Author: REDWAN AURPON

For my video project, I would like go around my neighborhood filming how the pandemic has truly  affected us. I’ll be showing the local supermarkets, barber shop, mosque and etc. With a possible second wave coming up, I feel like it would be interesting to see how people are dealing with it.

Introduction: I sat down with Mahiya Aurpita to talk about how she feels Covid-19, online school, graduating etc. Mahiya being a senior at New York City College of Technology, it was difficult (just like the most of us) for her to transfer to online school because of Covid-19. She is also going to be the first person in our family to graduate from an American school which is a big accomplishment. She is a big inspiration to me to keep going and I could learn some things from her.

AMBI: Clock alarming sound

Track: Mahiya wakes at 8:00 am. She opens her laptop and started her first class of the day.

AMBI: Keyboard typing sound.

Track: Mahiya wasn’t happy when she heard school was transitioning to online.

Act: Honestly, at first it wasn’t that bad but, it started getting hard. It made me extremely upset. I hate how Covid-19 ruined my last year experiences and it has been exceedingly difficult to get work done. Online school has made me a little lazy and not that motivated. It is also hard for me to learn because I’m a visual type of person that likes to be here there instead of behind a screen. It took away my will to learn but, I’ll just have to keep trying.

Track: Mahiya through all her hard work is going to be the first person in our family to graduate from an American school.

Act: I am very blessed and excited for this accomplishment. Growing up was tough and we had just moved to this country for our parents to give us a better education and for me to graduate, I hope I’ve made them very proud. It was an awfully hard and stressful time but, I got through it. I hope to inspire my little brother to do the same.

Track: After college, she decided to follow her dream and go to med school.

Act: I always wanted to a doctor. It has been a lifelong dream of mine. After I finish my undergrad, I will be heading to med school where I can continue to purse my goal. I’m excited to see where life takes me.

Track: I asked her what are some advices she might have to people who are just starting college or still in high school.

Act: My best advice for those people is to study hard and don’t let anything distract you. College is tough and you must put the work in if you want to see good results. If you don’t study, its going to be hard for you to pass. You might also need the information after college. Distraction is also a big issue to cause you to not pass. It leads you to procrastinating which I highly recommend not to do. If you put in the work and try your best, you’ll be fine.

Track: Thank you for sharing. Reporting from Baruch College, I’m Redwan Aurpon

For my radio pitch, I would like to interview my sister who is currently on her last year of college. She is biomedical informatics major at New York City College of Technology. Me currently being a sophomore at Baruch College, I still have a lot to learn and don’t really have everything figure. My sister being almost done with college, I would like to know how she feels, what her plans are after and some advice she might have. She’s going to be the first person in our family to graduate from an American school and I feel like that is something special and something to be proud of.

For my photoville assignment, I decided to do Adobe’s Creating Dramatic Black and White images. The experiences was good because there was alot of motivated people in the zoom call and it was interesting for me because I have never in a class where we learned about the amazing work of taking photos and how much time and patience it requires. I always thought it was one snap and done but, my perspective changed after. Our instructor Lisa Carney was very sweet and caring. She explained everything well and in-depth. She realized the information she was giving us was a lot so, she went as slow as possible. In the session, she talked about the beauty of mobile photographs. She said “It’s not the wand, it’s the wizard”. That quote was inspiring because a lot of people don’t have high equipment to take pictures. She introduced us to an app that anyone could download called Light Room. It’s a great app that lets you take any pictures and turn it into beautiful looking black and white shots. There are 5 camera choices, which are automatic, pro, hdr, long exposure and depth capture. My favorite one is the depth capture because you can highlight the part the photo that you want to make sharper and turn it into black and white while the highlighted part is more focus and light. She went on to explain the best camera settings to use, and just how to use the app in general. I learned a lot of things in there. One is you can take a bad photo and turn it into a good black and white photo just by using light room. Another thing is that no matter how bad your equipment is, you can still take great photos.

The Beautiful Jamaica Estates

For my photo essay, i was very limited to many things because of the pandemic so, I’ve deiced to do something that would be safe.  I had this idea of photographing  me and my friend roaming through  a rich neighborhood.

Me and him are both immigrants and our parents came here for us to have a better education and a better future. Like most people, everyone wants to live in a nice neighborhood in a big house with nice cars, etc.

I wanted to photograph one of our dreams which is to live in a nice, safe neighborhood where our family could grow up. I think this would be very interesting because this is something  we really want to accomplish and since that we are immigrants, it was more meaningful.