PUC Calendar

This week’s assignment in one of my photography classes was entitled “Move.” The object of this assignment was to capture motion in several different ways. Now I don’t know about you, but when I usually think of a good action photograph, I imagine a picture of a skater and his board frozen in mid-air, soaring over the jump. But these were not the kind of action pictures that my teacher wanted. Instead of using our cameras to stop movement, we needed to portray movement. Needless to say, I quickly became frustrated with this assignment because each attempt was coming out too blurry—either the subject was moving too fast, I couldn’t hold the camera still enough, or the wrong part of the subject was in focus.

Regardless of my initial frustrations, I did learn something from it, and ironically, the picture that taught me the most was a goofy-looking self-portrait. Desperate to complete the assignment, I stood outside and spun around in circles while taking pictures of myself. The result was a self-portrait, with my hair flying and the world spinning around me. I found that not only did this picture capture the motion of my spinning, but it also captured the motion that I’m feeling right now—that time is flying by. Here we are ending the seventh week of spring quarter, and things are piling up. I have a list of projects to complete and papers to write before the end of the year. I know I’m not the only one here feeling this motion: seniors are beginning to present thesis projects, spring recitals are coming up, and finals are looming on the horizon.

I guess “move” was the perfect assignment for this week—there is so much going on here as the school year is winding down that a stop-action picture wouldn’t have done it justice. So what did I learn from this whole process? I found that it’s hard not to smile when you’re spinning in circles; and I don’t know about you, but I sure want to end this school year smiling regardless of how fast life is spinning around me! 

REVO