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The year is 2525. The prime minister of England was planned to make an important announcement on national television. Barney Rubble and the rest of his fellow Englanders were waiting anxiously for the Prime ministers announcement. Barney worked as a caretaker of St Paul’s Cathedral in London. The night before, Barney had a little too much to drink and had woken up in a dumpster. Once he pulled the banana peels out of his pocket he ran home to listen to the Prime Minster’s message. When he turned on his TV the minster was already halfway into his speech. Barney then learned that the minster has planned to destroy St. Paul’s Cathedral and put in a Water Park in its place. Everyone knows that Englanders hate old churches like St. Paul’s and love water slides. Barney was ecstatic when he heard the news but then he remembered that he would lose his job. Barney had a choice to make, either allows the water park to be built and have fun for the rest of his life or save the cathedral and his job. Barney then realized that he was an old wrinkly man and he didn’t think anyone would want to see him in a bathing suit. He would try to save the cathedral. The day of the demolition Barney hijacked the wrecking ball machine thing and proceeded to destroy downtown London. He drove the machine to Buckingham place and took out the Prime Ministers office. Soon an angry mob started chasing the machine luckily Barney had a wrecking ball and scared everyone away. St Paul’s was saved and Barney was elected new prime minister due to his impressive wrecking ball skills.

My days, by and large a pretty busy. But today, as part of anagahama visual assignment, I brought a little “buddy” around with me to document my day. anagahama may have been thinking of something else, but I had fun taking pictures of Little Cthulhu* in the various places I live and work. And, as compromise of sorts this will count for a “design” assignment** because I don’t do design.*** So here’s the adventures of Little Cthulhu.

*Purchased at a comic bookstore in York, England about a year ago.
**Or at least I’m hoping Over Lord Jim will allow for this compromise.
***And at this point Over Lord Jim says “No! You must stretch yourself in uncomfortable ways!” and I mumble something and do a real design assignment.

Michelle is from a small “hick” town (her words) outside of Austin. She has a younger sister who she basically raised because their father left and their mother had to work. She is on her way to visit family in Germany. This is the first time she’s made the trip to Germany without her sister. We actually talked to a while about photography and technology.

In the end, Michelle got her camera out and took my picture as well. So I think I avoided the creepiness factor on this one.

In response to : Create a tv/movie poster that captures the essence of the story through the use of minimalist design/iconography, I try to picture the “The eyes tell all” message in the Blade Runner movie.

I took a stab at the “Stories written in Windows Media assignment.”

http://ds106.us/2011/02/03/stories-written-in-windows-media-player/

I don’t have that much music on my computer but as I was scrolling through, I picked up on a theme of pain and injuries so I went with that.  And then of course I had to end it with Lady Gaga.

I don’t want to be the “creepy guy with the camera” that D’Arcy mentions in his #ds106 talk but I do want to be able to capture certain images and interact with other humans in a variety of ways. If I can make myself keep trying these I’m hoping, eventually, I will have the banter and people skills down well enough to do this without it being awkward for both parties.

Taz was chosen in part because he didn’t look like he’d be worried about me- camera or no. He’s pretty much the exact opposite of the first portrait. I learned his name but nothing else about him. I did not need to tell him not to smile. This experience was different than the first stranger photo but not any better in most ways.

You’ll also notice that the pictures is out of focus as well but we’ll cross that bridge when I can focus more on the photography and less on the human interaction portion of things.

I will say that this would make an interesting project to do in a school. You’d have to prep students properly but it would be interesting.

Here’s my Visual Assignment 46: Stories Written In Windows Media Player submission. My goal was to keep the story as succinct and as coherent as possible. I created a new Playlist, then populated it with tunes from the Music Library. I used a cover version to try and create a sense of rhythm in the story (Is that outside the rules of the assignment?).