A Student’s Point of View: I Can’t Believe its December
Hello everyone.This is Ashley Crichton making my last post of the semester for RIT Photo! For this post, I wanted to talk about my semester both in and out of the classroom. During the semester, I frequently wrote about some of my adventures in the School but in some cases other things I was doing was not shared.
This semester has been a whirlwind and I can’t believe it’s already coming to a close. I spent countless nights in Gannett Hall. Often until 3 am! I also went on some fun spontaneous trips and made some new work that I am really proud of.
Pictured above is my first day of school in August! I had just finished my amazing internship at Dolby and I was so excited to be back at school with my friends and making my own work again. As an upperclassman, coming back to school in August felt more like coming home. I feel so comfortable in Gannett Hall. I know the photo building like the back of my hand. I have my traditions where to go to lunch, which computer station I like to sit at, and which studios are the best. I loved being able to come home to the photo department and the family I have built here.
During my first week back, there was a lot of refresher material in my classes shared to remind us of anything we might have forgotten over the summer. In my Ad One class, we were assigned an on white still life assignment in the studio. In my location photography class, we worked with continuous lights in the studio to get back in the groove of seeing what light does to a person’s face. All these assignments helped get back into the studio and play around with light. Even though I was in a studio for part of the summer, it was nice to have this time to dust off the cobwebs and have some fun.
Now that I was back into the swing of photography, I was also working hard planning Mud Tug. Mud Tug is an event put on every year hosted by my sorority, Zeta Tau Alpha and a fraternity here on campus, Phi Kappa Psi. It is a campus wide event featuring a tug-of-war competition between teams over mud pits. All the money raised from Mud Tug is donated to Hillside Family of Agencies in Rochester. In my first years at RIT, I had such a good time at Mud Tug that I thought it would be a lot of fun to plan it. I spent the first month of school balancing my school work, jobs, sorority recruitment, and still managed to plan a very successful Mud Tug. The day of the event was a ton of fun, a lot of my photographer friends came to shoot and at the end of the day the event was going so well I got to shoot some myself. Nearly 100 teams participated in this year’s event and we were about to raise close to $10,000 for Hillside! Planning Mud Tug was a fantastic opportunity to engage with the RIT community outside the photo department and help out an amazing cause.
The weekend following Mud Tug was the RIT Big Shot! You might have read about it from one of my previous posts, but it’s worth mentioning again. Any time the entire photo department goes somewhere off campus and has a fun component, it makes everyone happy to get involved. Working with professors in a more professional environment reminds me why we want to listen to what they say. We were all able to work together to make a beautiful picture of a large scale production. After Big Shot was over and everything was packed up to go home, my friend and I made a stop by Niagara Falls on the way home. It was almost midnight and around 40 degrees but if you’re that close to a wonder of the world, why pass up the opportunity to stop!
The week after Big Shot, we had four-day long weekend. I originally planned to stay in Rochester, relax and get my work done. We had just been assigned a studio portrait project in my ad class and I really wanted to do a great job on it. But after two days of the weekend and having spent almost the entire time in studio, I needed to get out of Rochester and go for an adventure. I got up one morning with a plan to visit the Women’s Rights National Historical Park in Seneca Falls, which is about an hour from Rochester. When I was about a mile from my exit to get off the NYS Thruway, I saw a sign for the Adirondack region and decided to change my plans and drive an extra two hours to Old Forge. Once I got there, and even though I was wearing my nice knee high boots and a sweater, I couldn’t resist hiking through the mud up to the top of a mountain. I got some weird looks but I had so much fun being out in nature, I could have cared less. When I was up on top of the mountain, one of my photo friends saw a photo on my Snapchat story of the mountain and texted me saying she was staying in a house 5 minutes from where I was, and that I should come over for dinner. Long story short, I ended up spending the night with her and her friends in Old Forge. My original plan for the day had me going back to Rochester by mid afternoon the previous day. This just goes to show what fun you can get up to if you just go with the flow and say yes to things!
At the end of October, I had the opportunity to go to Washington, DC to shoot for Dolby at the Smithsonian. It was one of those life affirming moments that the work I’m doing in school has value in the real world. They flew me to DC, put me up in a hotel for 3 days, and paid me to take pictures. The days I was there were really late nights and early mornings, and I was scared out of my mind that I would screw up, but in the end I was able to do my job very successfully and grow a lot from the experience. Sometimes I still can’t believe that people are willing to give me money for my photography. It seems like way too much fun to be a real job. I love what I do and all the hard work that makes it possible.This trip gave me the motivation to finish out my semester strong.
Every year the School of Photographic Arts and Sciences organizes a “Day of Photography” for high school students to tour the School, see demos, and meet students and faculty. Prof. Clay Patrick McBride asked me and another student to help out with a demo for this year’s Day of Photo. Whenever I work on big events like this for RIT, it makes me think back to when I was first touring the RIT campus and the first time I was in a studio. I have come such a long way since then, both personally and as a photographer, and I am really proud of where I am now. I loved meeting the students and seeing their eyes light up when they saw the set. The whole day reminded me why I’m here and how lucky I am to be doing what I do.
This year I was lucky enough to go back to California and be with my family for Thanksgiving. The one thing I regret about coming to RIT for school is how infrequently I get to see my family. Every day I get to spend with them feels like a blessing. While I was there I got to go surfing and spend time outside in some lovely 60 degree weather. Rochester experienced it’s coldest Thanksgiving ever, and I’m sure all my friends hated me for sending them pictures of me outside in the sun. As much as I love photography, it’s important to take breaks to keep your creativity up and Thanksgiving was a great time to just hang out without any pressure to be shooting.
Everything I have been doing since Thanksgiving has been pretty much just a push to the end of the semester. I have been assigned finals in all my classes and now I’m getting close to being done with these projects. This semester has been such a blur of stress and good memories. My wonderful friends have been there for me there for me through everything. My group of friends has taught me so much about different kinds of photography. They have been honest with me when they didn’t like an image I’ve taken, and have kept the pressure on me to hold myself to the highest standard possible.
Now I am looking forward to next semester and the challenges it brings. I can’t wait to comeback and keep pushing my work! Below are some more photos I made this semester. I hope you enjoy them!
About Ashley Crichton:
Ashley Crichton is a 3rd year advertising photography student from California. You can read more about Ashley by following this link.
