The Collages of Cape Town

For my final photo project we had complete control and freedom over what we wanted to turn in.
But as we all know, with so much freedom comes so much responsibility....
I decided I must use some of my hundreds of gorgeous and meaningful Cape Town photos in some way- but how?
There are some funny ones, some just straight up gorgeous ones and some powerful ones.
I decided to combine them in a series of collages.
Here they are!

This one you have seen before. I made it when I first learned how to overlap photos and was just playing around, but it turned out so well that I had to use it somehow.
The bottom and background photos used in this one are all from a trip me, Tori, Grace and Lizaby took along the famous Garden route, which goes along the coast the Indian Ocean.  The top photo is of Tori's hands during a rusk and tea break during our third homestay with an Afrikaaner family in Stellenbosch, South Africa. Rusks and roobios tea define the Afrikaan people and is a simple and beautiful way to represent our time with them.

The teal house was my homestay home in Tsabo, the rural village we stayed in in the Eastern Cape. This is meaningful in that this was the home I stayed in and slept in for 6 nights, but mostly this is just a fun, playful image. I had a little bit of a moral dilemma with this one because this homestay was the most challenging for me being that is the most drastically different from anywhere I had ever been before and to display it in such a fun/funny way gave me some guilt, but it is beautiful and the rolling hills of lush, green grass with this bright, teal, round house make a captivating image.
The animals collages all over are from different parts of my trip. The chickens are from the village, but the ostrich, giraffe and elephant are from our safari trip and elephant interaction we went to following this homestay.

The original, background, image in this is from the village homestay as well, and one of my favorite days of the entire trip. Our days in Tsabo were not planned so we all organized a soccer game in one of the many fields and all the students and their homestay siblings came out to play. It was one of the only days it wasn't raining and was a beautiful example of no matter where you come from or what language you speak sports are a universal language that can bond anyone. I of course did not participate, due to my allergy to athleticism, but loved watching and photographing. The boy in the center was an incredible soccer player who I loved photographing and decided he deserved the front and center of this collage.
The cross is from a monument in the village of Soweto, outside of Joberg, where the famous riots took place during apartheid that Mandela was apart of. The monument is a cylinder shaped stone structure with a x or + taken out of the ceiling that allows for this shadow of a cross to be created against the wall when the sun shines in. I distorted the image and cutout the building structure.
You can read into this photo however you want. I like to simplicity, and yes there is some connection the christianity and the strong presence of it I noticed continuously throughout my trip.

This image I made today and is the one I am most proud of.
The background image is of the famous Table Mountain, the backdrop to my entire abroad experience in Cape Town.
The image on the bottom is me and my best friend Tristan holding hands and one of my favorite images of my trip.
The design at the top and "I am an African" quote is a drawing by a student from Rhodes High School in Cape Town. Our program sent us on high school visits and during mine I met this incredible art teacher. She was doing a project on identity and had each student draw their profile and arms and gave them freedom to fill in the rest as they please. This students piece was exceptional and I snapped a quick pic of it that has made my project. If you look closely on the sides you can see the hands and profile in the center-left. 

The Debut

Welcome to THE Portrait Blog.
Alright fine, I'll fill you in if you insist. A few weeks ago I had a mini-breakdown/ freakout about the lack of creative outlets and passion in my life and a darling friend of mine talked me through it and convinced me to start a series of portrait style photos of the amazing friends I have made here at Skidmore. This group of kids bring endless smiles to my face every day and if this blog can give them 10% of those smiles back I'll call myself a winner. Molly said it best tonight when she described this series to attempt to represent the massive amounts of love we have for each other. I couldn't have ever dreamed of having friends this great, but I am more than glad to try and capture the greatness of them on some 400mm film.
So I decided to bust out Greg's old pentax film camera and play around. This is what has come of it.
Thanks for the memories all y'all. To years more

my inspiration to find inspiration- Grace Ellen Hammerstein

James on a chic day- Jamie Thomson

crossword crowding

sunshine of my life- Rosie Dienhart

free cone day

my chaffeaur- Mackenzie Lacy

the cuddliest of muffins- Lauren Riva Rappaport

the overflowing love I was referring to

Mr.Skidmore- Benjamin Zane Greer

just trying to fit in- Vicky Janczyk

catches eyes from this Library Queen- Katherine Cavanaugh

my muse. "chill" Sophie Don

ray charles look alike 

oh hot damn- the greatest wall sharer there ever was Molly Sinsheimer 

thank god you exist gabagirl- Gaby Gignoux-Wolfsohn

The Infamous Bars of Saratoga

Photo Project #4:

For this project we had to do portraits of local Saratogians with no relationship to Skidmore as a way to bridge the town and school- a concept I am obsessed with. I decided to do the bar scene, cause it is something that is pretty integral is both "townies" and skid students lives a commonality between us all.

The dark lighting and crowdiness that bars have was definitely a challenge, but it only forced me to learn how to do all kinds of crazy shit on photoshop I would have otherwise not known.

Enjoy!

The Alley

the bartenders of DA's- the skid favorite

the bottles of DA's

The owner of the Tin n' Lint- not gonna lie, very nice man.

Where did March go?

Just realized I haven't updated this bad boy since February. Don't worry i'm not dead- just been SUPER BUSY!
2 weeks ago (even tho it feels like half a century ago) I went to Amsterdam and London with 3 of my best friends from high school. It was awesome and it almost automatically had to be because it was my favorite people, in a city I had dreamed of visiting my whole life. Amsterdam- I miss you and cannot wait to meet and bond again in the future. Despite constant rain and freezing weather we managed to see all the sites. Heineken museum was SO cool, like unexpectedly awesome and very fun. The city canals are so cool and although we almost got hit by every bicyclist and tram, I still loved it. Great food, great friends, great time. Here are some of the best shots:

the classic iAMsterdam sign shot

Lynds and a canal

bier loving kids

making bier

99 bottles of beer

Daniel's happiest moment, the secret french fry heaven

our lunch one day- when you don't have money, cheese tastings are great

one of the many awesome bikes 

Soph and her own bike

appletaart and coffe. the perfect snack

my new hat

Then we went to London. Soph and I bopped around as non-tourist, city slickers for the rest of the week until she left and Lyndsey came to play with me for the weekend.

First stop was Abbey Road. I hadn't been there since taking my Beatles and british rock courses at Skidmore, so I re-read all my notes the night before and brushed up on fun facts. It was so cool to be there where it all went down. I snuck into the gate of Abbey Road studios (named after the album, not vis versa as many think). 

its a very trafficky street and this shot took many attempts and pissed off many drivers, BUT SO WORTH IT

Which one am I? $20 to the winner

a magical place

OH MY GOD. SAME!

 The next shots are of the greatness that is Borough Market, a phenomenal food market in the center of London right near the famous Tower Bridge. I spent hours wondering and went twice in one week to this haven of food and beauty.

scallops

unlimited varieties of mushrooms

I got pie for lunch like a good Brit would

heavenly meringues

then we played

cliche London shot

being our sassy selves in Camden Market