Interviews: What I thought I knew.

So, first off my aunt questioned me as to whether or not I was actually doing homework since I kept giggling every few seconds while watching the course videos. She wasn't at all convinced that I was really doing homework. Her response? "Why are you having so much fun doing homework?" My response? "Because I am taking a really interesting class with a really cool professor. I think I have yet to convince her =P

The videos were really insightful about how I should conduct the interviews I plan on doing for the final project. Of course, certain things were common sense like knowing about your interviewee and being prepared with a list of questions. However, the positioning of the camera was "less intuitive" as the video suggested. The rule of the thirds for the head positioning really got me. I wouldn't have thought that it would be okay to cut a part of the forehead but not the chin. Interesting... I will make sure to incorporate these hints while I'm doing my interviews. I thought that I would conduct my interview with Iso at his jewelry store and use the counters as background. It wouldn't be too distracting but at the same time, not too plain. I need to get a tripod and I need to do it soon. That way I won't shake the camera.

As for the interview with the head priest of the Syrian church, I thought it would be appropriate to do it inside the church. I visioned that it would be more intimate if I sat with Mr. Aziz Hadodu in the pews and show both of us in the frames. But, now I'm not sure of that after I watched the interview tips videos. Give me some insight on this. Is it an absolute "no-no," or should I conduct the interview this way because I'm trying to give a certain feeling?

Let me know what you think.

Not exactly the best first try for a video

Well, here it is.... I did not have the best time in the world doing this. As I have said before, I am not a technical whiz, not at all. So, I thought, hey I already have Windows Movie Maker installed on my computer so I'll just use that since Professor Nichols already gave us a link for the tutorial. Well, apparently Windows hates Apple. WHO KNEW?! So, Windows movie maker refuses to play Quicktime videos, which means that any file that is saved as ".mov" will not be edited in Windows Movie Maker. I I downloaded this "codec" thingie that it needed. It still didn't work. Youtube is a great source of "how-to-videos" by the way. After watching four videos and downloading three different software that "promised" to fix the problem, I gave up and downloaded Muuvie Reveal instead. A very easy program to use for the technically challenged people like me. I HIGHLY recommend this software. The only problem I had with it was I couldn't find a way to rotate the videos that I took.


A little bit about this video, I started out with filming my family and friends, showing what a night with my family looks like. I decided to work with the older files, like my photography and the recent "home" videos I took, because honestly, I am very very inexperienced with filming and "cutting" them to make a video. So, this video was more of a learning tutorial for me. I spent a lot of time figuring out how to add video and pictures. Figured out how to add captions and how to make transitions. The coolest thing was how to break up the film into pieces and take out the pieces that I didn't like. Here's a note for the challenged people like me: if you are using a digital camera to do your video recording because you don't have any other sources, find out where the darn microphone is on your camera before you record a 10 minute video with white noise. Seriously.... it was embarrassing when I sat down to review and edit the videos and I found out that I had no audio. Which is why there is the music in the background. I am learning.... I am having fun though! I want to figure out a few more things though. For example, how would you be able to dim the background music if I wanted to narrate the video instead of caption it?

Okay, in the past two days, I learned a lot about Muuvie Reveal and how to use it and again, I HIGHLY recommend it. I'm going to give Windows Movie Maker another try but I need help. Please, I don't know how to solve this "codec" problem. If anybody has any ideas please, please let me know.


Anyways, let me know what you think.

P.S. Here are some screen shots of how cool and easy it is to use Muuvie Reveal

Storyboarding... You have GOT to be kidding!

I cannot draw if my life depended on it. I can make copies of drawings or paintings I see, but I am definitely not a drawing artist. So, here's what I'm going to do: I will have a "plan of action," in the form of a storyboard and the frames of my storyboard will consist of pictures and videos that I took/will take. That way, I will save myself the embarrassment of drawing.

Since I had decided on investigating the Süryani culture, I have had a few people in mind that I would like to interview. First person that I will interview is our family friend, İso and possibly his wife and children. He was so eager to accommodate me in anyway when I told him that I will be studying the Süryanis. Actually, he is so excited that when he saw me today, he asked me if I was going to church with him tomorrow and he told me that he will take me to a different church tomorrow so that I can take pictures in a different setting.

Another person that I want to interview is the Priest from the church I went to in Hackensack. The priest's name is Aziz Hadodu. He graduated from Yildiz Technical University in Besiktas, Istanbul where I am from. He was so unbelievably excited and so willing to help with my project.

I have a pretty good idea of what I want to include in my Personal Video, but the Professional and the Public Issues will take more investigation.

In my personal video I will include pictures and videos from the Süryani church services, family gatherings, and parties I went to. I even waitressed İso's daughter's engagement party so that I would take good pictures and videos and communicate with their guests and family members. I have really cool pictures from there. In fact here's me towards the end of the night, looking quite tired.

So I don't think the Personal Video will be very challenging in terms of finding material and ideas, but for the Professional and the Public Issues Videos I will need to come up with some ideas doing interviews. I am studying Finance and Accounting, so I need to find relevant points within the Süryani culture. Since Süryanis are very apt in business especially in import/export and jewelry business, I was thinking that my interview with İso, who owns several jewelry stores, would be included in the Professional Video. I would investigate about the typical businesses Süryanis are more inclined to get into and the cultural influences behind their business choices and how they conduct their business.

As for the Public Issues Video, I will speak to Aziz Hadodu about the struggles of the Süryanis due to their beliefs, especially the Süryanis in Turkey where the 99% of he population is Muslim.

So, let me know what else I should include in my Personal and Public Issues Videos since I will struggle with them the most. Give me some ideas as to what else I should add, etc.

P.S. I am getting s excited about the actual composition of the videos. I will be learning a lot technically since I've never cut or edited a video before!

A picture is worth a thousand words.

Yea... No kidding. Anybody can push a button and take a photograph but it is an entirely different thing to make that photograph a picture. I think that the difference between a photograph and a picture is that a picture has a story behind it and that it is intentional (most of the time).

Last week, I had asked Professor Nichols about that week and last weeks assignments because I had a feeling that I was doing them wrong. I have been into photography for a long time so I have a good sized portfolio. However, I wasn't sure whether or not we had to practice our photography by taking pictures of our target culture or not. Professor Nichols said that it would be ideal since "you'd kill two birds with one stone."

Well, I arranged to go to the Assyrian service on Sunday, but since it was on such a short notice, I wasn't able to speak directly with the priest, only our friend told me that it was okay for me to walk around and take pictures during the service.

I felt uncomfortable to say the least. Not only that, I felt like I was disturbing people while they were worshiping. All in all, I could only take about 70 or so pictures and a few short videos.

When I got home that Sunday, I was horrified. The point-and-shoot digital camera that I was using stinks! To say the least, only about 10-20 photographs were good quality due to the lack of light and the abundance of incense smoke in the church.

Well anyways, I'm going to share a few of my photos and explain what I tried to capture with them.

Beautiful stained glass. Even though the church I went to is a small church with a small congregation, they are very tight knit. In fact, the congregation raised enough money to buy a two million dollar acre to build a new church. by shutting off the flash on the camera, I hoped to capture the divinity of every inch of this place.





The object that is seen on top of the covers in the foreground is the Bible that the priest reads in the church. It is so symbolic that everybody participating in the service kisses it at some point during the service.





Notice here that the women have their heads covered during the service in the church. This is mainly a Islamic tradition to cover the heads of the women. Many Turkish and Islamic traditions have infused into the Christian Assyrian culture.





This picture, I wanted to capture another tradition that infused into the Assyrian culture, that is the separation of men and women. In this church, the women sit on the right side of the isle while the men sit on the left. Here is a shot of the front of the church from the right side, behind a woman with a head scarf.





This is another shot showing the separation of the genders. I took a friend of mine to the church with me that morning so that she can help me if I needed anything, batteries, memory card, etc. We came in, covered our heads, and sat on the left side of the isle, the men side. After about five minutes somebody came over and told us to go to the other side. In the beginning of the service the church was half empty so there were plenty of spaces in each side. But towards the end of the service, the church was packed with people standing towards the back and side walls. More women than men came to the service, so naturally some of the women sat on the left side with the men, but no men sat on the right side. Later, our friend of the family, Iso (which means Jesus in Aramaic), told us that it is common for men and women to have mixed seating here in the US since their church is small. However, this would never happen regardless of the availability in Turkey or Europe.





The priest reading from the Bible. Singing is prominent during the Assyrian service. In fact, there were hardly any spoken words during the service. Everybody "talked" in a singing manner.





The priest blessing the altar boy and handing him the incense so he can walk around the church with it. Note the two men on each side of the altar. They have their backs turned to the congregation. Now, I've been to many churches, Baptist, Methodist, Catholic, yet I had never seen a service where the attendants and the priest did most of the paying while turning their backs to the congregation. This is another Islamic tradition. The Imam and the Cemaat (congregation in Turkish) turns to the direction of the Mecca to pray. So in essence during the whole prayer, Imam's back is to the Cemaat. It was the same incident here with the priest and the attendants.





Even though this shot came out a little darker than I intended to, I really like this picture. This was right after the altar boy kissed the Bible. You can just see the reflection of the light coming in from the stained glass on the Bible.





Choir girls. I really like the angle of this picture. The photograph of Jesus is on the top left while the girls are on the bottom right. Small detail, the candles below the photograph of Jesus adds to the mood.





Here the girls are singing. I took this picture from the second row between the two women because I wanted to show the prominence of the head scarf tradition. The friend who came with me to the church that day is also Turkish and she also doesn't know anything about Assyrians. Her comment after we left was, "They [the congregation] were like Muslims in a church!" No kidding. The infusion of both religions is uncanny.






İşo, our friend, is in the middle (gray suit). This gesture of "shaking hands" is the gesture of "giving of peace." People shake hands with others around them then rubbing their hands to their face. This is yet another Islamic tradition. During the daily prayer, Muslims open up the palms of their hands to the heavens and after the prayer, rub their hands to their faces as if to rub in the blessing from Allah to themselves. Speaking of Allah, Assyrians do not address God as God but they use the word Allah. This was the most interesting part for me. In Turkish, we have two words to describe "the creator," if you will. Allah is used as the one and only creator, while the use of God is in a more general term as if to say a deity. For example, in Turkish, we would call Venus a God because she is the Goddess of love, beauty and natural productivity. We wouldn't call her the Allah of Love. I hope I am explaining this right... Please ask me if you get confused.





This was the elder lady in front of me "giving peace." I think the blurriness of this picture and the subsequent two pictures can kind of explain how determined she was to get to as many people as possible.











Here she is right after she gave peace to İşo.





Here is the last picture of the day. The service took a little longer than usual because there was a memorial service for the relative of a congregation member who passed away in Europe. The congregation member bought grapes and bread for everybody to snack on after the service. This can show you how tight knit the Assyrians are. Somebody's relative passes away in Europe somewhere and they hold a service to pray for that person in the US.

Anyways, I hope you like the stories behind the pictures and I hope that you were able to catch some of the stories I way trying to tell through my pictures without the help of my narration. Please let me know what you think.

My photography through time...

Took a while to post due to the fact that I had to get a new camera and a scanner... I had a tragic loss of data a few years ago and the victims were my pictures in the computer I managed to crash so magnificently. Thankfully, I had printed some of my photos to make a scrapbook/portfolio thingie. One would think that I would learn from The Big Computer Crash of 2007, but apparently that is not so. Friday morning I learned that spilling a cup full of hot tea on your laptop doesn't give the best results in the world. Which is why I have been thanking the Best Buy guy who made me buy insurance on my laptop.

On top of which, my 35mm Yashica camera crapped out on me after many many years of loyal service and my Nikon Coolpix 8700, that cost a fortune back in the day, decided to play hardball with me, I had to get a new camera. The new camera is the Coolpix S50; a point and shoot digital camera. When I say "new," it's used but it's new to me =]

Above you can see my Yashica in the far right, my broken Nikon in the middle and the box of my "new" Nikon. When it comes to digital cameras, I never divert from Nikon. Maybe a Canon or an Olympus.

Back to this week's blog. My dad was and still is an avid amateur photographer and he got me into photography at an early age. He's a 35mm guy though and made sure I was one too =] He taught me to pay attention and do it "right" the first time since film and developing the film cost so much money, back in the day that is. So, when I hear Pat and other photography mentors that I have had talking about "shoot, shoot, and shoot some more," it still sounds so weird to me. Other than that, I knew all of Pat's suggestions, tips, and principles or derivatives of them from the videos.

Here's some of my work.

Osmanbey - Istanbul, TURKEY
I was trying to catch the rush hour of people shopping and trying to get home for dinner.





Bosphorus - Istanbul, TURKEY
This is a 35mm black and white film but it incorporates the empty space idea to emphasize the bridge in the picture.





Bosphorus - Istanbul, TURKEY
Again, 35mm but this time the boats are emphasized.





Maiden's Tower - Istanbul, TURKEY
The infamous Maiden's Tower I mentioned in my earlier blog. There is an upscale cafe there now. I really like the angle in this picture.





Maiden's Tower - Istanbul, TURKEY
This incorporates the rule of 1/3's (sort of) and the empty space.





Back Stage - Hackensack, NJ
Talk about a tight picture.





Cello
Newbie mistake (which I shouldn't have made). Not enough light to make it a clear picture. I can probably photoshop it though.





Dr. Finley - Hackensack, NJ
Here, shutter speed was important. For example, Pat had to use a fast shutter speed when he was taking pictures of the football game, I had to use a slower shutter speed for this one.





Natural - Hackensack, NJ
These girls got caught in the act.





Nature - Passaic River, NJ





Christmasy
Used this as a Christmas card =] Rule of 1/3's??





Beeeeeeeee!!
Close-up. Took a lot to hold the camera still.





My student - Home
Tight picture. Not a lot of empty space.





Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade - New York, NY
Look closely at the people in the windows. I thought that was cool. I loooooooove high resolution!! Though floating dolls in Manhattan is still creepy to me.





Hello! - New York, NY
Another tight-shot from the Thanksgiving Day Parade.





Strangers in the Day - New York, NY
Natural shot of kids watching the parade.





Moving - Lincoln Tunnel, Somewhere between NY & NJ
I don't know why, but i love blurry moving pictures like this one and the hands on the piano above. It's fascinating to me but a lot of people find it unappealing to the eye... I guess whoever said that "the beauty is in the eye of the beholder" was absolutely correct.





Chrysler Building - New York, NY
Love the empty space around the Chrysler Building here.





Wannabe - New York, NY
Another oldie, but a goodie. Took my friends to the Turkish Day Parade in Manhattan. They had a blast with me =]





Mr. & Mrs. Valevaris - Nutley, NJ
I stood on the witness stand and took this picture. Good thing the court officials didn't get mad at me. My friends asked me to take a few pictures at their ceremony.





Mr. & Mrs. Valevaris - Nutley, NJ
Caught them nagging at each other moments after the ceremony =P





Mr. & Mrs. Valevaris - Nutley, NJ
"We did it!" Sometimes posing is good and much needed!





Trinity Ann Valevaris - Nutley, NJ
Cutie pie loves the camera and attention. Trying to get HER to pose was another story all together.





Pensive - Lyndhurst, NJ
Daddy was quite pensive this morning. Rule of 1/3's. I love the lighting in this picture.





Self Portrait
Had to finish off with this.

You can guess by now that I love black & white photography. There is something so nostalgic about it.

Well, now that I have a new camera with video, I'm going to have to read yet another user's manual thoroughly to take better pictures. Still can't figure out how not to get red eyes with this camera. Mind you, I've only had it for a day. I miss my old Nikon! It's out of the warranty time so I have to pay for the repairs. As for the Yashica, does anybody know a camera repair store in North Jersey? ANYONE?? Professor Nichols??? Please?!?!?



P.S. Wow.... This has been a long blog.

"If we, Turks, had been first on inventions..."

OK, so I may be in the US right now (yes, I know, kinda boring for those of you having fun out there) but I've traveled a little and have been to a few Mickey D's.

I have decided to investigate the Suryani culture and even though they don't call themselves Turkish, they are "technically" Turkish. So, I'll talk a little bit about McDonald's in Turkey.

First off, watch the video below. The link was sent to me by my aunt a while ago and I thought it was clever and never thought that I would use it in a class one day! LOL

I was literally on the floor after I had watched this video. Most of you won't get the meaning, so I'll try to explain. In the beginning with the cave people, they're talking about "sis kebab," which is grilled meat on sticks. In the second part, the astronauts are on the moon dancing "halay." Halay is a type of Turkish folk dance where people link arms and dance in circles. The third part with the robot bit is pretty obvious. But after the "I'm loving it" logo you see the astronauts again. You may not understand what's going on there because they're playing a traditional Turkish game called "uzun essek" - in english "long donkey." I don't want to divert from my point too far so if you're interested, read about long donkey here.

Turks love to eat home cooked meals. But with the younger generation, fast food restaurants have found their ways into the Turkish main stream. Although there aren't many menu or style differences between McDonald's in the US and in Turkey, one thing that still blows my mind is that McDonald's has a delivery service in Turkey! Man... talk about having "obesity" on speed-dial. In truth, however, even though fast-food is so readily available, Turkey still doesn't have high obesity rates. Food content and the quality of food is really important in Turkey. Turkey has a high Muslim population and Muslims are very very very meticulous when it comes to the quality and type of meat they consume so McDonald's has a lot of advertisements assuring the quality and safety of their products.

While the website content is pretty similar between the Turkish and US versions, the presentation is quite different. The US version seemed kind of crammed and busy to me. The Turkish version was much simpler and easy to navigate yet still aesthetically appealing. Turkish version also offered to view the website either in flash or in HTML. I think that is important, because even though we are living in a technology age, not everybody's computers are well equipped or up-to-date.

I tried to find pictures from my last visit to Turkey (there were a few if me in McDonald's, Dunkin Donuts and Starbucks), but I have no idea where they are. Just to give you an idea, watch the video below, it should give you an idea of how McDonald's in Turkey is an almost exact replica of McDonald's in the US.

McDonald’s Ramazan Reklam Filmi

Get the latest Flash Player to see this player.

This is a commercial that was aired during Ramadan in 2009. It featured a new item, the "McTurco." Almost like a gyro, for those who know what a gyro is.

Anyways, I hope by now you have a pretty good sense of what McDonald's looks like in Turkey. I hope you do because I a way too hungry to write more! I'm going to go make myself a gyro =]

"We are how we read..."

You know... It's so funny how on my last blog I asked you - Prof. Nichols and my classmates - what you thought about my blogs. I was worried that they were getting way too long and uninteresting. Interestingly enough, I only had one reply. It sort of confirmed my theory that in fact people are unwilling to put enough time to reading. I must say that I am unfortunately a victim of this too. Not because I don't like to read, but it takes me longer to read and absorb than most people and I just don't think there are enough hours in the day to accommodate my crazy busy schedule.

I have known for a long time now that I am a visual person. It's not that I prefer visual learning above kinetic or language-oriented learning (by the way you may learn more about the different types of learning here), it is that no matter what medium I use, my mind tends to convert it into visual images in my brain.

When I read a book or an article, I visualize the words and the actions. When I listen to a song or a lecture, I again visualize the person speaking and also the actions within that song or lecture.

This is why I can empathize with Maryanne Wolf's quote in "Is Google Making Us Stupid?" She said, "We are not only what we read, we are how we read." I am a slow reader and always have been. Growing up, sometimes this was seen as a negative but once I understood why I read slower than most people, I came to appreciate it and accommodate my ability.

Certainly, it is not the most convenient thing to be so visual. Even when I speak or even now when I am typing this blog, pictures flash thorough my mind; remembering my elementary school years and how much longer it would take me to read or complete tests. So, I don't think that the concerns that both in Nicholas Carr and Kevin Kelly voice in their articles quite apply to me. The reason is I have a little bit of OCD - Obsessive Compulsive Disorder. This can be a definite disadvantage but sometimes, especially with regards to Carr and Kelly's concerns, it can be an advantage.

I can never find myself to "skim" through an article or a book. My obsessive behavior doesn't quite allow me to do that. When I watch a movie, I want total silence and usually I will turn on the closed captions to double make sure that I don't miss anything. I will never watch a movie even if I missed the first 45 seconds of it. I cannot seem to shut up or consolidate much, if you know what I mean.... Even right now, I want to write and write more but I know to keep it as short as possible so that my classmates don't get bored and enjoy my blogs.

Nietzsche may have changed the way he communicated due to his type-writer, but I think our ever-changing technology and world is quite not the catalyst in the formula to change me. But, having read Kelly and Carr's article, I am now aware to be more accommodating to my audience. I need to immerse myself in today's media culture and "keep up with the times," if you will and make all my readers (all nine of you) happy!


P.S. Pleaseeeeeeee drop me a line and tell me what you think!