Reading Response #3

The article “Instant Gratification” by: Stephen Joel Trachtenberg seemed quite interesting at first glance. Its category “Readings on Image and Media” caught my eye, as well as the subject matter and title. Instant gratification as I’ve learned is not the best way to go about living life, at least for me. I must work hard for the privilege to sit back and relax hence the hypocrisy of the title drew me in.
The requirement of developing photos is now a way of the past. Once a religious method of capturing history, now a single click of a button that anyone can achieve. Trachtenberg talks about the transition from film photography to contemporary digital photography. The technological advancement of the Kodak portable point and shoot camera, the Polaroid instant pictures, to the instant digital picture, that appears on a screen and can be sent anywhere via the internet.
The idea of having everyone be able to take pictures is quite a feat in itself. But me as a media artist love the idea of a picture friendly world, some pictures are harmless, some pictures are incriminating, some pictures have sentimental meaning and I think everyone should have a chance to create a photograph of some kind because of how important they are to today’s society.


-Nick Edmonds

Video Hardware/Software Repsonses

1)
I found the functions of the Olympus camera to be very user-friendly and simple. The controls are similar to any other digital camera I’ve used so I was already familiar with its button interface. I did have some technical difficulties though; the batteries I used to operate the camera didn’t seem to last as long as possible, and when low battery occurred the camera would become very slow and some features would be disabled. The on/off button would not react as fast as it should; this was clearly due to the age of the camera and its great use. My ideal camera would probably be a huge Nikon with a fisheye lens attached. But I would be more than pleased with any new model of a Sony Cyber-Shot, but as of now I’m limited to the camera on my iPhone, which has a surprisingly high resolution.

2)
Final Cut Pro is my editing software of choice, I’m very new to Final Cut but it has similarities to Adobe Premiere Pro, which I’m familiar with. I was able to pick up the basics quickly and although I am not an expert I would like to learn the ins and outs of Final Cut Pro. It’s a very prestigious program and I’m very motivated to master it and continue to use it despite how complicated and endless it seems.

1. Building the Mics was very fun, and a good experience. The soldering took precision so when my microphone turned out to work well I was very proud of myself. The range and quality of the microphones were very high quality. My ideal sound recording setup would be similar microphones to those that we made and custom built wind protectors, not made of felt, and a completely digital recorder, with a hard drive instead of a mini disc, it could also be small and slide right into the pocket of my tight jeans. I’m using a pair of Bose sound canceling headphones so I’m set with those.
2. The mini disc worked well, I did forget to switch it to manual sometimes. My ideal recorder would stay in the setting that I turned it off with. All the sound would be recorded onto an irremovable hard drive.
3. I don’t like sonic stage, because of its non-Mac compatibility. Audacity is a useful program I just need to familiarize myself with it more. Then I will be able to utilize to its full extent.

Drift 1 Response

1. In the course of my sound walk my coin flipping method kept leading me into thick woods, trampling over sticks and brush, not leaving me with very clear sound. During my recording in the Estabrook Skatepark there were numerous things going on at once and capturing one sound out of everything was difficult. Editing those parts in the skatepark were also tricky, because of all the dissipating sound.

2. The first time I felt astoundingly comfortable was when I walked into the woods in the park and couldn’t see any buildings or urbanity. Although I could still here the traffic on Capital quite well the visual I got was very serene. When recording at the Skatepark, and having the sound of the wheels engulf my entire hearing, it felt so incredible, not soothing or relaxing but exhilarating. The sound was everywhere non-stop like the traffic of skateboards.

3. Well to be honest I felt like a total nincompoop walking around with those microphones, but if I got close enough to somebody to actually explain myself to them, I took full advantage to justify my peculiar actions and devices. I wanted to record some of the skateboarders at Estabrook more intimately, by following them with the microphones, instead of rejecting my requests they embraced them and although I never used the sounds I recorded from them they were determined to land the trick they were trying, that I was recording, in order to produce a crisp clean sound for me. When I went on the first mock sound walk with Amir outside around campus I was thrilled to know how powerful the microphones actually were, they enhanced my hearing noticeably.

4. My favorite part of Drift one was definitely walking around with Brad following bikers and recording them with our mic’s and laughing hysterically. Also listening to all the raw footage of the myself talking, all the profanity and how I sound different when I hear myself recorded.