Laced

Improv shoot with my sister to welcome in summer of 2012. They're inspired by this old postcard I had when I was a kid.

Sheikha Manal Young Artist Award

Left to right: Walid Al Wawi, Ragini Nagu, me, Bassim Eskander, Omar

Alright... So I briefly spoke about the Young Artist Award the last time I was on here. And that was a few months back.
It's been so crazy ever since then. And here's why:

I scrapped my initial video idea for the competition. I redid it, and then scrapped that one too.

I remade my fine art piece, it took about 31 hours over the weekend right before the submission. The submission deadline got extended, and so I got to work on my video piece. With only 2 days to work on the new video, I reshot it with one of my bestfriends, Lex.

I submitted a diptych from my Photo basics course, just to give a shot at both the Fine Arts and the Photography categories. And then I edited my new video an hour before the deadline, so that I could up my chances for the third category, Multimedia.

Within a week, I heard back that my photography and video got shortlisted. And in a month, I took the award for second place in Multimedia.

This was the video:

I'm really honestly shocked and surprised about it. I really still am. It's been so different ever since I won, and I really never would have expected it. 

I got to meet really amazing artists at the show, and I think that may have been the best part about the competition.

With my diptych. The lovely Mira is my model.

Award night.

With the amazing Naima.

I really couldn't have done this without all the encouragement I got from my friends and professors. I will seriously forever be in emotional debt to them, or something like that at least.

Anyways,

-Deena

So Far

Alright, I apologize for not having posted for a while.

Naima and I are finally in Second year, getting closer and closer to what it feels like to really study design.

We're both incredibly busy, and spend most of our free time either eating or crying.

I decided to come by to drop off some photosketches I made for our Photography Basics class.

I really wanted to work with lighting for our first project, but I soon deviated from that into almost underwater photos. My models are basically submerged while I stay above water and desperately hand-signal to them in order to try and direct their movements. It's been quite the challenge.

My first issue was with shutterspeed, and I brought in two huge lights to eliminate my speed issues. So now I can shoot relatively fast and get really clear images without all the water dust particles showing. I'm aiming for a crystalline look while trying to simultaneously distort my model's face. It's hard to find a meeting ground. On average, we take a minimum of 500 photos just to have 3 photos come out nearly close to what I'm looking for.

It's been five weeks in the process and I feel closer to the outcome.

Just a bit more to go...

-Deena

Tom Ryaboi, Photographer

I have an immense fear of heights, and this photography terrifies me.
And I love it.





-Deena