First Photo Assignment and Critique

Last week was my first photo class assignment and critique. We were told to take a range of photos fitting different types of shots.

___From a bird’s eye view

____From a lizard’s point of view

____Of something blurred

____Where only one thing is in focus (Shallow Depth of Field: Selective Focus)

____Where everything is in focus (Great Depth of Field)

____That is vertical for a specific reason

____That is horizontal for a specific reason

____Of a friend

____Of a stranger

____Of abstract forms

____That combines words and an image

____About myth or ritual

____About where you live

____About a special, personal place

____About sexuality

____Of a created still-life

____That tells a story

____Of something that is overlooked

____That reminds you of childhood

____That reminds you of a movie

I took the majority of my shots on two separate days. Both of those days, were extra special because my parents were visiting with my grandma. The weather was excellent, with beautiful sunlight that offered great lighting as well as comfortable atmosphere for taking photos.

This is a picture of various letters from my Grandfather from a POW camp in Japan. I arranged them in a random way with a black background that allowed emphasis on the text itself. 

I liked this picture because of the natural saturation. The red of the sign especially was appealing to me. I also liked the irony of the warning sign juxtaposed to the surfer taking off on a wave.

In this picture we see two figures in the distance on a hill overlooking the ocean. In this case the random figures are my grandma and my mom. I liked this photo because it reminded me of pictures I've seen of the scottish hill or irish cliffs.

This picture actually was a sequence of the three photos. The large cement structure is a plug or cork of sorts meant to keep people out one of Santa Cruz's natural ocean holes. It had vents that would allow the ocean water to expel towards the sky when the waves crashed against the cliff.

Even though photographing spider web is a tad cliche. I really like how the lighting turned out on this one. 

The winding of the path and the lighting made this photo catch my eye.  The rendering onto my blog may have altered the color a little because it looks a little bright.

I didn't include this in my photo presentation in class but I  liked this one because it has my dad in it. 

Again with the path right? I really liked the angle and thought I could get a better affect with the blurred image.

The wide shot of this seemed to best to me. I like the calm, yet still breaking ocean in this photo.  Also the mother holding the two children reminds me of my childhood and the relationship between me and the ocean. 

I took a risk shooting this photo with so much negative space but it turned out to be very popular in my class.  I like how the contrast in the sky turned out, even though its black and white.

This random photo of a stranger was a favorite of mine. Even though they both are not facing the camera,  the dog seems to have noticed and stared straight at me. It reminds me of being at home and watching the waves with my dad. I also love the way the background turned out.

Slightly hipster or over artsy, but walking along the beach I couldn't help but photograph a picture of  a lonely guy reading a book beneath the perfectly cropped words, "I need a miracle." Take what you will from it :)

      It was a great two days to take some photos along the beach with my family and I really enjoyed the experience of actively taking photographs to express myself. It was also a very educational experience to have my work critiqued by my peers and I really hope to improve and become better.

Continuing Family Ties

     With the groundwork information gathered from Uncle Chris in Santa Cruz an opportunity presented itself to visit my Aunt Lynn in Rancho Murieta, California.  Using the experience in Santa Cruz as stepping stone I decided to make same changes to how I would conduct myself. Most obviously.. I would write questions and tape the interview. So with my cheap camcorder and notepad I set out.

      Traveling out to  Rancho Murieta from Santa Cruz with my friend Jean, who had a potential job interview in nearby UC Davis Medical Center,  we arrived late in the night. Early the next morning Aunt Lynn, Uncle Bill and I spent time talking about her memories of her father.
     As the oldest child of the Dollar family talking to her would be an interesting perspective on the life of her father that would be essential to understanding Clyndon Dollar better.  This was also the perfect excuse to catch up with my aunt and uncle, who I have don't really have an opportunity to see that often. Aunt Lynn's recollections largely focused around what her mother had told her about first meeting my grandfather. It was very interesting to see the view point of my grandmother, who was married to my Clyndon for nearly 45 years. Aunt Lynn recalled hearing my grandmother talk about my grandfathers personality and the PTSD episodes that would occasionally surface. Hearing about the dedication, loyalty and love my grandmother had for my grandfather through all his trials was very heart warming. My aunt's stories of her own memories of my grandfather in particular were also helpful in furthering my visualization of what living with a PTSD victim could be like. Often she referenced incidents of "acting out" by my grandfather, but similar to my dad and uncle there is a reserved sense of respect that limits the level at which they would discuss such matters. I wouldn't be able to get a concrete example of what sort of behavior this entailed until I talked to my Uncle Norm later in the year.

     After talking with my uncle and aunt, we toured around the Rancho Murieta community. It turned out their house was in a large gated community that had many sprawling lakes. The picture above is one of the lakes that is actually in their backyard. The tree in the picture is a special pine that was originally rooted in the Dollar's childhood home in San Clemente. Evidently the original pine was enormous and towered over the house, eventually cracking neighbor's paved patio or driveway. Somewhere along the line my Uncle Bill had saved a seed from the tree and brought it along to raise another tree. Because my grandparents house was sold and consequently torn down, after they died, my uncle took it upon himself to raise the tree with plans to disperse new saplings to the six Dollar brothers and sisters. My uncle informed me it was a species of Japanese pine which made the tree all the more compelling.
      Ending my day with my Aunt and Uncle I began the journey home with my friend Jean. During the drive home I couldn't help see the parallels between the tree and my grandfather. A towering figure with in the family's memory yet a Japanese past  intertwined in its identity. The trees enormity eventually creates cracks within the lives around it, but the memory lives on through the saplings it produced.

Next Post: I'll have a briefing on what I learned from my Uncle Norm.

Family Ties

     After declaring my thesis my next move was to search out potential leads from my family members. My grandfather had six children and the memories were valuable to me on a personal level of knowing more about my own grandfather. On the academic level the memories my uncles and aunts have serve as an awesome primary source for understanding not only what my grandfather went through but also what it was like for children to live under household of a war survivor. Seeing the value of the individual interview that was so heavily utilized in my Nagamine Project experience I found that I had the confidence to undertake information gathering through talking to my relatives.
 
    With this in mind I first went about to talking to my Uncle Chris who lives in Santa Cruz. Bringing some of the historical pieces my grandfather had saved, we looked through them in an effort to bring to light potential ideas for future research.  Together with my two cousins we looked through the material telling stories and memories as we went along.



The first impression of talking with my uncle reflected the earlier conversations I had with my dad about my grandfather. Both had a reserved since of respect for their father, which would be expected. However given the nature of some of the stories my uncle told me some additional speculation by Uncle Chris and father, as to why my grandfather acted the way he did would be expected. The major summarized point I found from talks with my Uncle Chris was that my Grandfather was very reluctant to talk about his experiences on Wake Island. It seemed that when he did talk about it, the after affects were largely negative.






My uncle described incidents where my grandfather would walk around the house and street late at night "on patrol." My uncle seemed to believe these stories were linked to conversations earlier in the day about his experience as a prisoner. Its my guess that if this happened today, my grandfather would probably be diagnosed has having post traumatic stress disorder as a result of his imprisonment during WWII. Given the state of most returning soldiers after war it would be no surprise that the terrible conditions of Japanese prison camp had a traumatic affect that would haunt him for the rest of his life.






It was great having my uncle and cousins in Santa Cruz to talk with. The interest they showed in our family's history furthered my resolve to continue looking into this story so I could have more to share with them. The bonding we had looking at items from our common history was a great experience and made us a lot closer. With these thoughts in mind, I made a goal to talk with my relatives to share our history and also expand my research network.