Rope Swing Video 2.0

The link to my second rope swing video is below.  Enjoy!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3dGgpwXZcF8

Political Art: Disesperanza

While I begin to master the pen tool in photoshop, one thing that I would love to do is to produce more politically charged art.  Here is a rendition of a version of the Mexican Flag.  The government in Mexico is one of the most corrupt in the world and it cripples the lively of the people that live there.

I'm a Rope Swing Fanatic

I first went on a rope swing back in my freshman year of college.  A legendary rope swing had been put up on the same tree that the yellow one is tied to today.  There I started cultivating a relationship with the rush of swinging.  Over the summer, the swing was cut down and one didn't replace it until the end of the Spring '10 semester.  I first used rope swinging as a form of release.  After class, there was nothing more blissful and refreshing as going to the rope swing on a beautiful spring day and swinging around for an hour or so.  Over the summer I fell in love with a different rope swing located on the Eno River in Hillsboro, NC. Because you swing over water, I perfected the "upside down" and eventually I was able to master the backflip.  Here is a picture of the infamous swing though it is hard to see the rope, it is on the left side:

Once school started back up, it became more clear to me that I wanted to do some sort of art project involving the rope swing.  I started an independent study with Maia Dery outlining a few projects I wanted to tackle.  The "Rope swing project" was the first on my to-do list.  However, once I started mixing art and the rope swing, I couldn't stop.  Over the semester, I have documented the swing through pictures and video.  Below are some of my favorite pictures:

My boy Henry at the peak of the yellow

Crotch Shot

 This is a series of myself during my first shoot of my second rope swing video

Shot By Myself.  

(Used Self-timer)

My Habibi

Jonah Hole Panorama

On the same fall break trip, my lovely girl friend took me to a cool place called Jonah Hole.  Here is a panorama I made on top of a waterfall.  After some tinkering, I was able to get an affect that makes it seem as if you are going to fall, especially when you look at the part over the cliff.  Watch your step!

Night Photography

While I have still yet to tackle HDR photography, I still love going out in the dark with my tripod and taking pictures wherever there are glimpses of light.  Both of these pictures were taken over my fall break.  The first of these pictures was taken at a friends house in Asheville, NC.  It overlooks the city entire city.

The second picture was taken at my very own Guilford College by the lake.  I really dig the contrast in this picture.  Not just the contrast in between the left side which is pitch black and the bright right side (Light and dark) but the contrast between the actual scene and the reflection of the scene against the lake (in-focus and blurry).

My Eyes

Here we have two versions of a project I am working on.  The blue are two of the rope swing light fractals that I worked on previously in the year.  The irises are my own, taken myself using a tripod.  I think I could strengthen it by capturing a better picture of my iris.  I would like to eventually create an entire "blue light robot face" by adding a nose and mouth.

Seasonal Panoramas

Featured below are panoramas of the view from the top of the hill looking down at the infamous rope swings.  Each panorama captures a different season.  While each rama features practically the same view, they are severely contrasted through color and feeling.  Enjoy!

Summer

Fall

Winter

A fruitie Fractal

I know I haven't put much up recently, but my second rope swing video is in the making and will be out within the next two weeks.  I am also working on a piece of political art that will surface in the next week too.  For now, I present you with this fractal made from oranges, limes, grapefruit, bananas and strawberries.  I decided to keep this one symmetrical but I think it works to its advantage.  Enjoy!

Connecting the Rope Swing to Fractals

These pictures were produced by shooting long exposures of me going on the rope swing with my light up frisbee.  I then created 3 copies of the original and put them together in photoshop.  More about this stuff later.  Enjoy!

The Rope Swing Project

     There are many forms of art found in the Guilford College woods.  Most of them are products of several classes such as Sculpture in Nature.  But there is no other piece of art that is as inclusive, interactive, and majestic as a single yellow rope that dangles from a tree.  The funny thing about it is that the ropes origins are fairly unknown, but it is certain that it was not put up by any student, but by a Greensboro local.  

When you approach the rope swing, it's as if time stops for a second and everything that you were thinking and experiencing just prior has slipped away unnoticed.  Before taking the assent to retrieve the rope, it's impossible not to observe, even if its just for a split second, the thick jungle around you.  This perch permits you to see many corners of the woods; you are the king of the castle.  As the sun enters through the leaves above creating a phantasmagoric show on the roots below your feet, families of deer flock away, birds sing loudly, and the creek whispers to you from the bottom of the hill.  It is time, your time, and now you must fly.

When you finally secure yourself within the yellow, and let your feet go beneath you, all you hear is the air flying by your ears, the weight falling in your stomach, and the perception that time no longer exists.  All man-made constructions of reality have fled out the window; no paradigms exist, no superficial, chemically forced endorphin release is necessary.  The feeling the rope swing gives you is 100% natural and 100% legitimate.  And it's impossible not to meet the sensation with an orgasmic smile once your feet are once again secured beneath you.  

I refuse to go on any roller coaster.  I get nausea and anxious whenever I fly on a plane.  It freaks me out to look over high edges.  But you give me a rope tied on a tree branch, and I will go upside down on that sucker.  And better yet, if you put water below it, I will be flippin' off that thing Barnum & Bailey style.  

This video was made to try and show you a mere slice of the majestic.  To really experience it, you must take hold of the rope yourself.  Enjoy!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lQyxIplHLsM

Special Thanks for the help of the making of this video goes to everyone that came out to the rope swing during production, but specifically: Pete Kostin, Mikey Yakima, Sara Hussein, Zack Pinsky, Henry Wells, and IT&S for lending me their cameras.

Panoramas

Panoramas let us see everything as if we were staring straight on at a vast landscape.  This Panorama was taken in Tlaxcala Mexico and oversees the town of Toluca De Guadalupe.  It was taken while I lived there last winter and I constructed the panorama by using photoshop.

Fractals

I have been drawn to Fractals ever since I followed a free online tutorial (http://psd.tutsplus.com/tutorials/tutorials-effects/how-to-simulate-fractals-in-photoshop/) and produce my first one back in July.  Since then, I have created what I thought would be the impossible.  Fractals allow me to unleash my natural abilities to find aesthetic beauty in repetition, symmetry, and shape.  I enjoy how you can simply take one or two basic images and then juxtapose them, and flaunt that juxtaposition with repetition until it later gives way to beauty.  Like a flower in bloom, a piece of work goes through many stages until it is fully bloomed and even then, there are still alterations and evolutions it may take as it dies, decomposes and is part of another creation.  Below is my first educated, real attempt at Fractal beauty with 3 stages of transformation included.  The only two images I used to compose this fractal are a leaf and a peace sign.
Step 1

Step 2

Step 3

Exploration of Visual Alteration and Creation

Dear Blogosphere Navigators,

My name is Jason Straus and I am currently a senior at Guilford College majoring in Spanish and minoring in Visual Arts.  This semester I have constructed an Independent study where I will mostly be developing and acquiring new techniques to further enhance my abilities as a Digital Photographer and a Photoshop user.  I already have some work under my belt after taking pictures around the world in Honduras, Uganda, and Mexico and also taking a Photoshop class called Digital Darkroom.  The following are 10 of my best pictures from my travels in no particular order as well as my best work in Photoshop up to this point.  Enjoy!

1.

Two young boys in a small village near Hoima, Uganda.  

2.

Frank, a happy Ugandan Police Officer.

3.

Boy in Nicolas Bravo, Tlaxcala, Mexico. 

4.

Boy in Hoima, Uganda

5.

Dress weaver and her baby, Uganda.

6.

Hondurans waiting in line for medical care, Copan de Ruinas, Honduras.

7.

Boy and Mother, Uganda

8.

Girl leaving Church, Uganda.

9.

Cuetzalan, Puebla, Mexico.

10.

Frank, Ugandan Policeman, Patrolling in the Jungle, Uganda.

Digital Darkroom
Lizard Mandala