My 2019 Emotions

When I started this project I wasn’t expecting to go through what I went through. My dad was in the hospital and sick but I wasn’t expecting to go through what I went through (that’s something for a future blog). I think there were a lot of days that I did not know how to even express some of the emotions that I was feeling. I haven’t ever been one to express my own emotions so openly. I found that it was much easier to write some of the emotions a day or two after to really let it sink in what I was feeling. Numbers have always been easier for me, maybe that’s why it was easier to write this.

I will update this blog with the final chart but I think I want to explain and write about it before I even make it to the end. The only thing that I would say about this chart, if I were to make it again, would be that saying you are happy or sad on any day is not easy. Some days I would experience both but that couldn’t be reflected with this format. Just thought I would say since some of the average days had happy moments or sad moments or mixed for any given day.

I feel like for what my year was like, it would be almost unusual to not have so many bad days. Looking back at the chart, I don’t think these are really accurate. But more in the sense of how are you able to equally measure every day in a whole year as you’re going through it. Although there are some '“normal” days that I measured as 2 back in January I don’t think they were really positive or normal. Realistically they were closer to 3 but compared to some really bad days they felt more normal than usual. And the same for my sad days, where they were closer to depressed.

The good days really helped. I can say most of those good days were because of those close to me. I don’t really want to go into what every day meant to me and why I chose it. I think the sad days were easier to get through knowing I had plans to do something with others. As much as I wanted to be alone for a lot of them surrounding myself with others really did help. This started out as a simple project that I saw on reddit but looking back I’m glad I didn’t just commit to it like a silly project. I really do like seeing the progress I made throughout the year.

For reference here is a “normal” person chart. This is the one that I modeled mine after. I couldn’t find the original post to link to.

The two stressed and overwhelmed days had to do with school. Not much to explain there but didn’t want to leave them unexplained.

I set out one goal for the end of the year. At the time I posted it to twitter I think I did know that it was going to be a rough start. I retweeted it a lot of times as a reminder to myself of where I wanted to be. And I’m not going to update this blog with the end result at the end of the year but I can say, I happy of where I got.

I know that sometimes its hard to see something as it happens but easier to look back at it. The following charts are just different results from the large chart I did at the beginning. The only notable thing I would say is that I was happier on Wednesdays in my spring semester.

Weekly modes (most common number). Spring, summer and fall refer to my school terms.

Pie chart because its easier to see totals.

Conditional formatting. Made it so that all the more negative days are red and the positive ones are green. White is just a normal day. Darker red days were just worse.

Gianna's Video Shoot

[The video’s linked below if that’s what you came for]

When I started taking photos I never really expected to take it this far. At first, I started taking photos for my photo class. My Instagram wasn’t for photography when I started either. It was a personal Instagram where I posted everything. I posted mostly phone phone photos, memes, and occasionally something taken with a nicer camera. When I started to use my camera more it was for longboarding photos and some landscapes. Then transitioned to landscapes. Then long after moved to taking photos of people. At first I didn’t really want to either. I was shy, and didn’t really think I would be that good at directing and talking to people.

And now I want to start taking videos too. I wanted to start with a small video before jumping into something larger. I still don’t really know how to edit them and put them together either. This first one was to get the basics down.

Uploaded by Marco Trinidad on 2019-06-02.

There’s a whole lot that I learned from this video. For starters, learned about the importance of B-roll. We went to Big Sur expecting to take the entire video there. After looking through all the footage, I realized that I did not take a lot of B-roll. Gianna was the main focus of the video so anything without her was the B-roll for it. I didn’t have enough video for the video so we actually went out for a second day to get more video.

Everything was shot handheld. I slowed everything down in order to reduce the amount of shake in the footage. Just like photos, the wider lens helped to reduce the amount of shake in the video. I also did like the look of the wider lens too. For the wider shots I used a Tokina 11-20mm.

I did also suck at the editing part. I had to youtube almost everything. I didn’t know how to import the footage, cut the clips, scale them correctly, create a sequence, or color grade anything. I managed to learn all of that with this one video. I still don’t know how to make transitions though. And color grading is still not easy for me. I don’t really understand how the controls work exactly.

I’m still really proud of the video I made. When I started portraits, the second shoot I had was with Gianna at the same spot that we shot in the second time for this video. I remember not knowing what I was doing at all back then. I didn’t have any experience posing models, getting the right lighting, or editing and retouching. And now two years later, I am much better at all of that.

It’s the same with video. This first one was a great step in the right direction. Only making more videos will help to develop my stills and even more my style. I think that finding my style and having a vision for a video while shooting will help with the process. With this first video, I didn’t really have a vision for what the final video would be which made it hard to put together in the end. The long term goal is to make more videos and possibly vlogs (if I can get over my own voice).

How Is Everything?

I’ve always placed a high value on clearing giving myself time and space to allow me to round up my thoughts. This drive was a good way to clear my head at the time. This place has always been somewhere for me to collect my thoughts. I’ve gone here various times to think, to shoot, to just enjoy the sunset. It helps to have a place like this. Even more to have a lot of them.

The photos I took were dark. They were not like the colorful bright shots that I’ve shot here before. I do really like the way they came out. Our emotions always tend to transfer on over to our craft pretty nicely and effortlessly. And I didn’t go out there alone this time. I did try to constrain myself to a single lens for the day (I failed).

Despite myself being out of school I find my thoughts being more full than they were before. I think that me no longer being in school doesn’t give me the distraction that I had for the past few months. A lot of what is going through my head now is about my dad. I had about a weekend after he passed before I was back in school and everything returned to “normal”. I think now that I’m no longer in school, that “normal” is really starting to hit. I’m adjusted now but it still feels strange and I think it will for a long time to come.

I recently watched this video: How are you doing, really? recently on YouTube. Throughout the video I thought to myself how I would answer the question. And I will answer it hopefully by the end of this blog. Word choice has always been really important for me. Picking the right words to allow the right amount of room for interpretation. A lot of the answers given were really straight forward, more than i’m willing to give. I think the most interesting answer was the last one. She talked about the question is implying that there has been a shift. That’s usually the time when people ask, when there’s been a shift or some change.

So I guess this is my answer: I am doing a lot better than I have been in a while but not to the point where I want to be. I only set one goal for myself this year and I actually sent it out on a tweet and I planned to keep it pinned for the entire year as a constant reminder of where I want to be. The tweet was: Goal for this year is to be undeniably happy when 2020 hits. I really do think i’m making strides for that one goal. I’ve set myself both short and longer term goals to hit. I’ve been focusing a lot on my work and building myself up for future success along with staying on track for my career. I’ve been producing a lot of photos that I’ve been really proud of and checking things off my list that I’ve had for a while. I have a lot of people around me and am constantly meeting more that I can see sticking around. Still have a lot to go but have made progress that I can be proud of.