Week One

First of all, I would like to apologise for this blog post that covers more topics than one should ever post. Secondly, I would like to apologise for the overload of iphone photos.

The reasons for this? My trusty Macbook, after three years, has decided to have it's own mind and not co-operate with me at all. This has meant no access to photo shop out of class time at university and lack of blog posts I've had planned due to not having a computer. So I apologise.

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I finally have the first week of university under my belt. It's such a surreal feeling. I remember, when I was about ten, walking through the amazing campus of Melbourne University with my mother, while my father rested in the hospital across the road. I remember feeling utterly overwhelmed by all of the amazing opportunities and absolutely in love with the campus buildings. Eight years later, I now get to wander through the same campus on a daily basis. 

Last year felt like a life-long journey to get to university, and I don't even want to know how many times I rattled on about it, or longed to get out of high school.

This first week has been a mixture of feelings; excitement, confuzzeld (confused and puzzled), scary at times and also incredibly god damn awesome! There was a level of uncertainty about every new day of the week that I both loved and hated.

On Monday, we were all asked to bring an example of our work to grace the walls of the long white corridor of the photography department entrance as a sort of introduction into who we are and what we do. It was daunting, pinning my work to the walls knowing that our class, as well as second and third years were going to be critiquing and eyeing our work off. I chose to hang up my favourite portrait of Taren as I felt it most represented the work that I did last year.

Tuesday we got inducted into the dark room. Something I had been looking forward to since I found out I got in. I've never used a dark room before/developed my own film. The two high schools I went to didn't have a dark room or didn't let junior students use it, so I was more than eager to learn. We created photo grams (pictured above and below). We expose light sensitive paper to light to create patterns or pictures. Our theme for the week's work was apparatus so I decided to use my hands to create an image. I used a broken enlarger to get the circular effect around my hand. 

We were each given a roll of film to shoot on Wednesday that we get to develop this week (I'm giddy with excitement about this). The tutorial room in our building has the most beautiful light I've ever seen. There a huge, square windows with patterned glass that let soft light seep into the white room. The wooden floor boards are splattered with paint and it creates just the most perfect contrast. After class, my friends, Alex, Rosie, Ally and experimented with some photos in this room. We were also introduced to all of the amazing cameras our teachers own and that we are allowed to borrow. Hasselblads were among the collection as well as a beautiful medium format Pentax camera I'm dying to get my hands on.

Everyone was a bit too eager for class on Thursday. We all turned up bright eyed and ready for class at 9.30, only to be told we weren't needed until 1.30 today. Desperate to stay indoors, we adventured off to the National Gallery of Victoria to draw cartoons and admire the paintings. I've never seen the free exhibitions that are constantly on display on the gallery and I was so over come by the beauty of it all. I kind of wished I could paint like the great painters of the renaissance. We went on a triple date to this dingy restaurant in China Town were I ate dumplings for the first time. The owners started playing cheesy love songs while we were there and we shared food with the person sitting opposite us.

By Friday we were all to exhausted to really care about anything. It was such a satisfying week.