Month: October 2020

For my radio Pitch i will Interview my friend Brett Loving is an Artist, a business owner and entrepreneur, an action sports athlete, and all-round earth experiencer.  He is fun, Smart and super creative would love to hear more of his life stories and how his creativity and creative life plus work comes together.

For my photoville assignment, I attended the Creativity in Unprecedented Times webinar. This was my first webinar that wasn’t strictly focused on anything school-related, which is why I found this one especially interesting. There were four eccentric photographers on the call and they spoke about how has the pandemic affected their creativity and how with such limited resources they were able to still take some great pictures. One of the photographers, Alexis Hunley, mentioned that she was able to remain creative throughout the pandemic by exploring more of her local environment instead of doing her normal route. Another photographer, Elinor Carucci, said she starting taking portraits of her family members. But before getting into how they have been managing their creativity throughout the pandemic, they showed their artwork before the pandemic. I was especially impressed by the photographer, Bri McDaniel, who takes very candid pictures of mothers. I saw a variety of mothers breastfeeding and mothers harnessing their children. However, what’s more, important to her is the act of taking pictures of mothers because they are often overlooked and neglected. After all, you rarely see them being photographed. What I learned is the power of staying creative and how even in the toughest times one shouldn’t let their creativity die. I at the beginning of quarantine was excited with the newfound time I would have to indulge in my personal projects, but grew increasingly uninterested as the months went by given the massacre we all survived.

For my Photoville assignment, I attended “We Built This City: Destiny Mata and Gogy Esparza in Conversation” on Sept 27 on Zoom. I wasn’t able to watch everything, but I was able to hear Destiny Mata talk about her life and how she got into photography. She took a photography class and for one of her first assignments, she went out and took photos of her neighbors; she considers them her extended family. Destiny started photography when she was 18 and her aunt was the fashion photographer, Chayo Mata. Destiny’s aunt gave her her first camera and Destiny would walk around with her friend just taking photos of the area and people, which were the photos they displayed in the presentation.

I thought the whole talk was interesting. Each photographer had their own unique story into how they got into their current profession. For Destiny, it was her aunt and teacher that first pushed her into photography. The talk helped me understand that some people may have a greater impact on your life story than you realize, something as simple as a photography class might be the jumpstart of your career. Taking chances and being open to various opportunities is important if you want to find your passion.

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 radio pitch, I’d like to interview my family friend’s two kids (boy and girl) who are learning in-person and online. The son is a sophomore in high school. The daughter is an 8th grader in middle school. They go to school in person one to two days in person and the rest is online. I’d like to hear their perspective on learning hybrid through a pandemic, especially with coronavirus cases going up in our area of Rockland County. I also heard a student caught COVID-19 at one of their schools so I want to ask them especially about how they feel safety-wise and how different it feels learning in a mixed fashion.

For my radio project, I would like to focus on the ways that high schools in Westchester County have been evolving to accommodate the needs of students during a pandemic. I would like to interview my sister, who is a freshman at Rye High School about her experience as her classes have been split with half virtual, half in-person. I would also like to interview my stepbrother who is a junior at Horace Greeley High School and compare his experience to my sister’s. Each high school has a different approach to student and parent demands while trying to minimize COVID outbreaks.

For my radio story, I’d like to cover how people my age are feeling about the upcoming election. It’s Gen Z’s first opportunity to vote so I think people would have interesting things to say. I’d ask people how they’ve been keeping up with the race,  get general opinions on the country’s current state, and find out if they really believe that voting is important. I’d also ask them about their opinions about talking politics on social media, and the stunts celebrities have been pulling to encourage people to vote because social media has been influential to a majority of us. I’d try to have a group discussion on Zoom, but that I might have difficulty finding conservative people and preventing the conversation from turning into a debate.

For my second assignment, I want to interview my mother, who is a high school dance teacher and a yoga instructor. Since the pandemic, she has had to conduct her classes via zoom, which can be particularly challenging for the types of physical classes she teaches.

My radio story will not only include clips from my interview with her, but also a scripted piece on what it’s been like having online classes from a teacher’s perspective. I also want to involve sound segments of her instructing class through zoom. I will be taking an accompanying photo of her while she is teaching a class, which will most likely be a demonstration of movement or a yoga pose.

For my radio project I will be doing a podcast with my mother about our family’s path to America. With the recent uptick in COVID cases in the zip codes surrounding my area, I am uncomfortable with interviewing someone that is not related to me. We will go into what made my mother want to leave the Soviet Union, and then she will give an account of what it took to get here and what they went through to get to where they are today. I look forward to sharing this story with everyone because I find it very inspiring and it drives me every day. I also believe that her story can help shine a light on America that hasn’t been prevalent in a while. I have had difficulty being a good patriot these past few years and in general it seems that there hasn’t been much pride attached to Americans recently, but this story certainly reminds me of what others see in the this country.

For my Photoville assignment, my girlfriend and I visited Brooklyn Bridge Park on Saturday, the 3rd of October. There were plenty of people out that day who came to enjoy the exhibits on display. The weather was perfect and it was a beautiful scene. We checked out a few exhibits while passing through, and you’ll find some pictures attached of the layout. It was a great experience that I had previously not known about at all. Unfortunately, at this time it seems that we have exceeded the media upload limit so as soon as I can post some pictures of it, I will. It was a great day and the exhibits were very stimulating.