ninagodridge

[ninagodridge]

If you were to tell me, something I said in high school would come true, I'd laugh at your face. I didn't believe the possibility, and let alone in 2020.

I must have been a junior in high school in 2011, and it was lunchtime. My friends and I occupied the top staircase that led to nowhere with our sandwiches and jokes at hand. Someone began stating their dream job, and where they wanted to go in life, and I already knew one small part of myself - I would find myself working in a library.

The magnitude of who I would be in the library career wasn't considered, but I just said what my dream would be - tucked away in a small town working at a library while writing the next Hunger Games. Back then, I worked on the writing dream by creating fanfictions of my favorite shows, movies, and sometimes small stories. The fantasy of the future propelled me to very liberal arts during my college career, and I still wasn't planting the foundation to be a librarian.

I would graduate from college with a degree in English Literature and Art History, and trying to figure out what to do next. I fell into where I am now obtaining my librarian certificate, because I remembered the feeling when I spoke those words. It was the confidence in my capabilities and the mindset of accomplishing something.

My resume is eclectic; time in PR, art galleries in need of assistants, and a time where I got to sell my favorite brand of shoes, Doc Martens. Every job happened for a reason, and I glued myself to the ability to be adaptable.

Now everything is rolled into one, as I come to the end of my graduate program. Nostalgia for the journey I went on, with challenges either passed by or pushed through - if I could say something to that version of myself in high school that one day, I'd say -

Did you know dreams can come true?

[ninagodridge]

Virtual Learning Commons

The last two years I've been studying and educating myself to be a librarian. Very close to receiving a certification, and today I'm focusing on the virtual learning commons that is presented in grade and university schools. There is a lot to learn from the technological advancements that has brought us to visual learning capabilities. Where these mediums span from text to graphics, there is a virtual environment to learning commons. As part of a course requirement, I'm going to compare the VLC of public libraries in my surrounding neighborhood.

Upon Brooklyn Public Library's (BPL) homepage is a glimpse into the database of books offered, which gets users to follow their collection database, where NYPL (New York Public Library) and QPL (Queens Public Library) open with current events and links to lists and articles. The universal aspect of what the library can offer is prominent but doesn't highlight what is contained material-wise in the libraries.

Where content is put last, there is an emphasis on connecting, and the quick search tab allows the difference between a website search and a database search. QPL visuals the current pride of 50 years of hip-hop; it's only a membership card option but not a list of materials on the topic. NYPL has done the same with advertising the special collection library membership card.

Visual attributions do not fall short in a library's website experience, and most certainly offers the mind possibilities with current context structure to meet the needs of each user that ends up on their site. Each library provides a characteristic different from one another, and those missions can be seen from what you experience as a knowledge seeker.

Photo "College WisCEL: active learning space" by college.library is licensed under CC BY 2.0.

[ninagodridge]

I sing our song until my last breath, it committed like how the gods basked in your light of life, so suffering doesn't come easy. Live in our moment with our tune of words you echo every night on a moonlite stage. Allow me to be your muse in the sky

You: A Series of Reflections [Original work in progress] 

[ninagodridge]

Skeletons

I found my soul at the bottom of my backpack on a cigarette stained scarf from my past lives as philosophers, writers, artists and politicians. In discovery I fully recognized my voice as a skeleton learning to build a thicker skin. 

Years I spent cultivating the sounds my mouth creates. Reverberations of past and present uttered through my mind into the space that once found solace in speaking truths to strangers and family members. 

As things escaped my grasp and people took trinkets of my self - I cried into medicine jars hoping they would become a cure for the damned, the heartless, the ruthless, and the most envious. 

Together again, my skeleton was graced with layers of small pleasures and the feeling of a bright sun darkening the brightness my ancestors gave me. Laid my head down I became the metamorphosis of a woman in black, white and silver. 

Craving for a cigarette cloud, short novel, a bouquet of wild summer flowers, a century old sweater with holes in the sleeves, my grandmother’s molasses cookies, and the feeling of myself become full in the truths found at the bottom of a tattered bag. 

[Inspired by “ Skull of a Skeleton with Burning Cigarette” by Vincent Van Gogh] 

[ninagodridge]

11/3/20 Poem

Evolution pronounced in its rawest form Breathes stand still Gasps held back Breathe Mother Breathe Butterflies do not bore this time of Year Yet, watch push out of the cocoon Flying high New songs fill the sky Loud voices Reverberation The clouds stay Like painted on a canvas The scene unfolds Revolution heeds louder 

[ninagodridge]

Societal Standards in a Social Media World

For my first blog post I want to speak to aestheticism, especially how it has shaped society and how I perceive photography at times, additionally how it manifests in my art. Now in a time where social media is so prevalent in how one identifies and individualizes amongst the many “ Accounts”.

Note: I will be using quotation marks for this post as a means to differentiate between “ Filters” instantly applied to through smartphone technology and filters, the individual lenses one can apply to one’s camera, and “Millennial terminology”. 

This revolution in cell phones has altered immensely since the 1990’s with the invention of the smartphone; where everything was instantaneous. I would consider this period of time, and up until now, instant gratification. I went from the owner of an Orange Verizon Envy, to a Blackberry Bold 9000 and then the trifecta, the iPhone 2. Each device died with stories attached and millions of images stored for a later day. My personal favorite was my iPhone 5, it got me through the last year of high school and sophomore year of Dean College. When I switched phones that school year, my friend Lauren had a hockey stick and purposed we shamed it up to relieve stress.  

What was left of that iPhone 5 was a reminder of how much smart phones had become another limb of our human. By having so many access in one hand, elements of the past was lost, though the camera industry was thriving exceedingly with the digital age, in my opinion, film might have started to become less of a mode to capture images and more as an aesthetic. One might argue differently, and I will agree now film has become easier to capture one’s natural beauty in modeling selections; that is a point that I will get to eventually. 

Digital is greatly consumed in our time with all devices we own as one human or household. Growing up all my baby photos were captured on a Nikon point-and-shoot film camera. Each image snapped went through the printing process and was printed twice. One for the album, and one for the boxes. In middle school, we had an album of CD-ROMs of all the photos we had taken over the years on our digital camera. The internet content at this time correlated highly with people editing and distorting images that were originally shot either DSLR or Digital. 

There became different layers to taking/editing photos in this age of digital with the instant gratification of having “Apps” immediately altering the image in the moment you snap it. Applications like VSCO, Huji, and other instantaneous filtered image “platforms” give the already desired aesthetic. The more I scroll through my instagram feed I am always tallying up the images where clearly it was taken on a smartphone and edited to look like film photography, or actual film photos that can be scanned for the ability to share online. 

With instant gratification, simplistically has been lost between capturing moments. Selfies are more common, group photos are a hassle, and Christmas card photos are sent online than through the mail. Recently I received in the mail from a high school friend, tangible photos of us throughout the years. It made me happy and I taped them to my wall of photography to admire. 

Society Standards change, how people consume the world is different, and how we photograph now is revolutionary, but deceitful. Film photography has shaped and inspired, and is continuously used by the modeling industry to rightfully capture the beauty of a human. Even if you took the photo on your smartphone, applied “ Grain” on the VSCO app, you are feeding into the achieved aesthetic that is film photography. Let’s say you go out of your way to get a simple 35mm camera to buy into the hype, you are taking away the instant gratification process, which actually gives you a moment to wonder, 

“ Just how much time and money will I have to add just to see these images?”

That is where consumption of money and societal status come into order and there is a reckoning within the smart age of photography. You can “ follow “ people on Instagram, VSCO, Tumblr and all other social media platforms where you see this aesthetic achievement unfold into what an individual wants to portray within this online world. 

You can take the person off the internet. You can remove the smartphones and online accounts, and hand them a camera. Film or not, what are they going to tell the world through their images? What aesthetic would they try to achieve? If anything, how would this change in capturing images alter there views of individualism?