community gardens and hello, i am alive!

WELL IT'S BEEN AWHILE EH? life has been busy and sophomore year has been good so far (trying to avoid the alleged sophomore slump): dealing with my weekly existential crisis - learning what it really means to live in the city - chilling out in my awesome dorm - expanding my love of photography through some great classes - and cooking a lot. oh also, i'm studying abroad in LONDON this coming spring and i'm ecstatic as shit. and i photograph for NYU Local so that's cool.

photo wise i don't think i've produced anything that exciting, but i'm not too bummed about that. i don't know if i'd say i was in an inspirational ditch but lately i've been more bitter and critical of the photos i see and the photos i take - but i don't think that should stop my from just shooting daily, because it isss my passion.

i'll upload some kind of summary post of my adventures, probably with iphone photos because lord knows i take too many of those. i do a good job of keeping my instagram constantly updated so i'm going to shamelessly post it again: here are a small batch of pictures i had sitting on my hard drive of my lovely babies: bella, tess, and morgan.

sour in times square

i know, i have to update but i thought i would post these! (sophomore year is gr8 so far tho)

these aren't any special photos or anything, but i was meeting someone at times square toys r us for an nyu local article. i just hip shot and clicked the shutter during the 3 block walk up from the Q train to toys r us and the photos highly amuse me. every one is completely disillusioned and not amused, it's great.

for people who live in nyc - times square is the pit of hell, especially in the summer. of course you have to visit it once in your life i suppose, but after that you don't really ever have to go back. it's crowded, disgusting, full of tourists, and generally an awful place and not somewhere that really shows how awesome and unique the city is.

but look how grumpy everyone is

college times: april

[written jan 2014]

updating some old photos i never got around to uploading, alas - not much is remembered but preppin' for the warmer months to come.

i spent a lot of days wandering around 2nd ave taking photos for my digital class, went to an awesome indian restaurant laden with a million hanging lights, went to a persian street fair where tess was running a tay tea stand, finally ate a coolhaus ice cream sandwich, went to the zoo for tina's birthday, and just hung out ya know.

college times: march

march was snowy/wet walks through washington square park, finding 1.50 brie in the east village cheese store, going to coney island with my photo girls, brighton beach, photographing strangers, spring break that consisted of a long island adventure // going to the met and seeing wicked!! with victoria, and constant revists to grand central terminal for my essay.

college times: february

LONG TIME NO UPDATE. uploading and sorting through old photos from february. can't say i remember much, but i took a ton of photos as a result from the weekly assignments from my digital class. as usually i refer to my instagram in attempts of remembering what happened. i updated pretty regularly on flickr this month.

february was class, staying (but really going out) in for the "blizzard" nemo, friends, cooking nights, seeing the daily show and nyu's annual talent show, eating lots of "chloe's soft serve," and celebrating chinese new year's at home and in the city. just enjoyin' life ya know. looking back on these photos now i fucking miss it. a lot.

photos edited in lightroom and i played around with noise and some online presets i found.

saint james and the whiskey fires

some photos i took back in april of my friend nate and his band. find them here! taken in williamsburg.

i particularly love this song, watch the above video!

the rain room

moma (museum of modern art in nyc) refers to the exhibit:

A field of falling water that pauses wherever a human body is detected, Rain Room offers visitors the experience of controlling the rain. Known for their distinctive approach to contemporary digital practice, Random International’s experimental projects come alive through audience interaction—and Rain Room is their largest and most ambitious to date. The work invites visitors to explore the roles that science, technology, and human ingenuity can play in stabilizing our environment. Using digital technology, Rain Room creates a carefully choreographed downpour, simultaneously encouraging people to become performers on an unexpected stage and creating an intimate atmosphere of contemplation.

you walk into a dark room with rain falling from the ceiling. but there are motion detectors on the ceiling that detect your presence so you so you won't get wet. if you'd like to read more descriptions about the room, google "rain room"! they are better writers than i.

i heard about this opening in london and i was psyched when it came to the moma! for my new yorkers, it closes at july 28th. the only downside to this awesome exhibit is that there is a very long wait. word of mouth said the wait was from 2-3 hours, which is very doable for me. but when i went with ashley, grant, claudia, and her friend leigh we waited for 4.5 hours. aiiii. they let around 10 people in at a time for 10-15 minutes. i would recommend you go on a weekday around 12, because from 9:30-10:30am members have priority in the line and their wait is around 2 hours. so either get membership if you are going or go on a weekday.

the rain room is an exhibit and also a stage, you're there to experience the rain and take photos and i honestly loved it. it just reminded me of giggling and running in the rain as a child. of course if you swing your arms really fast you will get wet but it's quite amazing. i wish i was the only one there though taking photos of dancers, but you do what you can!

photo wise: these photos were touched up in lightroom slightly. most of them are unedited. the biggest question while taking photos was: do i use a high shutter speed and iso to capture the individual rain droplets or should i use a longer shutter speed to get the rain in motion? bokeh/no bokeh? so i just did it all ok.

coney island in film

yay i finally developed and scanned my film! this was from my first trip to coney island with some photo friends. :) i have a lot of pictures to upload, i'll get around to it eventually. back in early march when it was still empty and cold. i apologize for the terrible scan quality.

brighton beach

super quick blogpost before i head off to class! i'll update with february/march adventures later this week, spring break is only a few days away. victoria is coming to me and she's gawn take me to see wicked~

i've been going to the beach quite often this month (these photos marking my third time that week, oi) we take the Q train from union square and 35 minutes later, it's the open ocean and sandy beaches. i'm slightly obsessed, i will admit. it's just so open and peaceful, it's nice to get away with just one subway swipe. went there with tess, jess, and zack.

urban encounters: red umbrellas

something for class, i'll just copy and paste the artist statement:

Wandering around in the pouring rain, camera haphazardly wrapped in a Ziploc plastic bag, I photographed everything that caught my eye. I began to notice a pattern in my pictures; my eye was subconsciously drawn to red objects. A woman’s bright purse, a child’s rain boots, and a couple (more than a couple) of red umbrellas. What began as an aimless wander in the soaked city soon became a scavenger hunt. Spotting a splash of red across from the street and chasing it through the streets and avenues. Urban Encounters, quite literally. The moment I decided to look for red umbrellas, they suddenly multiplied in mass quantities. A rare occurrence turned out to be much more common than I had imagined it to be. These little details are what make the environment around us so, for the lack of better terms, special. It’s tiny elements that you don’t notice on a day-to-day basis, but you would realize it if it were gone. Kind of like the spice that completes a perfect dish of food, red umbrellas to me are another wonderful colorful quirk the city has to offer.

sorry for the lack of updates, i have digital this semester and we've been shooting everything in raw or adobe rgb so converting everything is a bitch. i'll post more various photos later.

so i did this thing where i edited them first on my macbook and then opened it up on the school's correctly calibrated computers to print them out - and i was like LAWD THE COLORS SO bAD. so i fixed them. but because i am lazy, i didn't want to wait for the tif files to resave soooooo i had to re-edit and convert these photos for the internet. it looks much better printed, as does everything.

chelsea piers

or well, part of it. ashley and i went on a quick photo adventure in chelsea, but it was cut short because 1) chelsea piers was actually closed 2) it was windy as fuck and i was dying/ashley was dying so we went to chelsea markets.

this semester has been pretty good so far, i'm loving my classes and it definitely feels "lighter" than last semester - maybe because i've adjusted to college? or maybe because the hard shit hasn't come yet. whatever. i was too lazy to edit every single one on photoshop (like what i usually do) so for my non-favorite shots i played around with lightroom editing! curves are still my favorite way to edit photos/and i very much prefer it, but this way ain't too bad when you have lots o pix!

THEY ARE REPETITIVE I AM SORRY LOL

theee following photos were edited with lightroom. IT WAS REALLY REALLY REALLY COLD AND WINDY OK.   last two are moi by ashwee.