Field Study #9

Time for something kind of different!

I did a project for one of my classes with the theme Environment. I had to locate a space and find a way to bring a sense of the place into the classroom. So I did a mock field study. Using the Lomochrome Purple XR film and my imagination, I created a purple forest. As a field scientist (as a pretend field scientist, rather,) I documented my stay in the Purple Forest through journaling, taking samples, sketching, and making sound recordings. I tried to bring a sense of my imaginary place into the classroom my using 4 of my 5 senses: hearing, touch, smell, and sight.

So this is what I did: I went down to the river on my campus, to an area that has no trails and isn’t frequented by students. I took pictures, made sound recordings of the birds and the river, and I took leaves and berries from the area. I altered the recordings I made to include choral, heavenly sounds. I took the leaves and berries and I put them in jars with colored water, to give the effect that the leaves were purple or pink. I also took strawberry extract and said it was a “river water” sample, so my imaginary place smelled like strawberries.

Here is my field guide that I put together.

My handwriting is a little hard to read, but no worries: it’s typed up and ready to read in the Undergraduate Work tab.

As usual, things didn’t go as planned. My first roll of film gave me a world of trouble. My camera refused to rewind it. So I had to do it the old-fashioned way (turn off all the lights hide under numerous blankets and use a pair of scissors to ease it back into the camera…) Because of this, a lot of my roll got over-exposed and turned magenta. I scanned them in and did what I could to salvage them, but they just weren’t to my standards. I printed them on normal paper and pasted them into the field guide, and moped. And moped. And moped some more. Then I got mad, grabbed my camera, and re-shot another roll. And they turned out beautifully.

I’m super bummed I only have 2 rolls of the Lomochrome Purple XR left. I’ll need to order some more soon.

In other news: my blog is a year old! Yay! It’s incredible to look back and see how much work I’ve done this year. It’s inspiring and humbling all at the same time.

Well, that’s all for now. Now that my finals are over and I’m on break, expect more blogging from me!