Kenneth Cole's Blog

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Weekly Update March 18

This week I spent about 10-12 hours on my book.  Hannah encouraged me to work on paper, so I sketched out every spread on a mini book before I went to the computer.  

I then went to the computer and designed my first mock-up book.  I thought for awhile about how I want to tell this story visually.   I want this book to be image-dominant, as the photos themselves depict a natural narrative (images of tent city, using tarps to protect the tent city from snow, seeing the snow storm, etc.).  I am also incorporating quotes from my interviews with Joe.  

My meeting on Tuesday with Hannah went well; we talked about how I can improve the textual/compositional elements of my book by giving stronger emphasis to some images over others.  We also talked about using sentence breaks for the quotes.

We talked about the covers and felt that using the whole image on the cover is the most successful, as it sets the overall tone for the book.  

I made a second iteration of the book for today's class.  There are several pages so I will post a few spreads throughout this week.  

Critique was helpful, and everyone provided helpful feedback about type, placement, imagery, etc.  I asked my group about the book titles.  I am set on the subtitle:  One man's journey through homelessness.  But I am not so sure about the main title.  It is either "With a camera, without a home" or "Inside my tent looking out."  The first option is my voice, the second option comes from a caption Jay wrote for one of his photos.  We also talked about using his handwriting for the title, since it is his voice.  A few people liked the first title better, as it is most direct.  I am torn.

Here are a few layouts of the covers.

For my "Home" studio class, instead of working on a final project, Adrianne is allowing us to work on our IP during the rest of the semester.  I am very appreciative of this.  She is also going to work with me on the introduction/conclusion of the book.  We had a meeting on Wednesday and she pointed out that my introduction is somewhat lacking.  I haven't worked much on the intro. as I have been so focused on the imagery/text; this week I will really work on those elements of the book.

Overall I am really happy that I am making the book as it allows me to tell the story to the world, as well as document this project for myself.  

This week was exciting- it was so cool to see my article on AnnArbor.com.  I also learned that the volunteers presented my article to a town board meeting a few days ago.  They said it was very effective and it resulted in great conversation at the meeting.  

Joe gave me a call on Monday and I was really nervous as to how he would respond to the article- but he loved it.  He said he was almost crying while reading.  He thanked me for writing in a respectful way.  I told him about the book I was making and he was thrilled.  I told him I would of course give him a copy.

My goal is to finish this book by Monday, March 29.  That way I can send it out and get it printed in time for the show.  That means I need to be super productive.  I need to work on editing the images; I have 10 out of 25 done as of now.  

I also need to figure out which sound clips I want to present in the gallery.  


Yes this is a very overwhelming time but it's also exciting!  I need to work work work and enjoy it!

Wow - crazy story

This news clip is about a 46-year old homeless guy who once had a successful job- and is now homeless and living off his 1 million hotel & frequent flyer points.

Book Covers

Been working this weekend on my book - in early stages & about 30 pages total.  I am working with rough sketches on the covers/titles now.

Check out my Article!

Read the article here!

COOL

When I scanned in Joe's handwritten captions, they were very pixelated when enlarged. Tried this new photoshop technique where I turned the handwriting into a vector, and the problem is solved. This is one of my favorite captions - it will most likely be a full-page spread, and probably one of the very few spreads with text-only.  

The Latest

The latest version of the sound piece, cut it down by 23 seconds.  I think I may even be able to cut it down a little shorter than this.

Weekly Update- March 12, 2010

This semester is seriously flying by.  The past two weeks were busy- I did a lot of thinking about the gallery presentation, which was very important because I wanted to figure out how to best direct my time for the next month.  

I spent about 4 hours thinking about presentation, including traveling to camping stores, checking out tents, figuring out logistics for using an outdoor space, etc.  After this week, talking to Hannah & the gallery coordinators- everyone agreed it is too much of a distraction, in technical/logistical/conceptual ways.  In my last post I resolved a potential presentation idea that I am working with at the moment.  I think this presentation will allow the work to speak for itself.

I also worked on editing down the images I want to use for the book (2 hours).  This took longer than imagined, and I still have not resolved the exact number I want to use.  I made a contact sheet of all of the images and realized I had overlooked two very important images that were very strong compositionally & content-wise.  I am glad I found those.  

Also thought about possible book spread options, but realized this is not the way to go about creating a mock-up.  I need to focus on each image as it relates to the next, think about white space, think about using full spread for one image, mixing up image size, using text, etc.

Tonight I spent about an hour editing the sound piece again- I took Stephanie & Melissa Allison’s advice and edited out redundant lines, which shortened the piece by a good 25 seconds.  I believe the piece can be edited by another 20 seconds. 

I also spent about 8 hours last week working on the AA Article.  Megan Levad was a big help as she reminded me to use concise and direct words for this 800-word piece.  I submitted the written article, sound piece, and about 5 images from the project.  The editor really liked the article and just informed me that the piece will run in Sunday’s paper.

Met with Megan Levad today regarding my thesis – we both agreed that I should structure the beginning of the thesis like I did in my AA news article.  I need to rework a few things in my thesis but I am not going to focus on the thesis for a few weeks.

What’s Next:

I need to redo all of the black/white images.  Patrick showed me the best way to edit the photos, so I need to redo all the ones I am using for the book (26 images).  This will be very time consuming but I believe will be worth it- the blacks will be crisper, whites stronger, and the images sharper.  Goal:  Do 10 images Friday, 8 on Saturday, 8 on Sunday

Make a complete mock-up of my book.  We talked today about how the structure & flow of the book is important; each image needs to speak to the next. 

I want to make a very detailed timeline – day by day – for the next month.  

Potential Presentation Direction

Now that I have a clear sense of the presentation, I am going to work full force on the book.

Different meanings of "Home"

This homeless project has taught me different meanings of home.  It is a very sad subject, but the meaning of home can take many forms.  Sad, funny, memorable, etc.

Thought I'd share this sound piece I did for my other studio class.  The assignment:  interview someone about their home.

I interviewed my dad because he is so attached to his 17-year old car, it's like his second home.  I interviewed him in the kitchen and he was very serious about the interview.  I added his car sounds in later.  My mom kept chiming in the background and I thought it was funny so I kept it in towards the end.  My dad tells a story about the car going through inspection that neither of us knew before, so there was a funny reaction that I felt needed to stay in:

Scoping out the Tents

Today I went to several camp stores to find the perfect size tent.  I wanted to get an idea of size and brands I like.  This one store, Campmor, had a bunch of tents on clearance, which was great.  Mark said I could pitch the tent outside Work Gallery on State Street, in one of the empty parking spots.  He said “the bigger the better” because people will more likely enter a bigger space than crawling through a small tent. 

The 10x10 size tents were ideal, but I think they may be too big in width for a parking spot space.  I think I will go for the 9x9 tent.  Just to be sure I just sent Mark an e-mail asking his thoughts on tent size dimensions for the parking spot location.

Many factors go into the decision behind a tent, especially color.  I would ideally like a green or blue tent, since those are the tent colors at Camp Take Notice.

I am waiting on Mark’s reply so that I can head tomorrow to Campmor and pick up the tent. 

Lots to do

My family trip to Miami got canceled due to the huge snow storm in the tri-state area.  I decided to come home for a week to clear my head.  On the plane ride home I jotted down some notes for things I have left to do for this project...due in one month...and wow is this list LONG.

I also have some notes from last week, including notes I took from Melissa Allison's visit.

She gave some good advice on how to move forward:

Weekly Post February 25, 2010

This week was very productive- I met with a lot of different people and received great advice on how to move forward with various aspects of my project.  I also worked on some potential book covers and spreads, and had another interview with Jay.

I had a great meeting with Mark Nielson to talk about the presentation of my work in the gallery.  I presented him with a few ideas, and he really loved the idea of having a tent as a space to house the sound and book.  He reinforced the importance of having the tent be very large scale so that people will want to enter the space.  I asked him his thoughts on having the tent outside and immediately he thought of putting the tent on State Street during opening night.  He said we could place the tent on the parking spot that is in front of the gallery.   Since the tent would only be present on opening night, he said I could also have a space in the gallery to show my book, a few images, and a set of headphones to listen to the sound piece.  I was so excited after this meeting! 

I have always loved this one photo I took of the camp meeting back in November.  I love how the silhouettes look from the outside of the tent.  Having a tent installation outside would allow me to paint a similar picture.   

On Wednesday I met with Adrianne Finelli, my “Home” studio professor, about ideas for presentation (20 min).  She brought up great ideas for my project, as she is very familiar with installation work.  Adrianne loved the idea of using an actual tent to showcase the images & sound.  I asked her thoughts on different ways to present the collaborative images (sewn on to the tent, sprawled out on a table, hanging from ceiling, etc.), but she really thought a book was the best option.  It is a more intimate way to view the sequence of events leading up to the snow storm.  

I also met with Patrick Young (30 min) to go over advanced Photoshop techniques to make the most of the disposable camera images. He was so helpful and taught me different tools to use to improve the detail on my images.  Although I am very familiar with Photoshop, he taught me specific techniques that are specific to CS4.  I asked him to show me the maximum size I can print these images without losing much detail.  After some experimenting, we were both very surprised to find out that these disposable prints can be blown up to 17x22 and not lose very much detail! 

I also went to Stephanie’s Sound & Story Class yesterday (3 hours) and got great feedback from Melissa Allison, a radio producer.  It was a really great experience.  She had some suggestions, including to cut down the piece by 1 minute, and to rerecord the intro so that I am closer to the mic. 

Last night I met with Jay (1 hour) because I wanted to be updated on what is going on with the tents being forced out.  He also told me great news-he is checking out apartments to rent.  The best part of the interview was when I asked him his advice on ways of presenting the work.  He loved the tent idea and even offered to help set it up for the show. 

I created mock layouts for my book & book covers (3 hours) and got helpful feedback from Franc on these ones in particular:  

I played around the book titles "Inside my tent looking out" because that is what Jay wrote once as his caption.  I also thought about “without a home, with a camera."  During critique it was suggested I flip it to say “with a camera, without a home.”  I like how that sounds.  As far as a favorite book cover, everyone liked the full page bleed image "inside my tent looking out", as it does not give away the other photos, yet still has a powerful presence.  

I also went to the library to research ideas for installation (2 hours). 

I also met with Megan Levad to talk about my news article.  The meeting went very well and I am looking forward to cleaning the article up and sending it out to Ann Arbor News in the upcoming weeks.

What’s Next:

More book layout designs.

I also would like to record the voice mail messages Jay has left me; I could possibly play that in the gallery/tent.

I want to go find a tent over break!  I will be searching for the perfect blue tent that will have a nice presence outside.  

Put a timeline together and keep working!

My Radio Debut

Got some great news today... my sound piece will be airing on the radio!  It will be playing on the 14-hour Homelessness Marathon, which gets picked up all over the country.  Very exciting!

I'm even on the "Broadcast Schedule"...check out "Hour 9."  It will also be on the website tomorrow.

Ksubi's Installation

Artist Ksubi created an installation inspired by  "the hand built shelters of the homeless people of Tokyo’s streets.  The installation Home honey, I’m hi! reflects both the Japanese obsession for material comforts and our desire for a simpler hassle-free existence."


Love how she completely transforms the space.