I don’t know where I have been for the last little bit, but apparently the day in which the story on 52 Weeks ran in the UWO Gazette there was an editorial piece which mentioned this project as well as other projects which have used the World Wide Web to fuel their success.

This editorial just caught my attention (like I said, I don’t know where I have been) and although I understand what it’s author was trying to achieve with it I took some offense to being pooled with those who spent a year living according to the teachings of Oprah, or following the recipes of Julia Child.

I find that my purpose behind this project (and subsequently having it online) has far more depth than the superficial nature of the others mentioned and the truth of the matter regarding this project is this: regardless of whether I posted my projects on a website or not I would/will continue to complete the projects day after day.  If no-one reads this site that’s fine, I am not doing this for anyone but myself.

But I digress, no need to start into a rant regarding this small mention; the editorial piece is what it is, an editorial piece.

I wrote in my notebook (at the beginning of this project) an entry titled Why?, which is my meaning and purpose behind this project. Perhaps if I find the time I will type it up and post it here, if not just know that I have written it long before anyone started to doubt the authenticity and reasoning behind this project.

The inspiration for this past weeks project has come from a number of different sources and I wanted to take a brief moment to highlight them all.

First I want to mention my initial inspiration for this project. For the past few years I have been seeing on display in White Oaks Mall some art pieces created by students from my old high school, Sir Wilfrid Laurier Secondary School.

The artwork that has been on display ranges from painting, to drawings to photography. One piece that has always caught my attention were the “crude” photography panoramas that the students created.  I am not too sure why I was blown away by these pieces but I was and since I first saw these examples I wanted to try one for myself. If you want to see some example of the students’ work you can CLICK HERE which links to the Laurier S.S. art website.

After I saw these examples I started seeking out more examples to use as inspiration and that’s when I ran into Heather Champ. What was of particular interest to me was her series of hotel room pictures that she apparently takes whenever she is on the road. Seeing her selection of images made me want to have a theme of some sort if I was to attempt this type of photo project. Although this didn’t entirely pan out Heather’s work was still an inspiration.

Another piece of art which has recently inspired me was a piece at Museum London which is a collection of images, some from different years, which depict specific street scenes, I think from Toronto. Although a little cruder and slightly different in style, this artwork still had some impact on me for its imperfections, scale and overall visual impact.

Once I finally decided to do a project of this sort I found out that the actual style is called “joiner” photography and was made famous by David Hockney .

Up until this past week I had never heard of Hockney before. For those of you who are unfamiliar with Hockney, he is an English painter, printmaker, photographer (among many other things).

What it is about Hockney and the joiner style that I really enjoy over typical, stitched and seamless panoramas is the opportunity to play and alter the perspective through individual photographs. The crude and rough appearance of the collection of images is appealing to my eyes for some reason. There is something about works that are unfinished or that appear that way that give me the sense that I can complete them with my own eyes. With all of that said, I had wanted to try this style for a while to see what I could create with it.

Last weeks project (Week 03) certainly didn’t go how I had planned. At the start of the week I had an ideas and I thought I knew where I wanted to go with it, but by the time that Thursday came around I realized that things just weren’t going as planned. At that point I found myself rethinking about the project and trying to find where I went wrong.

After looking at a number of examples of what I wanted to do and research further into the actual technique, I found myself with some new guidance and a new simplified game plan. The initial plan I had was trying to combine and accomplish too many things at once rather than focusing on one specific aspect. Once I got my grounding I then realized what I needed to do in order to accomplish the end goal.

When Friday arrived I realized that I had essentially one day to complete my project as I already had a full “dance card” for the weekend and as such I didn’t have the time to attempt something with the same scope that I originally wanted.

When it was all said and done I came up with something that I am pretty happy with. Although no-where near perfect, I now have a better understanding of the technique and it is something that I want to revisit in the future, perhaps for a series for SoFoBoMo or NaPhoBoMo.

One component of my initial project attempt was to have the images printed (25 of them) using a photo coupon I had and then construct the montage manually.  This did not come to fruition as I realized that creating such photomontages took over 50 photos and as such the coupon would not be enough.

I hope that I can take away from this the importance of planning in my weekly processes. If I take the time to sit down and plan for a couple of day it might make some projects go smoother.

This week’s project came about due to three factors.

First, I wanted to do a photography project as I really haven’t picked up my camera thus far this year. I think this is partially due to the fact that it is cold out and I am a wuss, or that one of the goals I set for myself this year was to shoot with a purpose.

The second factor behind this week’s project is the fact that I have a voucher from Black’s Photography that is for 25 4X6 prints and the voucher expires at the end of the month, so I wanted to put it to good use. This didn’t end up happening simply because the image I decided to create was made from 50+ photos and to try and print it with 25 4×6 photos would not have done it justice.

The third factor deals with a photography project that Laurier Secondary School Students have inspired me to do. On display at White Oaks Mall there have been photography projects that are a series of smaller images taken of various angles of the same scene that are overlapping to create a larger image. I call this a “Poor Man’s” Panorama¹ and have fallen in particular love with these types of imaged.

Although the concept and project is something simple it is something that I have wanted to do for some time. I think what is going to be the biggest challenge for myself will be the following:

• Finding and appropriate subject/theme
  
• Taking enough varied shots at different focal lengths to make it interesting Found that this was hard to do
• Finding ways to bring the scene alive

I only have 25 prints from Black’s to use for this project, so I will need to pick my images carefully.

---

This project didn’t go exactly the way I wanted it to, but hey, that’s life. So below are the results of last week’s project.  Stay tuned later in this week for my comments and reflection on what I thought about this project and what I learned from it.

Before completing the above image I took some time while at school (where I have been spending a large amount of my time) to procrastinate from my school work and I decided to take some pictures and experiment first with this style.  The below two images were created prior to making the above final project image.

1. After some research I realized that this photography style was ‘defined’ by David Hockney and apparently it may be called ‘joiner” style. [↩]

Week two has wrapped up and I am borderline happy with what I created. Sure I created a 3.5 minute audio track like I said I would, but I would have liked to have taken a little more time to refine it.

Most of the track is comprised of loops straight out of Garageband, which is what I intended on using, but I would have liked to trim more tracks and to alter the track tone and pitch to make the track a little more lively and original. I found that although I spent a fair amount of time on this track, while learning Garageband, I could have spent far more time on it.

I have to admit that doing this project at this time of year came in handy as I had to create a Podcast track for school project and as such was able to learn the program for two purposes.

With all of that said, if I tackle an audio project in the coming months I will have more time to devote to the creative portion of the project as I now have some type of grounding in Garageband.

---

The next project I am going to attempt is going to be photography based. This decision was made primarily because I have a coupon for 25 free prints and I thought it would be good to use them before it expires at the end of the week.

With that said, at Museum London there was a photography piece that has inspired me (in addition to some photography from local high school students) to take one of my ideas a little further.

Hopefully I can combine photography at different times of the day and in different weather conditions for my next project.

Now just to find an appropriate subject.

This weeks project had me creating an audio track from “scratch”. Using Garageband¹, the free audio production software which shipped with my Macbook, I thought I would create create a 2-4 minute audio track or song.

Although the ideal length for me to be happy was roughly 3 ½ minutes, I was going to be OK if the song went really long but sound really good.

Considering that I have no background in Garageband or anything related to audio production I figured this was an appropriate challenge for myself. With that said, since I do not have any audio production equipment of my own, I relied  99% on the tools and audio loops which are available within Garageband itself. Perhaps if I do another audio project of somewhat the same nature in the future I will borrow some additional audio equipment, but for now I worked with the resources I had in my own possession.

Given the nature of this project (audio), the fact that the main product would be a MP3 audio file, and taking into consideration that I didn’t know how to write actual music, I assumed that I would not be making much use of my notebook for this project. I had hoped to find the time time and resources to create sheet music for the audio track I created, however I didn’t.  I just ran out of time and had to focus my attention on some “real world” stuff.

With that said, if you come across an easy way to make sheet music from an MP3 file please drop me a line, either in the comments below or by Emailing me, as I would love to include this in my project.

Without anything further, here is my Week 02 project: Something Something in C Major

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

If you want to download this audio track² CLICK HERE.

1. Considering many artists use this as their primary recording and compilation software (Matt Good Included) I figured it would be good enough for me [↩]
2. To be honest though I am not sure why anyone would really want to. [↩]

Considering that I am in this project for the long haul I thought that I would begin to add additional value to the project (if only for myself) by commenting on the things that I have found to be inspirational for this project.

I thought I would take the time once a week (I hope) to comment on and introduce one person or project that I have become inspired by and which I may have used as the basis for a project or two. Some of these people and project may be local while others will not.

…

To begin I thought I would make note of the main and initial inspiration behind me doing this project.

While working on 365Days I came across Bill Wadman who had completed his down 365 Days project and published it to a well known website and best selling book. While looking at this project¹ I came across a project he completed called “the 52 project“.

Essentially it was the same type of project that I have recently started.

I was impressed by the fact that he was doing something different each and every week and I just assumed that he was learning so much from it as the year went on.

Once I saw his project I know thats what I wanted to do next, I wanted to expose myself to a variety of different things and I figured that if Bill Wadman (someone I had never heard of before) could do it why couldn’t I?

Some of my weekly ideas have some from Bill’s projects, while other are from my own head or other sources.

Although I did not follow Bill’s project as he completed it I am not sure how much reliance and emphasis he placed on the web and social media week to week. With that said, one of the main motivators for myself is having this project online for people to contribute to, comment on, and keep me in check by constantly checking up on me.

Without a doubt Bill Wadman’s “the 52 project” was my initial inspiration for completing Fifty-Two Weeks.

Some of Bill Wadman’s other project and endeavors include:

• the 52 project
• 365 Portraits
• 365 Days
• On Taking Pictures
• Drabbles

1. which was/is of a different caliber than mine [↩]

So the first week of 2010 is over and with it so is the first project. I finished it a few days early and I am writing this reflection early as well, although it is dated otherwise.

It was a successful first project and I wrote far more than I thought I would initially. The things I wrote were very reflective of what/how I feel about my life and I think they will be important to reflect upon in the future.

I have learned that I can write a lot if I want to, I just must be in the right mood and the subject I am writing on must be interesting.

I have learned that I press very hard when I write and as a result I hurt my hand and ruined a number of pens. I will need to work on softer writing.

Where do I want to go from here?

The next project that I want to attempt is that of Garageband. At first the program looked to be intimidating, but most programs seem that way in the beginning. Typically I don’t have issues learning new computer programs and I don’t see why this should be any different.

On that note, I just added “Learn Photoshop” to my list of ideas. Although you can’t learn an entire software program in a week I need to try and learn more and this is a hurdle I need to overcome.

(- you gotta love The Beatles)

Hey everyone.

It is only a week and a half into Fifty-Two Weeks but I’m super excited about the projects that I will be completing for the remainder of the year.

Many of my upcoming projects are ones which I either don’t need resources to complete or ones that I have easy access to the resources needed.  Although this is the case for most of the projects there are some which I really really want to complete but I do not have in my possession at this time the resources needed.

Because I plan on involving the community in many of my week long projects, with some being fully community oriented I was hoping I could turn to You (the community) to help me out in securing some of the resources needed.

Although the following list of resources is by no means complete it does outline some of the materials which I know I will need in order to complete some of the upcoming projects.  With time I am sure I will need to add (and subtract) to this list, but for now these are things I can foresee myself needing.

If I had the funds or the means to secure the following resources on my own I most certainly would, however, because of site and circumstance most of the resources needed I am either un-able to obtain on my own or it makes no sense for me to purchase expensive equipment (which I can’t afford) which I will probably only use once or twice. So in trying to keep my carbon footprint low I look to the community to provide, share and gain.

Please CONTACT me if you can help out with any of the folllowing.

List of Needed Resources

• High Quality Audio Recorder (temporary use)
• 1 Helium Tank with enough Helium to fill 100 Balloons
• 94 Plastic Film Canisters
• 100 Canadian Stamps
• 100 Large Balloons
• Postcards – As many as I can get my hands on, of all varieties (non-used)
• Flip Style Video Camera (temporary use)
• 100 Addresses for People Across Canada
• Storefront of a Downtown Business to Use for a Week
• Polaroid Film? (I will take any you want to give me)
• Clear Packing Tape – lots and lots of rolls
• Childrens’ Baby/Plastic Dolls
• An Empathy Belly Pregnancy Simulator
• A Mannequin With Moving Limbs
• Sharpies – I need them in different tip sizes, different colours work too
• Lamination – I need to be able to laminate some things
• Disposable/Instant Cameras – unused and undeveloped
• A List of People Names Kevin who Live in London, Ontario
• Tons of saran/plastic wrap
• An Old Car or Side of a Building/Vehicle that You Would Let Me Paint
• Knitting Supplies – needles & Yarn?
• Access to a Balcony that overlooks downtown London (I want to both take pictures and Hang something from the balcony)

If you have any of these items, something similar or perhaps you have something else that you might think I want to use please CONTACT me so we can arrange to meet.

The response from the community in regards to this project has already been greater than I thought it would be. With offers from people to teach me how to knit, help with with video/audio production and others already offering their time, energy and efforts to help with a project that won’t even take place until September, I can only hope that the support continues and that I find ways to engage everyone who wants to be involved.

Thanks in Advance for Anything and Everything.

Last week I was lucky enough to be able to sit down with Stuart Thompson, the Online & New Editor at the UWO Gazette to talk about creativity for a bit.

Using this project, Fifty-Two Weeks as a base (as well as projects I have completed in the past), we focused on creativity, the community and ways in which to find your passion. We discussed why I decided to take on this year long challenge and what the driving motivation behind it is for me to see it through to the end.

Check out www.uwogazette.ca to find a profile of me and this project and more details