Author Archives: Cali4beach

Day 10: The Watery Grave

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Day 10’s assignment was : “Use only water as your medium or inspiration today.”

Due to various events this day I waited until the last possible minute to create something for the assignment. Which, consequently meant that I wasn’t thinking clearly when I decided to balance my camera on top of a water glass to get a photo.

Camera + Glass of Water= Watery Grave.

My face when my camera plunged into the water looked something like Day 9’s assignment:

WHAT HAVE I DONE?!

NOOOOOOO

And of course my backup camera works only half the time I try to use it.

All in all, today’s assignment was looking to turn out super crappy. The photos I got were laughable like the image below.

Totally Crappy

But, thanks to the power of photoshop/ picnik I managed to turn out a somewhat interesting photo….

Evil Eye

This photo was made in Picnik by  doing several edits such as adding a watery texture, changed the hue/saturation, as well as adding in the eye.

Monster Eye

I know I could do a lot more with these photos, but for now I am content to put the memory of drowning my camera behind me. I am attempting to rescitate it, but I don’t know if I will have any luck.

#DS789

Day 8: The day I destroyed a book & discovered the theme of my 366 day project.

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Day 8 assignment was: “Transform an old book into something new by cutting, folding, gluing and so on.”

Now at first I was slightly horrified. Destroy a book?  Impossible!!

But then I thought about this book on Degas I had rescued from my grandma’s house in August when it was about to be donated.

 

I could not get a photo of this without me in the photo... :/

It was filled with many of Degas’ great paintings and I thought it would cool to use these prints as part of an art project. So I kept the book, waiting for the right time to rip into it.

Today was that day.  It was weird at first, cutting into a book, but after a while it became a lot of fun. I ended up saving most of paintings found in the book, only leaving those I  didn’t like as much. I even ended up reading more of the book than expected as well.

The book was torn apart in half.

Once I cut out everything I wanted I had to decide what I wanted my project of the day to be.

all the clips

I ended up making a college out of 1 1/2 paintings

 

 

This is my thought process for this piece. The woman is trapped in a box, the box called “her life right now.” Outside of it, there’s a lot brighter/ more interesting world that isn’t exactly perfect. Will she ever break free of  her life right now and explore a world that offers much more potential for her?

 

I am probably going to finish this piece by mounting it to blank paper so I can write a letter on the back of it and send it off.

Which leads me to the theme of this 366 day project: Mail.

I love mail. I love writing letters & postcards and receiving them in turn. A lot of my projects thus far have been things revolving around mail/letters and I want to continue this pattern by making it my general project theme. I want most of my projects to be something that I can send to other people, so that it’s not something that is just going to pile up around my house. Also, I am always looking for new cards to send to people, so now I can just make my own.

 

Day 7: Graffiti Art

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Day 7’s activity was “One week down! See how fast it goes? Today, make a stencil and use it in your work.”

I started off with trying to make an elaborate stencil, but realized my paper cutting abilities leave much to be desired. Instead, I ended up making a stencil that said “Got Mail” with the help of my sister.

By the time we finished making the stencil it was getting rather late so I decided to put off using it until the next day. Again, another 2-day project. Oh well.

I had just finished writing at super long letter to one of my friends overseas (22 pages) and I realized that I needed a bigger envelope to send it in. I decided to use my stencil to decorate the envelope.

i

And since that turned out well I decided I wanted to decorate the front of the envelope too. I dug out a stencil that my friend Natalie had given me as part of my 19th birthday gift.

All in all, I loved doing Day 7 assignment! But, of course, who doesn’t like making art with spray paint? ; )

 

 

 

Day 3: adventures in Origami

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365creativityjournal ‘s assignment for day 3 was: “Make something out of paper, but don’t use scissors or glue or draw on it. What now?”

Of course, the first thing that sprung to my mind was origami. My friend KKY had given me a bunch of origami paper about a year earlier after I said I wanted to learn how to make paper cranes. I had never really used the paper so now would the perfect opportunity to do so.

I headed over to my friend Aitak’s house where we proceeded to start folding. I quickly learned that I suck at origami. I really do. Somehow all the folding I have to do confuses my brain because the only origami I was actually able to do was the paper hearts and the cup.  Level: So easy a five year old could do it…

 

The paper crane was unquestionably way too hard for someone with my skill level and even creating a 3-D box was impossible too. I tried 3 different times to make that box and somehow I managed to mess up every time! :/

Why so impossible?! (Aitak's amazing box)

All in all, it was an interesting day, but obviously I need a lot more practice before I can declare myself an origami master.

At the end, just for fun, Aitak and I did an experiment to see how long it would take for the origami boxes to burn (I also thought it would a cool photo opportunity).

 

An experiment

Actually these things were really hard to burn/took a while…

2011 recap & 2012 resolutions

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2011 was a crazy year.

I graduated from college and had many crazy adventures in the US with international friends!

In 2011 I visited 23 states

In my entire life I have been to 32 out 50 states in the US

 

Most importantly, I took DS106 in my final school semester. DS106 has changed my life. I say this not because all of the internet skills I learned through this class, but because of my 365 photo a day project I started. I’ve been working on this project since Jan 31,2011 and only have a month left to go.

Out of all my resolutions for 2011, taking a photo everyday has been the only one I have kept.  The key here was determination and so far I’ve done an amazing job of sticking with it.

Now it’s 2012. What’s the plan for the new year you might ask? I have a lot of things up in the air right now, but two things are certain:

1) I want to travel as many new places/countries as possible this year

2) I am starting a new year long project based on the book “365: A Daily Creativity journal” by Noah Scalin.** Every day for a year I will be creating something new based on the daily prompts from the book. I’ve already kickstarted the year with by making this:

Two of my friends are supposed to be doing this project alongside with me as well (Katherine and Marieke) so I am excited that I am not going into this year long project alone.

As for other “resolutions” I ideally want to try blogging at least once a week. Once DS106 was over I’ve definitely slacked on the blogging and I’ve come to realize that I miss it. Also, I think I might want to keep up with a photo a day for a year. Now of course I am going to be taking a photo everyday of my 366 (because of leap year) creativity journal project, but it would be nice to continue taking photos of things outside of this.

I don’t know what’s going to happen in 2012, but I do know it’s going to be an creatively interesting year!

**SIDE NOTE: Noah Scalin’s 365 day project involved creating a skull a day. He did an amazing job on this project and if the things that I can create this year are a quarter as good as his, then I will be happy!

This is one of my favorites from his project :

USA VS. Germany: Renting out Graves

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Normally death is an abstract concept to a young person such as myself. Thinking about burial plots, funeral costs and things of this nature is something that I would never even consider.

However, while on my #ChasingSummer roadtrip through the South I got a chance to talk with my two German friends about the various Germany VS. USA differences.  One difference I found fascinating was about German grave sites.

Now the reason this subject came up in conversation was because of our stop in Charleston, SC. I was informed by my Aunt that my Great-Great-Great Grandpa was a prominent member of the community back in the day and even had a wharf named after him (Adger’s Wharf). My mom had asked me to go to his gravesite and take photos since she is interested in geneaology. So off I went to the cemetery dragging my two German friends along.

A relative from long ago

Here’s where it gets interesting. When we got to the site, my friends were astonished that although he had passed away in the late 1800’s his grave was still present. They asked me who was paying the rent on the space.

Hold on: Renting a grave site? What?!

They explained that Christian graves in Germany are rented out to the family for a period of say, 20 years. After that,   the family has to pay more money for the space otherwise their stone will be removed and someone else is put in the spot. After many years (let’s say 60 +)  the members of the family (if there are any left) might stop paying, thus allowing a new person from a different family to be placed in their stead.

Now I can understand this because the country of Germany is many years older and is a lot smaller than the US. But seeing as how people here generally stay in the place they are originally buried, this seems a little odd to me.  I told my friends that you can find graves here dating back to the 1600’s and that keeping the graves makes it a lot easier to trace family history.

We can trace our family back to settlers on the Mayflower

However, I can definitely understand why families might stop paying for the gravesite of the deceased after a certain time. For instance, take my Great-Great-Great Grandpa’s grave. If we followed the German system and it came time for renewing his rental “lease” I probably wouldn’t do it. I know nothing about him, I don’t live in South Carolina and besides he’s been dead for over a century.  Now if it came time for the rental “lease” on my Grandpa’s grave to be renewed, I would definitely do it since I grew up with him and it’s nice to “visit” him once in a while.

According to article I read renting a burial plot in Germany ranges from $900 to $5,000 (EU) for 20 years. Comparatively, in the US burial plots can be bought anywhere from a range of $1,000 USD upwards to $10,000 USD as shown by this website. It’s all about location, location, location!

I find all of this sort of funny because this is something I would probably never have known about if it hadn’t been for being at this place, at this time with some Germans.

It’s definitely something interesting to think about, especially if I ever set a story in Germany!

For more information about Germany’s burial practices check out this informative article.

Chasing Summer: a journey through the South

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For the past two months I’ve been off adventuring with one of the best travel buddies ever, my friend Marieke.

This is how I met her:

Feb 2010- I had just arrived to Townsville, Australia to study abroad for the semester and was worrying about where I was going to live. I couldn’t find on-campus housing and was instead placed in a hostel near the Uni until I could find my own place. I had never been to Australia before, never lived off campus before either, and in general was feeling kind of anxious about meeting people and finding my way around a foreign country.

Lo and behold, my hostel roommate turns out to be a German girl named Marieke who was also studying abroad at James Cook University just like me. She needed to find a place to live  as well, and so we began our life in Australia by room hunting together. We ended up in a house near campus and from there we traveled a lot around Australia during our school vacations.

I don’t know if it was luck or fate that brought us together but whichever it was, it’s been awesome having a friend who likes to travel as much as I do and who I get along crazy-well with.

 

When Marieke decided that she wanted to come to America for her first time ever and travel, I was totally on board. Marieke started her trip in September in New York City with Sabine, her friend from Germany. From there, they came down to DC and spent some time touring the city with me. After about a week we hit the road heading south and chasing summer.

I have travelled to many amazing places and seen amazing things, but this really the first time I’ve gone on a massive road trip with friends. Over the course of 39 days, Marieke and I travelled to 11 different states and drove over 6,058 miles (9,749 km)!

Sabine was in the USA for exactly a month and together we all travelled for three weeks on the road, hitting up five states. Marieke and I were sad to see her go back to Germany from Miami since she also was an amazing travel buddy! Still, the fact that she was able to get a month off from work was awesome! (Germany: better working conditions that America!).

First time at Ihop for Sabine!

I had never travelled through the South before, so let me tell you, it was an experience. There really are idiotic white people who wear/carry confederate flags… >.<

However, for the most part, we had a great time. Almost everywhere we went we met so many kind and generous people who helped us with our travels. It was great because we also got to meet people with such a wide variety of careers ranging from things like being a dolphin trainer, to an Engineer for the Marines, to a cruise ship bartender, and a writer for Apple, among others.

Besides meeting people, it was fun to explore new cities and try activities I’ve never done before, like Parasailing, along with trying new foods, like Alligator sausage.

Alligator Sausage in Gumbo

That tiny dot... that's Marieke and me 😉

 

It was also interesting hearing Marieke and Sabine talk about the subtle and very distinct differences between the US and Germany. Expect a forthcoming blog post on this!

After all these travels, it was hard to go back home to join real life and fall weather, especially since Marieke flew over to the West Coast to spend a few weeks in California before heading back to Germany. Now I will just have to start planning my next big vacation with Marieke & Sabine! We’re thinking Eastern Europe : )

If you want to see more pictures from our trip check out my flickr

Our #1 roadtrip song

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TilW9kN2E0c

Below I’ve included a list of my favorite/least favorite cities and also must-do activities if you are venturing in the South!

Favorite Cities:

  • South Beach Miami, Florida– Love the vibe and the beach is gorgeous!
  • Austin, Texas — cool college town with lots of things to do in town, and yet driving 20 minutes, you can be outside the city in the wilderness.
  • Hot Springs, Arkansas— surprisingly this little town was pretty epic. They have these really nice thermal baths, and also we managed to be in Hot Springs during a documentary film festival which featured a lot of interesting stories. Also, it’s home to the smallest National Park in America.
  • Las Vegas, Nevada — Marieke and I flew here for a few days after our roadtrip ended. Think of it as an EPIC finish for our trip together. It truly was incredible. There is no city that can beat Vegas for crazy nights out, great shows, and the opportunity to practice your math skills while playing BlackJack. ; )

Sobe

 

Quapaw Baths in Hot Springs

 

 

Least Favorite:

  • Wilmington, North Carolina— Not a lot to see or do here…
  • New Orleans, Lousiana— love the live music and the food is yummy, but downtown NOLA is smelly and dirty. This onetime visit for a few days was perfect for me, but I don’t feel the need to ever go back there.
  • Houston, Texas: a big city that is hard to get around in, not to mention Texas drivers are total jerks!!!!! Plus points for having some interesting art exhibits.
  • Memphis, Tennessee- just another big city and a not-so clean one at that.

 

Must dos for people traveling in the South:

North/South Carolina

  • explore the South of the Border shops, when crossing into South Carolina from North Carolina while on the I-95. This rest stop has really funny souvenirs and also offers a great picture taking opportunities.
  • Stop at the Charleston Tea Plantation, the only tea plantation in America, in Charleston, South Carolina. Sample some of their tea (iced or normal ) and get a free factory tour.

Pedro from South of the Border

Georgia

  • Rent a bike and bike around downtown Savannah. It’s a pretty town and the nightlife is pretty fun, even on a weekday. BUT, DO NOT park at the Visitor center if you aren’t going to be there when it closes. Otherwise, you will get a pricey ticket D:

Savannah

Florida

  • Stay at the Everglades International Hostel while visiting the Everglades. The hostel has great atmosphere, lots of friendly and cool hippies taking care of the place, and is also conveniently located near the park which offers one-of-a-kind sights.
  • Go to Wakulla Springs State Park, outside  of Tallahassee, Florida. This natural spring, one of the largest and deepest in the world, offers opportunities to see manatees up close in the wild, alligators and various other wildlife. You can also go swimming here, although note that the water is chilly even in summer!
  • Soak up the sun on gorgeous Miami’s South Beach. Don’t forget the sunscreen!

at Wakulla State Park

Texas

  • Visit the  Art Car Museum in Houston. It has some interesting things, but not something to go out of your way and see unless you happen to be passing through Houston.
  • Watch a movie at Alamo Drafthouse in Austin. Here you can get full waiter service (food and drinks) all the while watching the newest movies out in theaters! The food is pretty yum and so are the drinks!
  • Hike at Enchanted Rock State Park. There is a small fee per person to enter the park, but it’s a good walk up Enchanted Rock to see a 360 degree view of Texas Hill Country
  • Eat at In-N-Out Burger in Dallas. This was previously a West-Coast-only-wonder and is now slowly migrating out east. Definitely the best fast food burger around!

Me & Marieke at the summit of Enchanted Rock

Arkansas

  • See the Bill Clinton Presidential Library in downtown Little Rock. It has some interesting exhibits and you can see all the cool gifts he was given during his presidency.
  • Explore Little Rock Central High School Visitor Center and learn all about the oppressive white supremacy in the South and about the struggle for Civil Rights.
  • Soak in the Thermal Baths in Hot Springs, Arkansas. Not that expensive and very relaxing.

exhibit @ the Clinton Presidential library

Tennessee:

  • Wander around Frist Museum for Visual Arts in Nashville. When I went in October they had a great ancient Egypt exhibit. Also, the food in their cafeteria is good and inexpensively priced compared to most Museums.
  • Take pictures at Great Smokey Mountain National Park during the fall. Despite all the traffic in the park, it offers totally gorgeous picture taking opportunities.

Great Smokey Mts. National Park in Oct

Oh where, oh where do my flickr photos end up?

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Today I decided to look at my Flickr stats and  see where people have used my flickr photos on the internet.  All my photos are Creative Commons which means that they are available for download/use  with the condition the user credits me as the photographer.

The search results were surprising at times. My pictures have appeared personal blogs, professional websites, in articles and on tumblr. Some of the websites are in foreign languages, like German or Spanish, and the rest in English.

For most of my photos, I think it’s pretty cool that people liked enough them to use it across the web, especially since this increases my exposure as a photographer. But for some of my other photos….it’s just odd. I’ll explain more about that in a bit.

Below is a collection of some my photos that I’ve found on various websites through this search.  A couple of my photos are popular and can be viewed on various websites, especially the Superhero Valentines. The Superhero Valentines are super popular. Several articles discussing online dating have used them, like the Spanish Website  Delgada y Guapa and The Dating Weblog.

Buscar pareja en el internet by Delgada y Guapa

This next photo comes from an interesting article by Damon Young on the website “The Good Men Project“. In this article it is posited that women and men CANNOT be simply “friends” (especially if they are roughly the same age) because invariably one person or both of them will feel an attraction to the other, thereby voiding the whole “platonic love thing.” I enjoyed reading this article as it discussed various good points.

Another popular photo is my “Irreconcilable Differences” photo which is one I have also seen on a few websites, like Strom.Idealo (website in german) and Frikelia (website in Spanish)

German Website

Spanish Website -->

Now in terms of websites that use my photos, I get a lot of photo views from Squidoo. Squidoo apparently automatically generates photos from Flickr for various articles. As a result of this, I’ve gotten a lot of hits on the photo of my friend’s tattoos under the category “Finding Cute Tattoos, on the photo of my wombat stuffed animal under the category “Pet Wombat”, and lately, a photo of mine with a quote from Alice in Wonderland  under the category “Life Quotes for Facebook.”

 

However, out of all my photo usage, I really like the following two. The first is a collection on Tumblr devoted to showing how beautiful curly hair can be. I like it because there are so many great photos on here, that it’s an honor to have my photo be among them.  My friend who is featured in the photograph, Gigi, thought it was pretty sweet too 🙂

T

Curly Hair -- my photo 2nd from right

The next comes from a blog post by Ashlee Sadler discussing Introverts and Extroverts. The photo seems to fit surprisingly well with the topic of discussion.

Ashlee Sadler's blog

 

Now I come to the part where I discuss the photos I think are oddly placed. Let’s start with this photo:

 

This photo of mine accompanies an article about how online marketers should use lists to promote their websites. Why do I have a problem with this?

I dislike this photo immensely. I only posted it on Flickr because of the few photos I took for the daily shoot for the day, it was my best which isn’t saying much. So the fact someone actually used it somewhere else on the internet is embarrassing. Not to mention: it’s a personal list. A random, hastily scrawled list that if someone actually took the time the read, they would be like “what the hell is she writing about?!” So taken out of context and used for this web article about online marketing lists, it is super odd to me and way too personal. >.< Obviously  I shouldn’t post personal things under Creative Commons unless I am okay with them being used, but honestly, this photo? Never in a million years would I have thought that someone would be desperate enough to use such a crappy photo. Lesson learned for the future.  :/

The next photo also seems out of place to me.   It’s part of a collection centered on  crutches, which works because my photo has crutches in it, but at the same time, it’s weird because it is surrounded by all these photos of an intense looking emo girl. It is just a such a disconcerting jump going from a very goofy photo to a set of serious ones. Unfortunately, I can’t find the link for this site now, but I shall post it once I find it again!

 

My photo: the only bright one in the bunch, or top left

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

So what has all of this taught me? People will use your photos in somewhat surprising places. Expect this if you are are posting on the Commons. Also, appreciate when people link back to you so you know exactly where your photos end up. 🙂

Coincidence

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Today as I was driving to pick up some friends so that we could go to Border’s Going Out of Business sale, I kept thinking about the underwater photos I blogged about yesterday.

Then I thought: “When I get a book published one day, I wanna use a photo by Elena Kalis on the front cover.”

Lo and behold as we are scavenging through the books, I came across this:

Apparently other people have been thinking along the same lines as me because the cover photo for the book “Imaginary Girls” is by Kalis.

Funny coincidence, right? And good thing I have another photo by Kalis in mind 🙂

I think I take cool photos and then I see this:

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Today I was snooping around on Pinterest (which has a lot of great photos) and discovered this photo:

copyright Elena Kalis

I love how ethereal the water makes her look. It’s such a striking photo too, with a contrast between the colors of her outfit, the bird and the water. I decided to look up the website of the photographer, Elena Kalis, to see what other photos she has.

I was blown away by the gorgeousness of her photos. She has a remarkable eye for photography, in addition to having great models and gorgeous outfits. It also helps she’s located in the Bahamas! (Envious!)

Here are my four favorite photos from her site, although this was a difficult decision as ALL of her photos are so beautiful!

If things go wrong, don’t go with them.

Fair Ladies II

Dreamland

Alice in Waterland

Now that I’ve seen Kalis’ photos, I am really lusting after an underwater camera. I’ve played around with a good underwater camera once before, but I would love to actually OWN one so that I could do photoshoots like Kalis! Although instead of shooting in the Bahamas, I would definitely re-locate to Australia to take photos! 🙂

 

One Day... ** sigh**