Car among Cars

Ten Questions

1) Can I capture Lake Michigan as angry, violent, rather than serene?

2) How can I use cars and the lake to create a calmer, more meditative piece?

3) Can I capture the violence of a car from a standstill?

4) I like the staircase leading to Lake Park Bistro. How can capture it as a video, instead of stills?

5) Are there certain terrains (stairs/lake/path/road) that are more conducive to stills than video and vice versa?

6) How would the inclusion of the “humanscape” of my trek area change my piece?

7) What is the relationship between the highway and the lake?

8) If the Lake is cliché student material, how can I further explore it as a unique entity?

9) What interesting ways can I record trash as a movie instead of as a still photo?

10) One of my favorite places to take pictures was under the bridge, on Ravine Drive. What does this area offer in terms of moving footage?

Lost in Traffic

During the audio recording walks I began recording Licoln Memorial Drive along Lake Michigan. I had planned to take only 2 minutes or so of the cars, to get one last nice sound for the day and call it quits. I was anxious to get home and some food. However, the mics were picking up the cars so well, that I had decided to get another minute or so. The separation between Right and Left tracks was perfect. The variations in sound as different numbers of cars passed in different direction was both interesting and relaxing. Very soon, I was lost in this sonic soundscape. I felt that the sun had nearly set prompting me to end my recording, I looked at my MD recorded to find that the track of the traffic was over 25 minutes long.

When Frustrations Consipre to Help

When taking still or moving images I became frustrated by two limitations of my equipment, the first was the sunny day on which I went on my trek became on enemy, many of the photos and movies became over saturated, washing out much or all of the color. The second was that I do not have a tripod. So none of my movies had a very polished look to them. However, these frustrations turned into strengths in my finished pieces. I used to the saturated images as edit points to very strong visual effect. The handheld sequences were useful in creating a kinetic engery and violence in the pieces that would have been absent with a more polished feel.

On the Audio recordings I was at first very frustrated by people and their ignorance toward their environment. However, this ignorance became a strength as it allowed me to have a greater access to the sounds people make when they are unaware of a stranger with fuzzy white microphones. One piece in particular proved outstanding as I strolled past a block party during which there was a huge dynamic of sounds. I went unnoticed until I had finished the recording.

Finding Place within Myself

While taking audio recording of Lake Michigan I found that several other people had come to enjoy the clear, sunny weather before the temperature dropped. I was at first worried about conversations and intimate sounds leaking into my recordings. However, the constant drone of the water created individual sonic rooms that let no sounds enter or exit. Even though there was fewer than 10 or 20 feet between people I was swallowed by the lake and alone with the sounds.

I don’t consider myself a still photographer and don’t naturally enjoy taking pictures. I would much rather capture moving images. However, at one point I found a bridge that had interesting shadows. As I began taking stills of the sun and shadows that were interacting with this bridge, I found a much deeper sense of place. There was a street drain that reflected itself on the water it contained. I began, slowly to really become aware of the poetry in a place. The ware different forms interact to make a single place unique.

Frustrations of a Media Artist

As I began walking around the Lake Park area in Milwaukee doing some audio recording I heard geese and a few songbirds flitting around. But there was always too much noise between the mics and the birds for the sounds to really pick-up. So I started looking specifically for birds. By the Lake, in the woods, on the ravine trail: nothing. As I walked out of the park into the neighborhoods near Lake Drive and Locust Ave. I thought there was a larger chance of getting some nicely mic’d bird songs in the low residential trees that line the sidewalks. However, there seemed to be no birds in Milwaukee that afternoon. Just before heading back to the car with a full mini-disic or two of audio recordings, I found a tree full birds. I began recording immediately. After about twenty seconds of adjusting audio levels a door behind me slammed, silencing the birds. A man walked about to me and loud enough for me to hear through the headphones asked, “You recording the birds?” At which my feathered subjects fled the tree. The audio I did get was unusable.

During both of my previous treks, audio and video recording, I found a great gap between human actions and their environments. Few of the people had any awareness of their surroundings. While this made candid shots of people easy, it also made recording images and sounds that purposely excluded humans difficult. I have an audio recording of a child asking me if I’m looking for UFO. Many pictures have the edges of people who were ignorant of the camera, or were curious enough to interrupt me during the taking of a photo.