Day 39

So today I actually went to work. But first, Donny and Joseph took me with them to Big Lou's (a comic book/figurine rarities store) and then Best Buy. After feeling so under the weather all week, Joseph really wanted to get out of the house, which I totally understood.

After the brief outing, we arrived back at their apartment and began working on various things that needed to get done before we leave for FaerieWorlds. First, Donny had me design a banner to top the Newsletter sign-up sheet that they will have at their booth at FaerieWorlds. That was simple enough and I was soon on to another task. After that, I wrote up the newsletter about FaerieWorlds and the store being up. For this, I had to practice HTML coding. It was kinda fun, if a little stressful.

After that, Donny continued working on printing the 4x6 prints and I made my own Newsletter sign-up. Then I got to work on printing my own images. It was really cool to see them printed; it's amazing how different and usually better they look on paper rather than on the screen. I only had enough paper to make 2 copies of each, but Donny and Joseph encouraged me to try to sell them anyway. We'll see if I sell any.

I was 4 images away from being done when the printer ran out of light magenta ink. So we are going to get more ink tomorrow along with go to FedEx Office and get my buisness cards and the newsletter sheets printed, and a few other errands.

Days 36-38

Day 36

Thursday I didn't go into work, again, because Joseph was still sick and Donny was too. Thankfully, I still feel fine. So I spent the day working on touching up images so that they are ready for printing. This is an incredibly tedious and annoying process. It involves flattening the image and then duplicating that layer. Then I adjust "levels" which changes the contrast/exposure. Then I go through and use the burning/dodging tool to make certain areas lighter (and therefore come forward) and others darker (and thus drop back). When that's done, I can toggle that layer to see if I like the changes. Assuming that I don't feel like anything is too dark/light, then I can do the last step which is to enlarge the image and go through it in a grid pattern while taking out specks of pixels that don't seem to flow well. This part is the worst because it's so up close, but it really does make a difference. It's like with any detail work, it ends up making the piece stronger, I just can't stand doing it.

Day 37

I wasn't sure if they were going to want me to go in on Friday, so I started working on some buisness cards. I figured that I could get some printed like Donny did when we went to AnimeExpo; they were fairly cheap and we had to cut them ourselves, but i think they looked pretty nice. I figured that if there was a FedEx Office close to where I live (so that I could walk and get some printed without having to bother Donny) that I might as well get some printed for FaerieWorlds. Thankfully there is one that is about a half mile from my apartment, so I began the day designing them. I did so while watching Angel, so it took me the majority of the day, but I think the design turned out rather well. We'll have to wait and see how they look printed.


While I was just starting to work on the buisness card, Donny texted me and said that they were taking Joseph to the hospital. I still have yet to get the full story, but I gather that everything is mostly ok. I just hope he's feeling better by Thursday, since that's when we leave for Eugene.

After I had finished the buisness card, I decided that I really needed to get out of the apartment, even if it was just to walk to the Yum Yum and buy a donut. But as I got to Yum Yum, I decided that I really wanted to go on a longer walk than just to the corner and back. So I decided to walk to try and find the FedEx Office. This wouldn't be that odd if it wasn't for the fact that it was already 1:30 am. As Joseph pointed out, LA really is not a late night town; as Donny pointed out, no one walks in LA. I think I met maybe 3 people walking around on my mile walk. Which was fine with me.

I do like cities in a certain way. They have this energy about them that the country lacks. But in turn, the city lacks the energy of all the plant and wild life that the country has. It depends on what type of mood I am in which type of energy I would like. Last night I was definetly in a city mood. And even though LA is not what I would typically think of a city, and even though there were few people wandering around, it still had that vibe. It's hard to place. I think part of it is all the lights. When I walk in a city at night, I feel like I'm walking through the stars in some weird alternate universe where the sky is made of electricity and is on the ground.

While I walked home I was struck with the memory again of how when I was in high school, we all dreamed of going to LA. We all said that one of the first things we would do would be to run through the streets barefoot. As I thought of this, I decided that I would fulfill that oath. So I ran for a block or more with my flip flops in hand, laughing the whole way. I'm sure if anyone saw me they would have thought I was crazy; I guess they wouldn't be wrong.

Before going back to the apartment I decided to actually buy a donut, since I was hungry. I also made the mistake of getting a Mocha Chilla (which is like a dutch ice/slushie but with actual coffee in it). I didn't think anything of it until it was like 6:30 am and I still was not remotely tired. I ended up calling Alicia as she was getting ready for work so that she could wish me a goodnight. It was funny because I had been awake the entire time that she was asleep. I did, eventually, get to sleep. I'm definetly going to have a hard time adjusting to a normal sleep schedule when I get back to New York. Not only will I have jet lag, but I'll also want to stay up later than I can in order to go to school/work on time. But we'll deal with that when it happens I guess.

Day 38

Today I got to work from the apartment while Donny, Joseph and Maxwell worked on printing images to bring to FaerieWorlds. My goals for TOTF stuff were to update the blog on their website about getting ready for FaerieWorlds and also to add all the images that I put in their store into the Etsy store. That took a lot longer that I expected, but it got done eventually. In addition, I finished up two images that I was only half happy with. I still have to do the final touch-up stage (see Day 36) but I can do that tomorrow. For now, I think I'm going to read some of Brisingr (since I finally finished Eldest and am on to the last book in the Inheritance series!) and go to bed. And look, it's only 4 am. Gotta start somewhere, right?


PS: 9 days til I come home!

Days 26-28

Days 26 and 27

Monday and Tuesday were my days off. I spent a good chunk of time relaxing, watching Charmed or reading. I also did laundry, did some light grocery shopping and updated my blog. In addition to these mundane things, I also got to FINALLY work on some art of my own. This whole trip has been incredibly inspiring, so the fact that I didn't have any photos to work on was rather frustrating. I worked on three images over the course of the two days (I haven't become as efficent at working as Joseph who seems to finish 2-3 images a day when he puts his mind to it. I just don't have the attention span to stay on the computer that long all at once. I have to spread it out a bit more.) I'm pretty happy with one out of the three. The other two I'm still sort of skeptical about, but I think they're getting there. I'm excited to work on some more in the coming days.

Day 28

Wednesday was back to work. Donny and I spent the time editing their webstore. I got to learn some HTML coding, which was surprisingly not as difficult as I expected. I wrote out the privacy section of the store and also uploaded the 8 prints that they are starting out with. It was kind of fun, even though it was tedious and a littler frustrating at times. Lastly, we sent out a newsletter about their new calendar (which I got to flip through; it was quite nice. I really liked some of the new images). This was, again, another lesson in HTML. It was a lot to absorb, but I think I got most of it.

Now my next task (along with working on images to show at FaerieWorlds) is to begin designing my own website. I talked to Alicia about it a little bit today...it is clear that we have very different opinions about color, although I think I agree with some of her layout ideas. I'll have to spend some time browsing through some webpages that I like and do some sketches of layout ideas. I think the hardest thing is going to be picking a color scheme....

But that's for another day. Today we are doing some inventory so that we are sure we have everything we need for FaerieWorlds. Should be interesting...

Day 19-Day 22

Day 19

On Monday I had probably the most normal work day that I will have on this internship. I got to help Donny work on their webstore. Unfortunately we had some issues, so we weren't able to work as long as we had hoped. However, I was able to help Donny make the banner, logo, and color swatch for the page. We settled on puce and brown for the colors...it sounds kind of terrible, but it's actually not that bad. She's been working on it over the week and it's getting there. I learned a lot that day about webhosting; Donny even offered to help me set up my own website this summer if time allows.

Day 20

Tuesday was the day of my shoot with Maxwell. I was a little nervous about, partly because I had never really worked with a model who I didn't know really well and also because i was rather concerned about how it play out with Joseph and Donny there. My methods of shooting are still kind of all over the place; I don't always have an idea of what I want when I start, and usually I just have my models do "whatever" and then I get ideas. I was concerned about trying to work that way since what i gathered from ModelFest was that most times the photographers are expected to give the model more of a mood/direction to go in. It worked out alright though, because I actually had sort of formulated a character to go with the blue, white and gold mask that I bought from the store in Hollywood. It's still not completely worked out for me, but it was definetly a good starting place. My idea was that there was this wealthy girl whose family lost everything/died/something happened so that she ended up living on the street and working for a magician.

We started off shooting by taking Maxwell to the Good Will to look for a dress. I was a little concerned that i wasn't going to find anything that would work with my idea, but eventually Donny found the perfect dress. it was black with a blue lace over-dress. It was form-fitting until about the knee, where it flared out and had a slit up the right leg. It was definetly a good dress for a Magician's Assitant. Unfortunately, the dress was a little two small for maxwell, but it was so perfect that I decided to add a corset lacing up the zipper side so that we could still use it.

Simulatneously, Donny, Joseph and Maxwell were also shopping for possible Labyrinth of Jareth costumes. I found out that apparently Friday night is "steampunk" themed. I had often heard that term tossed around but I never really understood what it meant. For fear of seeming uneducated, I just listened and observed their sorting through various outfits and planned to go home and research it more later. They definetly acquired some good pieces (for LOJ as well as TOTF) and I even found a cool shirt for myself.

After we got back, I fixed the dress so it actually fit Maxwell while she did her makeup and hair. In addition to fixing the dress, I added some bits of fabric together to make a tattered shawl for her to use as a prop. Once I added some jewelry pieces were finally ready to go shoot. We started outside just using the alley behind their condo building. There were some good locations, although I wish we had been shooting in the morning since some of the areas that I wanted to shoot were too shaded for my taste. I shot only one set in the shade which was with this awesome red couch that happened to be outside. My favorite location was probably the corner of this awesome spiked fence. It cast a great shadow and Maxwell did a great job playing off of it. (I'll only post one of these for now, since I want to manipulate them before revealing the rest)

After shooting outside, we quickly went inside to the set with candles. I wish we had had more time; I would have spent a lot more time with these. However, I know I got at least 3 really good shots, so I'm excited to work with them. I have to buy some paint so I can try doing the cliche verre thing but without the darkroom. I'm not sure how well that is going to work, but I definetly am excited to try it. But anyway, the set with the candles went really well. Maxwell was awesome. She did really well staying still and came up with some awesome poses that I'm really excited about. (Again, only the one shot for now. these ones in particular will be a lot better when I work on them).

Shooting with Maxwell was an awesome learning experience. I learned a lot about working with a model (even if she's not a professional one, per se). Also, after the photo shoot, Donny and Joseph gave me this whole lecture about model release forms. So now I know all about that. Also, as "homework" Donny gave me these two marketing books to look over. At this point in the day I was totally overloaded so the idea of looking at them made my head hurt, but I tried to absorb as much as I could from what she was saying.

I'm excited because I've learned a lot about my camera recently, too. For instance, I now know how to set the self-timer (I actually did a whole little shoot of self portraits one night because I was really bored), the white balance, and the ISO. It doesn't sound like a lot, but it actually opened up a lot of options for me.

After I got home and had relaxed for a while, I decided to do some research into steampunk fashion. Apparently it was something that I've always kind of liked, but I didn't realize how big/complicated it was. I've always really liked jewelry that utilized clocks, gears, keys, etc. This is just one tiny aspect of steampunk, which is inspired by fantasy/sci-fi that takes place in the Victorian era when everything is powered by steam. Thus the characters dress in Victorian style clothes but use weird inventions that didn't actually exist in that era. As someone online put it, it's almost as if the future happens in the past. Here are a couple pictures of some really fancy (and I'm sure really expensive) steampunk-esque pieces that I found. Unfortunately, I can't remember what website I found them on...

I spent a good 2 hours pouring over images from a google search and also a livejournal group called steamfashion. It really inspired me and made me sad that I didn't have time to make myself a more steampunk outfit for Friday night.

Day 21

Wednesday I spent a good 2-3 hours reading the thinner of the two books that Donny gave me about marketing. It gave a lot of great information for people looking into commercial photography which was not entirely relevant to my goals right now, but I was still able to pick up quite a lot of info from it. In particular, I was intrigued by the methods of sending postcard sized marketing cards to agencies. I can tell that the second book is probably going to have more of the niche that I think I'm heading for, but we'll see how that plays out.

We were supposed to go to Donna Ricci's home to begin styling her for the Clockwork Fairy shoot that we are doing before Labyrinth of Jareth. However, Donny and Joseph ended up deciding to do it on Thursday instead, since they were attempting to get the 2010 calendar finished. So I decided to use my day off to go shoe shopping. Unfortunately the only store within walking distance was TJMaxx, but i decided to try my luck at finding something there any way.

Their selection was a little slim, but I did find a few that I liked. One was just a simple black pump, another was a square-toed red shoe which I liked, although it was a bit middle-aged looking, and the last was a pair of buckling stiletto sandals in black. i sent pictures to Alicia and of course she voted with the stilettos. I liked them a lot, but was concerned about walking in them all night. however, they appeared to my best bet and since I didn't think I'd get a chance to go any where else to go shoe shopping, I decided to buy them. They were, of course, also the most expensive pairs of shoes at 49.99. What we do to look good....

I'm a little (ok a lot) concerned about walking in them all night long. Ho. wever, I hope that I'll at least be able to last a good chunk of the night. And worst come to worst, I'll just go barefoot. That's the only way to dance anyway.

While at TJMaxx, I also found an awesome belt which I'm going to wear with the Harlequin dress. Joseph and Donny have totally turned me into a belt person. Curse them! (Also there's a picture of the mask I bought for it)

Also, I found these great (and cheap) boxes with clocks in them. I wanted to purchase the clock so that I could turn it into something steampunk-esque to go with my gold and black lace costume for Friday. However, I expected them to be too expensive for me to purchase. Lucky for me, however, they were only 10 bucks. I picked out two, one for a necklace that I am still currently working on and another to turn into a purse.

Day 22

So today we went to Donna Ricci's house. I found out that she actually owns the site Clockwork Couture, which has some amazing pieces. Some of them aren't too expensive. Maybe when I get some extra money, I'll buy something from there. The styling went well; we settled on two outfits and then choose between the two. The one we picked is all black and white with red accents (it uses her new corset). I think they'll turn out pretty well, it'll be exciting to see the final product.

After we were done styling, we spent a good hour in traffic. I now understand everyone's rants about LA traffic and I think I could have gone without understanding them. When we finally got home, we ate and then Donny took me to the Good Will again so I could find a belt to use for the strap of my purse (see above picture). On the way we also dropped off some mail and Donny gave me some advice about mailing prints. Afterward, she brought me home since I had some work to do with my costume and I was tired.

My plan for the remainder of the day is to finish working on my costume. Other than that, I'm not sure. Maybe I'll watch Memento or work on the TOTF store some more. We'll see how long it takes me to finish up my costume.