Goal Statement for Project 3: Audio Package

For this project I will attempt to revive my old story idea of covering some of the recent graffiti in downtown Champaign. The local police department seems to be the best source to talk to about this sort of incident, so I'm continuing in the process of setting up an appointment with one of their officers via the police chief's secretary, Rene Dunn. I also plan on contacting a few businesses who've been victims of 'spray-paint vandalism' to include their side of this issue, and maybe see what expenses they've accrued. I'm not too sure how I'll be able to capture any good ambient sound in these environments, but hopefully the recorder will catch something interesting.

Project 02: Photo Package Final Result

Due to last minute changes, I had to change the subject of my project from street art to the Renaissance Faire photos I took on 9/03/2011.

Goal Statement
 

This weekend I plan to travel up to the Bristol Renaissance fair with a few family members, and will be sure to not forget my camera for this event. The festival runs each summer July through September, so I’m pretty lucky to get a chance to see the last events of the year. To my knowledge, many of the performers have been working and living at the festival all summer, so there should definitely be some good sights to capture this weekend. This will be my second time attending the festival, so I’ll know to look out for all of the quirky performers who remain in character throughout the day, and guarantee a genuine medieval experience.

Editing Statement

While I was able to capture a great amount of quality photos at the event, there were a few issues I ran into covering the event as an authentic piece of journalism. Some characters that were not performing in the scheduled events, particularly the ‘fairies’, were very hesitant to speak with any festivalgoers, including myself. I was only asked once to not shoot any photos by one storefront, which explained that they didn’t want their designs stolen. Other then that, I was able to capture one good photo of two children fighting with metal swords, but was able to talk to them or their parents because one of the children began crying at the end of the fight.  In flection, my greatest challenge at the festival was getting subject names, which were often only stage names, some made up on the spot.

Assignment Two: Photo Package Goal Statement

Over the last few weeks, there has been a good amount of graffiti showing up on and off campus. I took one of my best shots during the Urbana Sweetcorn Festival, with crowds of people walking past, barely noticing it (probably because it was a reference to a video game, and not some other more notable facet of pop culture). Either way, the little blue spot in the alley of Race Street was soon accomplied by Two weeks ago, I woke up one quiet Saturday to find the message "I chose a bad day to quit sniffing glue" scrabbled in red spray paint across the east wall of my apartment building. Obviously, a message like that didn't stick around for too long.

To police and landlords alike, public vandalism is just vandalism. Someone needs to get paid to clean the mess up, and this is usually the case whenever anything vulgar is sprayed on University property. Yet off campus, 'street art' tells a different story. Some taggers spray over the work of their competitors, some aside. Outlaw artists work to spread a message as far as they can, and others follow. Since getting a chance to talk to them on record will present a major legal obstacle, I plan to take this chance to complete a diverse package of street art and messages, and how the community feels about them, outside of a high-brow college campus.

Here are the two photos as referenced.