Project by: Florence (11th Grade)

Faculty Advisor: Susan Now

This trimester, I have been working to edit and sort through photos from my summer in Paris to eventually send it to a printer to be made into a book. I decided to include not only my favorite moments, but to compose them chronologically with meaning. I decided to shoot my summer in color film to capture the vibrant colors that Paris has to offer. Because of this decision, I had them professionally developed at The Color House. After the development process, I took the negatives, scans, and prints and began to clean, edit, sort, and compose the photos. Susan helped me clean the dust off of the prints and use photoshop to clean any printing errors, clarify shapes and colors, as well as sharpen components to the image. In this process, I taught myself how to properly construct and edit photos so that they are in perfect condition for the book that I will eventually make. In the beginning, I did not want to get rid of any of the photos because they held such sentimental value. With this in mind, I learned that composing them together, alone, and in all different configurations can transform the meaning of the photo. I think that this honors project not only helped me organize, edit and compose photos, but it also enabled me to preserve the memories that I documented over the summer somewhere other than online. Susan and I decided to extend this honors project through the second trimester because we did not have enough time to send the book in to the printer just yet.

Here are some of the photos that I included:

In the second trimester, I continued to develop my book: July In Paris. The extension of this honors project really allowed to finalize and perfect this book and make it the best it can be. After looking at the previous layouts Susan and I had made over and over, there were many adjustments in terms of aesthetic, chronological order, sense, and so many other factors. We used an application called “Book Wright” to format and print the book. This easy to manage app helped the process greatly and made it easier to not only create it efficiently, but it also taught me the basic formatting techniques. These vary from layout functions to text and the app guided me through it with clear instructions.

After the book was almost complete, I had a few pages at the beginning that seemed quite dull. I decided to use this empty space as an opportunity to use some of the iPhone photos that I captured on this trip. Although the film photos were much more aesthetically pleasing and conveyed my month in Paris beautifully, the iPhone photos were a nice addition to not only add more content but include more memories as well. I used “Photoshop” to construct this collage and I am very pleased with the way that it turned out.

After creating the collage, I felt that the meaning of the book had shifted slightly from an aesthetically pleasing coffee table book of memories to a more personal way for me to look back years from now and remember the magical month I spent in Paris. On the 7-hour plane ride home in early August, I wrote a 10-page list of all of the museums, restaurants, shops, locations, tips and much more. This was solely for me to remember the great places that I visited that one day I hope to return to. My mother read these descriptions and insisted I include them in my book.

Overall, this honors project taught me not only how to edit and compose photos, but also about the repetitive revision process. Nowadays photos tend to get lost in cyberspace and I believe that printing them the old-fashioned way makes them way more meaningful. I hope to look back at the book that I have created and remember the amazing memories that I made in Paris.

Here are some page examples:

PROPOSAL

Please write a description of the project you are proposing. Why do you want to take this on, and what do you hope to learn?

In this Honors Project, I will use my new passion for film photography to develop and edit photos that I have taken. Over the summer I spent a month in Paris where I documented my trip through photos. I hope to edit and compile these pictures into a portfolio/book with Susan’s help.

What is your proposed outcome? How will you be able to demonstrate successful completion of this Project?

The outcome of this Honors Project will be to gather a collection of photos to add to a portfolio that demonstrate the skills and techniques that I have learned throughout the trimester.