureta, Ariel Wegrzyniak, Jungbin La, Esther Choi, Evan Huff
Conant: Youna Jang, Carly Acks, Nicole Matej, Frankie Garcia, Youna Jang, Abigail Gibson, Ramey Morris, Allie Shive, Lilirose Farnell, Alex Tanchyn, George Ismail
Prospect: Brittany Cavanaugh, Isabelle McGuire, Isabelle McGuire, Nina Churchill, Olivia Burgess, Nancy Chae, Jenna Gudritz, Clair Felde, Angelo Locigno, Brandon Craggs, Alec Backes, Emi Yoshimura
*Hot Guys From Other Schools
The time is here for Barrington Huge School students to begin to tweak their second semester schedules. There has been a widespread misconception among counselors for several years that sophomores should be limited to one semester in the Wonderful World of Photography “to give others a chance” (according to many students, reliably over a number of years; ergo, I believe this report). This is spurious: it is written nowhere, the Art Department chair has never been made aware of this (nor consulted), and exceptions to this “rule” are made whenever it is questioned. Why does this misconception persist? Beats us. If it’s a convenience for the Guidance Department, we cannot see any advantage for them from our perspective. Most people enroll in Photography with no idea of what’s to come, and they find that they enjoy the process. Why should they be made to jump from medium to medium? No one would suggest that for the Whirled Languages Department. If you find yourself in this position, and you’d like to continue in the course despite what was arranged last spring, it’s important to make your preference known. We cannot overload (trust me, you wouldn’t be happy with a stuffed darkroom), but we can monitor the rosters.
We’ll meet in the “Alena Laube Lobby” of the Richard C. Johnson Auditorium at 7:30, so that we can hoof the attendance down to… Attendance, and board our bus by 7:35.
Show your student ID whilst you buy a round-trip ride (2 one-way tickets) to Ogilvie for half-price. At some point, gimme yer $2.25 for the rapid transit ride card (or make your own, to keep and to use in the future). You get to read preparatory material on the train, so that you won’t be confronting work cluelessly, and to give you a start on the assessments and reflections that will account for your day.
We’ll walk to the Gage Gallery on Michigan Avenue. After that visit, we’ll ride the Brown Line of the “L” (that’s the elevated train) to the River North area, to see work at the Catherine Edelman Gallery and the Schneider Gallery. Also in this neighborhood, we’ll bolt down a little nourishment…
…before bolting to the West Loop to visit the Tony Wight Gallery.
At 12:55, we sprint back to Ogilvie. On the return trip you may work on your cleaned-up notes and responses to prompts on the ride home (your epiphanies will be posted here). We arrive in our home town at 2:32. Hitch me a ride back to the Huge School; thanks!
That’s gallery hoppin’: hoofin’ & boardin’ & ridin’ & walkin’ & boltin” & sprintin’ & http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=14Dgw_LSJ5w&feature=related
Here are excerpts from an e-mail that the college counselors send annually, as a service to all teachers in the Huge School. (I resisted the temptation to modify the text, except to compact bullet points into paragraph form.)
“You should describe the student within the context of your classroom: communication skills, student-produced papers or research of note, curiosity, class participation, attitudes towards learning, academic potential. Think about a student’s: verbal and writing skills; ability to think on his/her feet; academic performance over the length of the course; leadership, organizational, coping, socialization skills; maturity level; and overall character. *
We have told students to give you a stamped, addressed envelope for each college so that you can mail your letter of recommendation directly to the college/university. Some faculty feel comfortable sharing a copy of their letter with students while others will let students read their letter prior to its being mailed. Still other faculty refrain from sharing the contents of their letters with students. The choice is up to you. For your information, neither of us advises sharing letters with students. **
Students have been advised to give you a minimum of three weeks to write your letter. If you need more time, insist on it before agreeing to write the recommendation. You may want a student to give you a resume OR the BHS Teacher / Counselor Recommendation Form before writing your letter. It isn’t necessary for you to comment on a student’s extra-curricular activities in your letter; rather, include specific anecdotal references about the student when they were in your class. If you don’t feel comfortable writing a recommendation for a student – or if you don’t have the time – please tell the student in a clear and non-threatening manner. It would be far better for a student to face some minor rejection now and then seek out someone else who could write a stronger letter than to count on you and then have you unable to write an effective letter.” ***
* Many of those items fall under the category of… engagement.
** All envelopes I’ve received are addressed; some have postage attached; some have a return address. Some requests are verbal, and some requestees (?) have indicated a deadline. Not a pretty melange. I have a life, you know.
*** I always set out to write a very good letter for each Senior who needs one; I never write overtly negative statements.
Please. Help me to help you help me help you.
Here is a semi-arbitrary selection of pieces made by members of the AP class, which were made into digital files during the week before the equinox. We hope you find all of it engaging; it’s a promising start to the year. My bad if anyone is left out (or represented twice).
The workflow is: 1. Pry the work from the artists’ clutches. 2. Make digital copies, often whilst chewing or before sunrise, or both. 3. Transfer the files to a work station that is balanced on one’s knees (cf. Mr. Nicholson). 4. Clean up the borders; guess which way is up for some; compress the files to a practical size (and not touch up the charming dust spots). 5. Drag ’em into this post.
Having done those steps, we note that the pictures were made by Kendall Wallin, Margaret Rajic, Rachel Parker, Nikki Nixon, Corey Nguyen, Sam La Bar, Justine Kaszynski, Michelle Henneberry, Dr. Emma Haney, Jamie “Aubergine” Gray, Nicole Galanti, and Chanelle “Tubs” Biangardi. (Lemme know if this is less than accurate.)
There is pleasure in the promise of the “endless” summer, with its formlessness and its possibilities.
Sometimes, however, this sort of situation ends up feeling as though it all just… slipped away… with nothing left to show.
That’s where SoFoBoMo comes in.
Check it out right away. We have six weeks (as of this writing) to complete a virtual book, online. This is bonus karma personified.
Hep me with th’ names, now… you send ’em in, and I’ll add ’em in.
Christina Taylor, Kari Ostrem, Alison Hargreaves, Lynn Bulgrin, Devyn Condill, Amy Flolo, Matt Cox, Scott Brown, Todd Paglialong…
Kasia Gutkowska Mattson, Brad Knochel, Catherine Chinnock; that little Bosnian girl who was gone after freshman year…
Scott Kelley, Sam Taylor, Joel Canter, Mike Arimond…
Rachel Garrison, Steve McWilliams, Darren Hanifl…
See also: https://photodevoto.wordpress.com/2011/06/27/class-pictures/
Oh, and this SX-70 (I think it’s Colleen Logue’s):
(Somebody can take their sharpening tool to this one, but don’t let all the charm ooze out of it.)
Creative Camerawork 