Today has been… interesting! While working at my mundane job, I kept thinking about last night and the nightmare settling in about my upcoming travel series album. I made such a rookie mistake that could make this album a pure disaster. I spent hours trying to figure out how I could work with the videos and photos I took during the trip. Almost every photo I plan to use is in the wrong size. All the videos are wrong as well and after spending several hours trying to fix the problem without any solution, I thought it would be best to go to bed.
This morning while working, I was still stuck and at one point I thought to give up on this album since it’s going to be very tough to make this work and look good. I still can’t believe I didn’t have my camera at the right settings. I feel simply idiotic. However… I’ve been know to quit when things seem impossible or after the initial stages of failure but I won’t abandon this album. I will figure something out! I have to pull an impossible magic trick with this album. I need to create an invisible bunny and pull it out of an imaginary hat!
After my mini breakdown, I started thinking of a game plan. I have no idea if this is going to work but at this point of analyzing the situation, this is my last and only hope. I want to be completely transparent throughout the creation process of my upcoming album so here’s the plan. Landscape Mode is for speed art videos and Portrait Mode is for cover book art. A lot of things can go wrong with this game plan but I’m hoping for the best! 😀
Game Plan Version 1
Art Designs
Make two copies of the original photo
Landscape and Portrait
Make a base design featuring full picture in middle
Then make a design and record a custom script
Add script to portrait
Video Album
Make video album draft using all video clips
Convert video to PNG
Make base design with each PNG photo
Then make a design and record a custom script
Add script to all PNGs
After I wrote my game plan, I was wondering if there were any past albums where that I didn’t run into an issue that didn’t set me back in making an album. I started looking at older posts on the website. I noticed that today marks my 7 year anniversary of my first art album. I definitely wanted to highlight that milestone by writing this blog post. I rarely point out the positive and anniversaries with certain pieces of my artwork. It feels like a long time ago since I started that album. I do remember the album being a challenge since it was my first one but I don’t remember running into any big issues that I couldn’t fix immediately. What I love most about that album and the Philly album is the experimentation. The December 83 album was my first attempt making a video album and my first time playing around with animated effects with my videos. It’s definitely not the best album I made but at the time it was a great start and wonderful progress. I just love being experimental and this upcoming album is definitely forcing me to be very experimental. This is going to be the biggest challenge I ever faced and I can’t say that I’m not scared out of mind!
I hate the feeling that whatever I make will still be an ultimate fail for this reality. It’s always been that way. I’m going to try my best and if it’s a dirty mess then that’s ok. I hate this feeling so much but I know it’s ok. I feel like I am constantly trying to convince myself but deep down I know everything is going to be ok. I get to make an album dedicate to an ultimate dream. I can’t be upset despite if it’s going to be one of the hardest albums to make and might turn out to be nightmare.
Positive vibes! I can say at the end of the day, if nothing turns out right, I am reminded of having the opportunity to make an album featuring places I’ve actually visited in Paris. Doesn’t get any better than that, right?
The featured pic for this blog post is of Cathedrale de la Sainte Trinité. It’s a Russian Orthodox Cathedral that’s located in the 7th arrondissement in Paris (1 Quai Branly). I had no idea where I was at the time. I knew I had to look up where this place was located after my trip to Paris. All I knew at the time was that I following Google maps while walking to the Eiffel Tower on my birthday and I saw this architecture marvel and had to take a picture. It looked out of this world beautiful! I would have definitely taken more pictures if I knew this place existed before walking to the Eiffel Tower. I left the hotel late and had to reach Trocadéro before 9am so I was short on time to really gush at this cathedral. Paris is just so beautiful. I just can’t say that enough! There’s just so many artistic marvels to feast on! I was considering making a design of this cathedral but I don’t think the pics I took are good enough. I’m already working against the odds with the pics I have that are decent. The more I look at this cathedral, the more it reminds me of Saint Basil’s Cathedral in Russia. In another life, I would totally love to visit Russia just stare at that magnificent sight for a few hours! I just couldn’t leave this photo on my hard drive without showcasing it to some degree. I’m going to feature as much as Paris as possible throughout my travel series.