So this is it, the final few weeks of class. I began the practicum working with an organization known as the Ipswich River Watershed Association, however due to transportation issued I’m working together with fellow photographer Alec Chvirko on this and another project. After about two weeks we had to drop the project for the Ipswich River Watershed Association. Due to the time of year it was going to be difficult to find activities to shoot. We’ve just completed the project for CAH and put together a multimedia project to showcase our work. Here’s what we gave them:

To view more photos click here.

Spring is on the way, love is in the air, snow is still falling from the sky… Not entirely happy about that last part but the rest of it is usually a good thing. The past few weeks have been jam-packed with lots of fun stuff, and right now we’re learning about Weddings! You know… The things I’ve said I’ll never shoot… Well, that may change. It seems pretty interesting, we’re learning a lot about the business side of things, and I always get psyched about business management. And the teacher this week is great, she’s talking a lot about web presence, be it blogging and tweeting, to SEO and web design, and pricing and marketing.

The world is changing, and the way we have to run our businesses has to change with it, I’m excited, you should be too!

Also I helped out a classmate with a photo shoot he was doing, and he got some really great shots! Check out Jame’s Wang’s photo’s here.

I think I’m going to try to be more active in my blogging, I want to join the blogosphere! I’ve started reading a lot more blogs, now it’s time to get involved and be more active. I was thinking of getting into twitter as well but that probably won’t happen until I get an iPhone, to make it easy to tweet! So… a year… or two… or ten… depending on how the economy continues. We’ll see. Maybe once I get out of class it will be a business purchase.

So yes, It’s been FAR too long since I’ve blogged. I’ve been meaning to since I came back but just… haven’t… Anyway I am now! So first off you can see that I did a bit of house cleaning on my website, and my blog! Woo! So I think the new site looks much more professional, and it’s a lot easier to update and organize. And as for the blog: I was setting up a second blog on my site for something else*, and noticed the new updated interface (administrator panel) and I loved it, so I found a way to update my blog, and then I decided What the heck, let’s get the user’s end lookin’ shpiffeh too!” And so I did! Also, provided everything worked right, you can now access this page by going to http://blog.jdipierro.com (no www.) Yaay sub-domains!
*The details of this will be discussed at a later date.

So enough of the techno-babble and onto the gibberish, I mean news-update.

The past few weeks have been awesome. We learned how to work with models from one of my favourite teachers we’ve had, and I’ve been waiting for that class for a while. The first week was shooting week, we had a bunch of models come in from Models Club Inc. and had a great time photographing them. The teacher mixed up the groups a bit from day to day and that was a refreshing change, I got to work with people that I normally wouldn’t. Week two was photoshop week and was also great fun. I pretty much knew a good amount of what we had to do, but I did learn a few new techniques and the photos came out looking amazing if I do say so myself!

I’m signed up on Model Mayhem and I’ve wanted to get some models and do some cool shots but I’ve never known how to start, or how to work with them, but now that I do, I think it would be great to get together with some of my classmates and get some models into the studio on the weekend or something.

This past weekend Keith and I attended Vericon 2009 at Harvard University. It honestly wasn’t much of a con, but I got to meet Kris Straub, author of one of my favourite webcomics Starslip. It was pretty awesome to meet someone so funny, and awesome, and ‘famous’ online, go out to dinner with them, and understand that they’re just lookin’ to have a good time like the rest of us. They’re just comedic geniuses

And now we’re back in class, Photo Illustration Fundamenals, a class about photo compositions, and things of that nature, a great class, a fun activity, and a great way to make money.

Until next time – Justin

To view more photos click here.

The Waltham Winter Fowl:
So the ducks in Waltham are very religious, they don’t believe in Darwinism, because they don’t fly south. Maybe I’ve just never noticed this back home, but I’m pretty sure ducks are supposed to fly south… and I know for a FACT that geese are… and THEY’RE still here… Stranger yet… THEYSLEEPONTHEICE! I kid you not, I’ve seen them NESTING… ON… The ice…

Every day I walk over the bridge and see them and it baffles me that they don’t just freeze into ducksickles and sink to the bottom, how can they survive swimming in ice-cold water? This is not natural.. am I correct? Is this some strange phenomenon I have never witnessed?

So the week before the Holidays was pretty fun. We were learning to shoot Interiors with Dave Henderson and after some instruction got to go to some cool places like the renowned Great Bay Restaurant at the hotel Commonwealth and the Commanders’ Mansion in Watertown. When we were at each place we spent the day setting up lighting and composing our shots just right, lighting multiple areas of the scene to Photoshop them together later. We also learned some EDR techniques, Extended Dynamic Range. It’s basically HDR without the ugly.

Just as we were getting ready to leave the Commanders’ Mansion I snapped a few shots with my fisheye and had a ball trying to correct the distortion in Photoshop. Two and a half hours later I had a great looking shot and a lot of practice with the Warp and Distort tools! The photo that I did this on can be seen to the left, the shot of the stairway.

After I got back home from Thanksgiving vacation things just got better and better. Sarcasm… My package that was stolen a few weeks prior was re-shipped and sitting safely on our porch after being there for half a week while I was in New York. So that much was good. The next few days were just crazy. Crazy Crop as the title implies!

All week I’ve been tired as heck and can not figure out a reason why. I’ve been getting to bed usually before 11, and I’ve been sleeping fine… who knows… So this week we’ve been learning how to integrate Photoshop into a studio setting. We spent Monday through Wednesday shooting, and Thursday and Friday were Photoshop days. Wednesday morning I plugged a light into a power pack, not even thinking it might be on, and went to set up the other light, a few minutes later the cap that I had left on the light was melting… Crap… Another group was trying to set up a roll of seamless paper and the whole thing came off the core so they had fun trying to get that back on… What a Wednesday!

On Thursday Keith’s new Laptop was supposed to be delivered, the screen on his old one broke and he’s been waiting for this new one… We got home for lunch and he checked the tracking information… “Delivered – Front Porch”… How could UPS leave a $700 laptop on someone’s porch without requiring a signature? That’s just plain BS! We decided to use our lunch to find out where it is and what could be done about it so we walked over to the UPS store and explained the situation and they gave us a number to call so we went back home and decided to eat lunch first, then we headed over to the police station by the train tracks. We walked in and… no one was around.. After standing around for a bit some one came in, we said we were looking to speak to a police officer and they lead us to an office to talk with someone. After once more explaining our story all we got were directions to the police head-quarters in the county building on Lexington street… We walked back home and hopped in the car and headed there. Once there we… again… explained the situation, this time in excruciating detail, and were then told we had to call UPS and get a bunch of information and then come back… So back home we went. At the point we were about 15 minutes late going back to school from lunch and we both decided that this needed to be sorted out so we hopped in my car and went back to school to retrieve our personal items.

Upon arriving back home Keith called UPS and… you guessed it, explained the situation… They told us to… get this… call the vendor, to have them call UPS… How many times have we been passed off? Okay so I headed on to NewEgg.com and called the customer service line, About a 30 minute wait time… Joy of joys! I popped in my bluetooth headset and settled down from some good ole Call of Duty: World at War sniping! After the long wait the operator picked up and I… explained the situation… After gathering together a bunch of information we got even more information. Keith’s father now has to re-order the laptop and it will be processed through the original payment and re-shipped. Our land-lady told us that we could have packages shipped to her office, right down the road, because someone is always there during the day, so the second laptop will be sent there and hopefully arrive safe… The next problem: Will it arrive before Keith heads home for Christmas vacation? It better!

So… As I previously claimed: What a bunch of Crazy Crop!

UPDATE (Sunday 12/7): Okay you all fail at the race of who will comment first! Anyway: Keith, two of our friends, and I went to see Bolt in Disney Digital 3D and Oh.. My god.. It was amazing! That is how animated movies are meant to be watched, It truly feels like you could just step right into the scene. Starting in 2009 all Disney movies will be shown like this, and I for one can’t wait to see more!

So… On the way to see Bolt, I was following TomTom as usual and it told me to turn down a street, so I faithfully followed, only to see flashing blue lights in my rear-view a few seconds later. I pulled over and the officer came up, apparently you can’t turn left on to that road, and TomTom didn’t know that… SHAME ON YOU TOM TOM!!! I explained about Tom Tom, he asked for my license and registration, which I presented and when I was getting my license out he notied my badge in my wallet and asked what it was so I showed him, I felt special, lol! Either way he let me go and we saw the (amazing) movie.

I figured I should update my blog before I have angry readers storming my door. Okay that’s enough of an update, you should be pleased! Goodbye…

Or not… So the past two weeks have been great. I didn’t get to go to that hockey game that I wanted to, I read the schedule wrong, but that’s NOT why the past two weeks have been great!

The past two weeks have been great… We learned the fine art of printing from master printer Bob Korn, a great guy, and a very frustrating art. I’d never imagined what would go into printing but it’s amazing how much of a difference one or two percentage of colour correction can make on a print. It’s a frustratingly slow process but the end results are stunning. It was a long and trecharous week but I came out of it with great knowledge of paper and ink!

This week we’ve started working with Studio equipment and learning about lighting. Monday was a bit boring in the morning as the teacher lectured and I was excited so I just wanted to play! We had martini glasses so that we could practice learning how to light glass and my group, three of us, got water and started to pour it in and we were making a mess but having a great time, after we started doing it everyone else did. We had green-coloured windex to try and make it look like an apple-tini. Today we actually had red wine… Hiccup… I mean… red coloured water!

Our goal this week is to get three shots, one of a glass object, one of a metal object, and one of anything of our choosing.

Our teacher, Tim Lynch, taught at Hallmark for a while and we sat down and talked about it today… boy am I glad I came to CDIA. From the description I heard from him I’m amazed the school hasn’t been shut down yet. It’s sad to hear what they’re doing, and I’m thankful to CDIA for being such an awesome alternative.

Also the teacher told me that he could tell I was very serious about photography and that he think I’ll go a long way Yaay me!

To view more photos from this set click here.

Our first short week, and thank god for it! I did absolutely nothing for the long weekend and loved it! It’s great to have some time to just relax once in a while.

I purchased NHL 09 for the Xbox 360 over the weekend and I’ve gotten pretty addicted to it. I looked for my new local AHL team because the Boston Bruins games are horridly expensive… the Worcester Sharks, farm team for the NHL San Jose Sharks. Their next game is this Friday and I think I’d like to go watch them face the Albany River Rats… My new AHL home team vs. my old AHL home team. Who do I cheer for?

GO ZAMBONI!!! WOOOO ZAMBONI!! YEEEAAAAH!

So on Tuesday when we returned to school we started talking about composition and design elements for photographers. Still stuff that I already knew but we got to go out and shoot so that’s great. After lunch we met at a pond about 20 minutes east of here. It was a nice day when we got there, the sun was shining, the fish were splashing… what that’s not how it goes? Oh well… We hung out there for the day and got to go wherever we wanted and shoot. There was a father and a son kayaking and the father was teaching the son how to roll in the water so I got some nice shots of that for my story project.

As the day went on it started to get cooler and cooler and was eventually pretty cold. I sat down for a bit to just relax and look at the lake and the teacher came over and we chatted for a bit, got to get to know the teacher and ask him questions one-on-one about photography and stuff, then I headed home.

Today was a doozy though, I was kind of scared this morning, I had to drive into boston and park at the Central Square Station then ride the subway on my own for the first time to meet the class at south station. Everything went fine and I met up with the class and we headed towards China Town for some shooting. We got there and the teacher let us go out on our own.. I decided I didn’t want to be walking around China Town on my own so I stuck with a small group from the class… all I have to say is.. I’m never going to China…

We were nearing our time we had to meet the teacher and we were stopped at a corner to talk about how to get back and this one guy started talking to us about our cameras… He was crazy! It was hillarious, I’d describe it but it was really a had-to-be-there moment.

So we met up with the teacher and the rest of our class and walked up the street to the Boston commons, taking photos along the way. Most of us were trying to use the “shoot from the hip” technique where you don’t look through your camera… It’s hard! But when you get a good shot, they tend to be pretty awesome because people don’t know you’re taking they’re photo and when someone knows they’re being photographed, they act differently.

We hung out around the commons for a while then walked back to central station for lunch, hung out in the area for a little while, then we were free to head home early. As soon as I got home I grabbed my school bag and went over to the school to use the computers for some editing fun. I waited for Keith to get out of class and gave him a ride home.

And now I rest…

Yeah Yeah, I know I haven’t posted in a couple days… I must be dead right? Fear not! While passed-out I may be, alive I still am! Not too much interesting stuff has been going on lately, shooting and learning, learning and shooting.

All week in class we’ve been trying to talk about how to modify available light… though.. no light has been available… we’ll spot a brief moment of sunshine and rush out the door, only to be covered in clouds the moment we step out…We’ve discussed the practice and have seen a bit of it in action but haven’t had much time to fool around with it. Stupid rain! Speaking of rain… for lunch today Keith and I walked down to Wendy’s… Unfortunately while we were walking it started to DOWNPOUR… So we got SOAKED… We got home and changed and drove back to school so we wouldn’t get even MORE soaked.

We started our first project this week, the Faces project. I like to call it the FACES project… I don’t know why, it just seems cooler in caps. I’ve been going to the two different fire stations nearby every night to meet the crews and take their photos, some great people around here. This morning we didn’t have to go to class until 1pm so that we had all morning to work on the project. I went and hung out at the Maple Street station for the majority of the morning and they informed me that the Lexington Street station was having a big event today at… 1:30. So when I went home for lunch I called my teacher and he gave me permission to come in late…er… than I already was.

This month is Fire Prevention Month and Dominos Pizza is teaming up with the NFPA to help spread the word about fire safety. I don’t quite understand how Waltham fire is tied up in this deal but it is so I lucked out! The mayor was there, an NFPA rep was there, and a dominos rep was there. After they made an announcement to a small group of people… and a video camera… they set off in a fire truck to deliver pizzas! The fire trucks would deliver the pizza, and if the people had working fire-detectors they got their pizza for free, if not the fire department would change their batteries for them and make sure everything was working right! Pretty sweet deal! I didn’t go with them on any deliveries, I was already late and wanted to get back to class.

So that’s pretty much all that there is to tell so far. The class is a bit slow-moving but that’s my fault for knowing about the program we’re learning about already… That’ll teach me to teach myself! Next week we’ll be learning about Photoshop……………… crap……..

Click here to view more photos from this shoot.

You asked for it so here ya go! My school Photo-ID!  Okay so I can’t get my external to work with my laptop (surprise surprise… time to throw this out the window! I’ll have my Mac in a few weeks.) But I really only got 1 photo today that I was entirely happy with so here it is. A pretty standard day today. We learned about exposure, metering, etc. and just went out to shoot. We walked down to a park and shot eachother and waterfalls and things and it was pretty neat.