Local Corrections

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Final Project Topic

For my final project, I want to explore the dissonance between my work life and my love life.

I want to cover this topic because it's weighing pretty heavily on me right now. I feel like it's a topic I need to talk about. I'm focused entirely on my senior thesis, my final film before a graduate, but I'm also fighting with a real awful loneliness from being single for the first time since high school. I hope to communicate this stark difference between how dedicated and passionate I am about my work, but how awkward and confused I feel about my personal life, as if I don't know anything but my filmmaking.

I know this seems like an abstract topic, but I hope to illustrate it by juxtaposing together objects that represent both sides. I also want to try to stage some photos to highlight the loneliness.

Six Photos | Uncorrected & Corrected

Six Scavenger Hunt Photos

a snapshot

an artistic photograph

a story involving two or more people

something you hate

a story that doesn't involve people

not smiling, not uncomfortable head shot

Enrique Metinides

To me, this photo by Enrique Metinides invokes a feeling of anxiety - not from the wrecked bus itself, but from all the people standing around watching the scene. Although the focal point is the bus, the wide composition suggests the surroundings are just as important, and I believe they are. We see a hoard of bystanders watching this scene, but in truth there isn't a whole lot depicted. The bus is already wrecked, there doesn't seem to be anyone injured around, there's no fire or flaming wreckage, so it poses the question, why is everyone still so engrossed by this? I believe this photo could be about society's obsession with violence and tragedy. As previously noted, there isn't anything grand catastrophe going on here, yet the image of a wrecked bus incites the idea that something horrible could happen, and the crowd here doesn't want to miss that.

This photo is a part of Metinides's collection, 101 Tragedies. However, I don't think the tragedy here is the bus itself. I think the real tragedy is how society reacts to said "tragedies."

This photo is also a part of Metinides's 101 Tragedies, but offers a different reaction. Here we have a hotel, collapsed and destroyed by a fire, evoking a very somber mood. But what really shows the meaning is the sole man walking along, barely even recognizing the great destruction that has just occurred. Here, instead of showing society's overreaction and obsession to tragedy, we see society's ingrained normalization of tragedy. This photo makes me think of how greatly desensitized people in general are to violence and gore. For this man, it could just be another day, another building, and I think that's the case in many parts of the world. But we also see tragedy so much on a daily basis, whether it is movies, television, video games, books, even photographs - we see it all to the point that when it happens in real life, it's nothing we haven't seen before.

Six Favorite Photos

I first got my Canon T3i the summer of 2012, so all of these photos have only been taken in the past two years. However, I can still find good things in even the earliest of my photographs.

The first is my favorite photo of the campus. I'm a sucker for good geometry; even in cinematography, I'm drawn to compositions that make use of strong lines. Here, we see lines in every direction - horizontal lines, vertical lines, angled lines. I also really love the shadows in this picture, as it helps create the focal point which is the bright landscape beyond Blanton Hall, but only revealed in a small shape. 

The next photo is part of a series of stills I did for my brother's band, the subject in this one being my brother himself. All of the boys were a little awkward on camera, but I liked how Jacob's expression turned out. He's serious about his music, so I think his coolness comes across in this photo. I also like the composition of colors. His bright red shirt helps him pop out against the white wall. If he didn't have that, since the rest of his color scheme is relatively muted, he'd probably disappear in all of the white.

The third photo is the most recent, as I took it on an adventure my friends and I went on this past spring semester. I really like the color composition here. The blueness of the water is not very saturated, so it blends well with the beige/brown color of the rock. My friend also fits well in the composition, as his color scheme is similar to the landscape's (except for his red shoes, but because of how small it is, it works). I think he also helps balance out the image, using the rule of the thirds.

The fourth photo is again of my brother, this time at his band's first show. The venue had some colorful lighting, as you might be able to tell. I like this photo because of the lighting; there's the harshness of the light from the side, which creates dark and dramatic shadows on the other side of his face, but leaves him illuminated enough to see him. The light also helps capture the guitar and the microphone, which is important to the action of the photo, but doesn't clutter the composition. I also like the bassist's hand and instrument in the back, because it helps balance the image, instead of leaving it completely black back there.

The fifth photo was taken in my hometown, when I realized there was a lot of awesome geometry around town. This photo is interesting, because the lines aren't as harsh and defined as they are in the first image, but they're still there. The transition between bright green grass and the cold grey sidewalk is softened by the bunches of leaves, but because of the contrasting colors, we can follow the line up until the vanishing point. I think I also intended to have the vanishing point be the focal point, but I'm not sure it came out as well as I wanted it to. Regardless, I still like the geometry.

Finally, we have the last photo. There's actually two versions of this photo - the original had the focus set on the back set of lights, but a friend from the time said that the focus should be closest to us. That's how I got this image, as I focused on the blue bulb towards the front, making that the focal point. It also really helps declutter the image, as the blue bulb has a darker surrounding, which really makes it pop. The focus is also incredibly fine, so even the bulbs closer to the blue one are out of focus. The lighting in the back helps balance the image, with all of the soft-focus lights.

Introduction

Hello everyone!

My name is Claire Fishman, I'm a senior filmmaking major here at Montclair State. I own a Canon T3i and dabble in photography from time to time. I have had practice with manual exposure, but I wouldn't consider myself an expert at all. I have a passion for writing (both screenwriting and prose), film editing, and directing, and I spend most of my free time playing video games.

My top five bands are Forgive Durden, The Dear Hunter, Coheed & Cambria, Fall Out Boy, and Dance Gavin Dance. My all-time favorite movies are Kill Bill, The Social Network, Fight Club, Scott Pilgrim vs. the World, Spirited Away, and Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist. My favorite writers and inspirations are Laurie Halse Anderson, Kevin Brooks, and John Green; Twisted, Lucas, The Fault in our Stars, are among my favorite books. I don't watch a whole lot of TV, but my top shows are Breaking Bad, The Office, Orange is the New Black, Bob's Burgers, and Criminal Minds. I don't have a favorite photographer, but my favorite cinematographer is Jeff Cronenweth (The Social Network, Fight Club, The Girl with the Dragon Tattooo).

Above is a photo I took for the Montclarion during the spring 2014 semester. The article was about New Jersey possibly passing marijuana legalization, so naturally I took it upon myself to stage this photograph for the front cover. Unfortunately, the photo had to be cropped so only the hands with the "weed" was visible (which was oregano, by the way), but the subject's face will always be one of my favorite things about any photo. He had no intention of making that face; it was just a great example of snapping a photo at extremely the right moment.