Thursday, May 25, 2017
Final Project - Brais Marchena
AVES
By Brais Marchena
As a kid, I was always inspired by the natural world. For sixteen years I lived on the boundary of one of the most important national parks in Panama. I grew up with the privilege of having contact with wildlife daily. Toucans, macaws, and birds in general always called my attention more strongly. I come from a country with more bird species than Canada and the United States together, with 1,002 species as of December 2016.Through different internship opportunities I have developed a deep interest for birding, and the skills to identify several species.
As a Biology major, I have been taught the distinguishing characteristics of this taxon of animals. All birds fall into the class Aves, warm blooded endothermic animals covered in feathers. These animals are of great value to Biologist. They serve as indicators of the health of an ecosystem, because of their sensibility to stimuli. They are also the protagonists of on the most awe inspiring phenomena in the natural world, migration. Some travel over 40,000 miles driven by nothing more than their instinct to survive.
Birds are ubiquitous in human history. In Ancient Greece, pigeons were used to deliver the results of the Olympic Games. Today, exotic birds are a common occurrence in homes around the world. Because of this lots of species have been declared endangered mainly due to illegal pet trade and habitat destruction. Some genera have been domesticated over course of the years, others have been exploited exclusively through “sports” like hunting. Under the believe that preserving natural resources results in greater benefit than over exploitation. A tradition of hundreds of years was changed for the better. In the early days of Wildlife Conservation, the proposal a new holiday tradition—a "Christmas Bird Census" that would count birds during the holidays rather than hunt them was born. My work hopes to mimic the idea of appreciating birds without causing any harm, and promote conservation.
A great inspiration for my fascination for birds is James Audubon’s work on documenting wildlife in the late 1700’s and early 1800’s. He captured hundreds of portraits that depicted the animals around him. As a wildlife enthusiast with a camera, I was motivated to capture the wildlife around me. In my mind, birds are the best representatives of an ecosystem. This collection aims to shine light into this amazing animals, often disregarded because of lack of knowledge. With this work, I also hope to encourage others to get out there and document the birdlife of their community. Even if you are an amateur birder, there’s an array of apps that guide you through the process. This information serves biologists to assess the current status of an ecosystem. All the photos were shot in Sanpete County during May of 2017. For this project patience was key, with no deliberate design but rather one created by an opportunistic approach.
Final Project - Jun Ogawa
Animals
and what we eat
There
are thousands of
animals in this world. Each of them have special features, and they are
beautiful. Human beings and animals have a deep relationship. Some people have
animals as a pet, and some people used to use the horse as a means of
transportation in the past. However, the most important fact of our
relationship is that we eat animals. Eating is an essential part of living. We must
kill animals to eat them. We love animals, but at the same time we kill them.
It’s sort of an opposite action, so in this project, I wanted to put this contradiction,
and the thing that we should appreciate the fact that we can eat. In my
picture, I took some photographs of cow and chicken because there are many of
them in Ephraim. There are basically three concepts: photographs of animal
itself (cow and chicken), photographs of animal and human, and photographs of
food. I took some pictures of fork, knife and meat with animals because I
wanted to imply the cruelty. In addition, since it was outside, and animals
have really characteristic colors, I paid attention to the tone of color. I
tried to emphasize the beauty of animals and nations in terms of color. I want
people who see this picture to appreciate the fact that we can eat. We continue
to eat food today, tomorrow, and forever.
Final Project - Diego Valencia
TEDDY BEAR MOODS
There are a lot of different projects and ideas going on my mind when I am trying to figure it out what I can do for my final project.
At the end, I decided to do something that represents something really important for me which I call “Teddy Bear Moods.”
I decided to do this project because of Salome. She is my girlfriend and lives five thousand kilometers far away from me. When I video call her she is always hugging the teddies that I gave to her. Ever since I have known Salome, I have noticed that she loves stuffed animals. I have been always interested to know how she expresses her thoughts, feelings, and emotions to her teddies. The girls that you will see in my project are imitating similar situations that Salome lives in Ecuador. I used a big teddy bear (her birthday present) to portray these situations.
It was a challenge for me the first time that I asked someone to express emotions with a teddy bear. At first, the girls did not understand what I was trying to show. When I talked about the different situations that Salome experiences when she is talking to me, they were able to understand better.
In order to get a great picture, we tried to use our imagination to understand the context of each of the situations. I used a black background, lights, and different clothes. At the end, all the moods were showed. Some examples of these moods are when she is freezing and wants to hold my hand, or when she is sad and wants to talk with me. As a result of this project, I can understand better how my girlfriend feels and expresses to her teddies when I do or say something to her.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)