Many peoples enjoy relaxing in specific places. I like to think that I relax best when I am with my family and friends. It doesn’t really matter where we are. As long as I am with the people that I love, that’s all that matters. Playing my ukulele also helps me to decompress
On contemplating the places where I find peace, I wanted to find a way to collage my favorite pictures. I found an app for my iphone called Collageable. Here, I found a template I liked and selected 5 photos the speak to me. The app makes it really easy to upload and then save you final product as an image to your phone. Then, I uploaded my collage as an image here.
The first picture is of the Lotus Shrine at Yogaville in Buckingham, VA (the yoga capital of the United States). Other peaceful places are hiking with friends, College Heights pool, snuggling with my puppy in my apartment and laying out at Outer Banks beach in North Carolina. A common theme in my places of peace is nature, animals, and connection. What’s your place of peace?
There’s nothing like a homework assignment that makes you feel calm and happy. That doesn’t usually happen for me! For the “Places of Peace” assignment, the instructions were to “Create a collage of photos with all of your favorite spots where you feel relaxed or at peace. This should include at least four photos and can be places on-campus, at home, or maybe a spot you found while traveling. Then post the collage to twitter.” This assignment made me want to curl up and take a nap! It was a nice change from my usually stressful homework. I really enjoyed going through my old pictures and finding places that made me feel at peace.
The top left picture is one that I took on the sand dunes in the Outer Banks. My family visits them every year and there are always lots of people flying kites and spending time with their families. This picture makes me remember all the good times I’ve had with my family on our yearly trips to the OBX.
The picture on the bottom left corner was from a bonfire that I had with my friends. It makes me think of longs talks around campfires and s’mores and friendship. I don’t know about other people, but I love sitting around a campfire. There’s just something so calming about watching the flames!
The picture to the right of the fire is a picture of my bed. I had a lot of fun decorating my dorm, and I think it’s really cozy. I don’t spend much time in my dorm during the week, so that picture makes me think of long weekends spent relaxing in bed.
The picture second from the right is one that I took earlier this week when I was doing homework outside. I love being outside in nature, and that 75 degree winter day was one of the nicest things I’ve experienced in awhile. I was so relaxed doing homework that afternoon!
The picture on the very right is one that I took when I was walking my dog last summer on the trails near my neighborhood. I love spending time with my dog and going on trails, so this picture sums up a pretty perfect afternoon for me.
After I found all the pictures I wanted to use, I created a collage on this site. I then shared my collage on Twitter.
I wish that all my assignments made me feel as good as this one!
Places of Peace (2 stars)
For this assignment it said to create a collage of photos with all of my favorite spot where I feel relaxed or at peace. When I thought about what pictures I wanted to use, I realized that my main place where I feel relaxed was the baseball field. I’ve been playing baseball for over 15 years and that’s where I go to escape from everything else going on. Another place that I would say that I feel relaxed is a hiking trail. One in particular is the one in Harpers Ferry, WV. At the top of the trail is a rock that looks over all of Harpers Ferry and it is very peaceful up there, with the only sounds being nature. And my two other places where I feel relaxed or at peace are the beach and at my apartment with my cat. Obviously the beach is a place where everyone goes to relax and get away from reality. And being with my cat is always relaxing and peaceful because he is still a kitten and very cuddly. Below is the collage of photos that shows all four of these places I just talked about!
This assignment required me to make a collage of pictures that represent peaceful moments to me. However, I decided to make a collage based on peaceful moments for my secret agent character, Margo Humphrey, or Sidney. Since she is from England, London would be a peaceful place for her to visit. I decided to include a picture of Big Ben I took a few years ago when I was visiting there. I also included a picture of the Eiffel Tower in Paris. Since Margo is a double agent for Britain and Russia, Paris is a relaxing place for her to find moments of peace during her stressful life. I also included a picture of
I made this collage from a collage app I downloaded to my phone. Just selected some pictures already on my camera roll and then uploaded it to this post! This is my last assignment for the Visual Assignment component of the week and it was another easy one!
Ahhh, it’s so nice to be so relaaaaaxed. What’s relaxing to me, you ask? Well that’s simple! There are only a handful of places that I feel so at ease. Just like softened butter. I made a collage about it, in honor of the assignment about Places of Peace.
What is its context? What is the story it tells? What does it mean to you? to society? to other media? Why did you even make it?
First of all, I chose this assignment because I love to take pictures. I’m partial to anything where I get to take lots and lots of pictures as an assignment. Naturally, I take photos of the places in nature that are very relaxing to me (Spoiler alert: one of the places I find most relaxing is Shenandoah National Park, especially the hiking summits) but I realized that I hadn’t taken photos of the places at home that are most relaxing to me. So I staged some crevices in my little apartment-right where I feel cozy and at home!
Pictures of my cozy spaces, I realized, help me to feel relaxed. Isn’t that weird? Just looking at them makes me feel more complete and whole. I made this project to encourage and remind y’all that even when life is STRESSFUL, and you have a lot going on, always remember where you feel ooey-gooey inside-whether it be your bed, with your cat, on a mountain, or, I don’t know, a dumpster? To each his own.
So I routinely use Adobe Lightroom to edit my photos, (10/10 recommend, great editing software). So I edited all of my photos first, before inputting it into a kitschy app to generate into a collage. Here are the individual photos in their edited glory:
P.S. my fiancé made that adorable coffee table for board games/puzzles! 
And here is the finished product, little collage:
In LR, I use my own presets that I apply to each picture, and I adjust for cool tone/warm tone, shadows and white/black levels there. Its pretty fun, and while I have a super old DSLR (for now!) I just love toting that heavy ass thing everywhere to capture my favorite scenes.
-Caty
How do you tell a story? With pictures? Videos? Words? Well, how about telling a story with texts?
For one of this week’s assignments from the assignment bank, I decided to take on the task of telling a story using text messages.
Before this assignment, I had seen videos on Facebook or Youtube ads which tells funny or horror stories using texts. For this week, however, it was my turn to create a story.
My first task to create my story was to decide what story I wanted to even tell. This took a lot of brainstorming for me. I thought originally of posting funny conversations that occurred between me and a friend or family member. But the more I thought about it, the more I felt that I could be more creative and have fun with this assignment by creating my own text exchange between two characters. That is when I got the idea to do a text exchange between two characters from my favorite movies: Albus Dumbledore and Severus Snape.
As we all know by now, the theme for this course is Secret Agent. I personally don’t have much knowledge or experience when it comes to secret agent movies or characters. However, to familiarize myself more with this theme and prepare for class, I researched many characters that fit the secret agent theme. To my surprise, one character that popped up was Severus Snape.
As I said earlier, Harry Potter is my favorite series and my favorite movies. (When I say they are my favorite, I watch at least 2-3 Harry Potter movies a week). But with how obsessed I am with Harry Potter, I never considered Severus Snape to be a secret agent until this class. But the more I think about it, the more I think it is acceptable to classify Severus Snape as a secret agent.
For those who are not familiar, Severus Snape is a fictional character in the Harry Potter series. He is an exceptionally skillful wizard who is also a professor at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Snape is often described as a cold, sarcastic character who has a hatred for Harry Potter and at one point was actually working with the Dark Lord, Voldemort.
However, as the series progresses, we learn that Snape was in love with Harry’s mother when they were both students at Harry Potter. His love for Harry’s mom actually compelled him to betray Voldemort and the Death Eaters and become a double agent for Albus Dumbledore and the Order of the Pheonix.
With that being said, I decided to create my story of texts between Snape and Dumbledore and simultaneously explore our secret agent theme to uncover more of what it means to be a secret agent.
My text story contains dialogue between Snape and Dumbledore that explain how vital Snape was to the success of defeating Voldemort by gaining his trust (It also contains what I hope to be humor).
Severus Snape serves as a great example for me to have a greater understanding of what it takes to be a secret agent. Snap was able to deceive Voldemort by gaining his trust. Doing so, Snape was able to better protect Harry and help Dumbledore and Harry ultimately defeat Voldemort. Even until the end, Voldemort never suspected that Snape was crossing him and actually helping those who were attempting to defeat him. arguably, without Snape, Harry may not have been able to stop Voldemort.
In order to create my text exchange, I used the app ChatStoryMaker. This app was very user-friendly and allowed me to create my dialogue between two characters and switch back and forth. While I am not totally satisfied with how my text exchange turned out (as you can clearly see I am switching back and forth to talk), this app was really user-friendly and showed me how many apps and pieces of technologies are out there to help you easily create stories such as the one I did.
Overall, I had fun with this assignment and also had fun incorporating our Secret Agent theme! This is the first time I have created a story using texts, and I
We’ve all heard the famous saying a picture is worth a thousand words. Within every image we take there is some kind of story or meaning, which makes a picture that much more meaningful.
For my first EVER assignment from the assignment bank in this class, I decided to choose one from the visual assignments. It was fascinating to explore this page and discover the numerous assignments offered just alone in this section. Ultimately I ended up settling on an assignment called “Places of Peace”. On the difficulty scale this assignment mustarded a two out of five. I figured this would be a good start for my very first assignment in this course. This assignment asked individuals to…
Create a collage of photos with all of your favorite spots where you feel relaxed or at peace. This should include at least four photos and can be places on-campus, at home, or maybe a spot you found while traveling. Then post the collage to twitter.
These instructions while fairly simple were certainly thought provoking. First and foremost I really liked the emphasis on peace within this particular assignment. Peace can mean anything to anyone, while it has a set definition it still however is based on perception. When I think of peace I initially think of the terms quiet and tranquil. However, I also find peace in the chaos. The four photos I chose where I feel most relaxed or at peace tell a story of tranquility clashing with chaos.
These four pictures tagged in my tweet bring me peace, at least they bring me my definition of peace. I believe a sense of peace contains happiness. The first picture is of my UMW soccer teammates and I on the soccer field. Soccer has played a significant role in my life since I was five. While many probably assume playing a sport is totally the opposite of peaceful due to the high rigor the activity brings, it actually provides me with total relaxation, taking on this idea of escapism for myself.
The second image is of a sunset I captured while vacationing in Cape Code, Massachusetts. I am a sunset person. I find something so calming in watching the sun slowly slip away into the night while the oranges, pinks, and reds crash into one another. Something like the sunset brings me peace because for just a couple moments I pay no attention to where I am, I forget any bad stuff, ignore all stresses, and just watch something so breathtaking take place. This sunset I captured is the most beautiful sunset I have ever witnessed in my life. Whenever I find myself stressing I think back to how I felt during it and begin to find peace again.
My third picture is of the University of Virginia basketball stadium, Jone Paul Jones Arena. Since I was little I was born and raised on UVA. I have attended too many football and basketball games to count. That being said one of my passions is sports, I love and will play all of them. One of my favorite sports is college basketball. Nothing is more thrilling then watching a game and getting lost in the chaos. To this day I still attend UVA basketball games with my grandfather. While some may not see how a game of basketball can be peaceful, I find absolute happiness, joy and peace sitting beside my grandfather watching the Virginia Cavaliers destroy their opponents. Sharing this same memory with him for more than the past decade has been a blessing.
Finally my last photo is a picture I captured of Central Park in New York City during the Summer. For those who have been to New York City truly understand the hustle and bustle the city that never sleeps brings. However something so peaceful and beautiful about this place is the massive park located in the center of the city. Central park is one of my favorite places in the world. I typically travel to New York City one to two times a year and fall back in love every time with the calmness the park brings me. Something is so fascinating about a massive, historic city known for its chaos containing such a beautiful landmark that challenges the city life.
This assignment inspired me to tell my story of peace. By attaching four photos captured on my phone to a tweet I was able to create my first assignment for digital storytelling 106. While being a simple assignment to create, I was inspired by what I thought of peace and how my perception of it may differ from others. But what I learned in reflecting on this is that there is beauty in being different and we all have impactful yet different stories to tell. And a picture is always worth a thousand words.
For my first Remix Assignment, I decided to take it back to Visual Assignments, and remix the Places of Peace Assignment. My task was to include a Dr. Seuss character in my creation. I first thought about my places of peace, and they involved travel (except doing yoga with my dog nearby!), so I thought to incorporate the young boy from Oh, the Places You’ll Go by: Dr. Suess! The book is all about traveling and thinking about all the places you will go with your life. I was more relaxed and content while I was abroad than I have been in my entire life. Traveling and doing new, fun things with awesome people is where I find joy, and even peace.
To create this remix, I used Shutterfly and brought in four photos of my places of peace, and then used a picture from the Dr. Seuss book for the final picture. I decided on a picture of the beach in Spain at sunset, my best friend and I in Edinburgh, myself on my favorite spot in Bath, my tree, and my feet as I am doing yoga with my dog nearby. I am so excited to see where my life takes me, so the combination of the Dr. Seuss book and the places that have brought me peace in the past are exciting. I took a screenshot of the piece when I was happy with it.
#ds106 #visualassignments #visualassignments2109