The show came and went

The show has been off the wall now for over a month. After my big opening night I wasn't sure how I felt. Overall I guess the whole thesis process really drained me. After watching my final product hundreds of times I now almost feel like I want to do it all over again. In May I will leave art school having earned my BFA and I'm not sure where I will go. Over the past month I have been going to interviews and I even shot a fee lance assignment for the Washington Times. Having now looked at my portfolio with several professionals in the photography world I feel like it just looks like more student work. I now feel confident to go out into the world for myself and make work for me and not for my professors. I am done bending to guidelines of projects given to me for a grade. I have my skills and I have my camera and I am ready to step out into the world and use them. I want to continue shooting couch surfing but in a different way. Perhaps I will at some point find a cs'er to follow and document, which is an option I didn't have before because I had to stay close to DC for class.

less than one month left

Sent out the postcards last week, look out for them in your mail boxes.

SHOW CARDS!!!!

Editing: the 2month count down

My thesis will be broken down into two parts; prints and mulitmedia. The prints on the wall are going to be float mounted in a grid of 6-9 12x12 inches in size. I feel that having prints with titles that say: "Surfer" "Host" and "Host's room mate" will help and compliment the multimedia peice because it will give titles to the characters. lots of editing is head of me. Almost everyday is scheduled out day to day. It is this time more than ever that I can't waste. Staying focused is key, getting side tracked is not an option. I feel that by allowing myself a set amount of free time each week will help me manage stress.

Presentation

I have been thinking about the presentation of my thesis and how I want it to look on the wall. Do I want just multimedia? or do I want to incorporate the still image as well? I have been shooting portraits on film throughout my thesis thus far of my surfers, my hosts, and other couch surfers I have met up with, mostly all shot from my couch. I am now toying with the idea of printing these photographs and presenting them in a grid fashion for the hanging of my thesis show in February.

New Surfers, New Cultures, New Friends

Romina and Chris came in last night from Germany. This is the first time I am hosting since I went surfing in Boston and I already notice a difference in my shooting, the camera is always on me and I am shooting more and it's funny before I was afraid of weirding my surfers out with the camera out but I have come to the realization that if they were not into me shooting and interviewing them that they wouldn't have chose me as a host. So I have already ran my camera battery down in less than 24 hours of shooting and it feels great!

Still Summing it up...

Ok, correction Couch Surfing may not be the ULTIMATE way to connect with people through out the world but... I think it's up there. I think it will be impossible to prove with my thesis that CS is the ultimate outlet.

What I want to try to articulate through my work is how couch surfing might be changing me. I have always been a caring and giving person but the fact of the matter is; meeting people off the internet for say coffee and drinks is entirely different then letting them into your home right away. As open minded as I think I am, the first few times I hosted I was terrified. Not because the people were weird, because they have all been far from but, because I have these ideas in the back of my head that were put there as a child. ( not talking to strangers)

These people are in fact strangers, their is a huge different between making small talk in an elevator and making small talk on my couch.
The moments of awkward silence are what chocked me up the most. I would start sweating and have verbal vomit. Not to mention my shooting went down the tubes.
But, now that I have hosted several surfers and even been surfing myself I can feel the level of comfort increasing. I am starting to own my pictures again as to where in the beginning I didn't even want to put my name on them.

This evening I am going to a Couch Surfing happy hour in Petworth, my neighborhood. I really want to connect with a CSer who hosts constantly. If I can shoot the interaction between host and surfer I think this will greatly add to my work. This is an element that I think is missing from my work and it's one that I think is essential to a successful body of work like this.