my research!
--> annotated bibliography
reflection
I had mixed feelings about this project when it first started. As much as I loved it, I didn't know how I was going to handle it, especially because the Innovation Academy has never tried taking on as much as we did during a second semester of the school year. It was a higher workload, all of it involving projects that I really wanted to complete and practice, and improve on. The hardest part was that I was so connected to all of these projects and I wanted to do them well. My challenge in doing so, was managing my time so that I could finish everything to their assigned deadlines. Which didn't turn out so well.
The way this whole project started was with a lot of push-backs: I worked on the IA magazine, on my independent project, on my research, on an essay, on assignments I had for other classes--but I never worked on my Mission Project. I kept pushing it back, thinking that with research and with reflections, and with a half-finished annotated bibliography, it was enough. I thought that because I finished that work, I would have a lot of time afterwards to actually take the photos, interview cooks, and write reflections on those experiences. Clearly I didn't realize how that doesn't work, because work just ends up getting piled up.
By the time it was April I knew my project at the moment was a lost cause. I hadn't gone out into the field, planned interviews, or even chosen restaurants. So, one night I sat down to get a few things straight.
Knowing Mission Camp #2 was close, and that my school trip to Prague was cutting me off a week of work, I wanted to be as prepared as I could for Thursday (April 11th). During the first week of April, I ended up taking two nights in a row which also saved my project: I researched more on restaurants in Lima (places I usually go to), I explored my sources on food photography, I sketched out a calendar to know which days I had absolutely busy, and I tried to plan as ahead as I could for April and May, to know which days I had free to go out for at least one dish. I still didn't have any field research until after Prague, that much is true, but I was still glad I got myself organized.
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Then Mission Camp #2 went by and I continued to do the same, taking Prague as a break from all the work and all the mistakes I'd made over the past two months. Whenever there was rest time (which was not very often), I was paranoid and worried the whole time about all my missing work. I knew I wasn't making the deadlines, not the ones of the school nor the ones I'd made for myself.
There were deadlines set by the school, and goals I'd wanted to accomplish on my own. This project is important to me, and the time given to me from school was a huge advantage to start practicing my food photography, which is something I've been wanting to do for a while. Not to mention I looked forward to practicing my interviewing skills, improving my time management, working on how to handle personal projects amongst all my other schoolwork, and figuring out how to work on multiple aspects of a whole project that come together in the end (the research, the website, the interviews, the recordings, the photos, and the reflections).
I thought about all of this throughout the trip and decided there was a good chance I wouldn't be able to complete everything I wanted to by the Celebration of Learning. I didn't want to give myself standards I thought I wasn't going to complete, especially with so little time left. So I cut out one step: The interviewing.
As much as I could've pushed myself harder to complete my original goals, I changed my project a little, making it more realistic and easy for me to handle. Rather than:
Overall Task:
I will create an album of minimum 10 photos (focused on food photography), of dishes or beverages from restaurants I interview, to then explain the context in which I took the photo(s), what I learned from the experience, and the story behind the recipe and/or process of the dish or beverage in the photo(s), through my writing.
I switched it to:
Overall Task:
I will create an album of minimum 10 photos (focused on food photography), of dishes or beverages from restaurants, to then write about: the context in which I took the photo(s), what I learned from the experience, and how I applied what I learned from my research to my photography.
Basically, I'd focus more on analyzing my photography, than analyzing the stories behind certain recipes of restaurants I wanted to interview. This made it easier for me to go to whatever restaurant, because I wouldn't have to plan interviews beforehand, spend more time in them asking questions, or spend time transcribing audio from interviews. This change focused more on taking up my time at home, which was easier for me to organize. I analyzed my photos by going back to research, connecting certain techniques or tips I used, along with ones I didn't use. I gave a stronger focus to the photography and writing portion, rather than dividing that focus into three, including the interviewing portion.
Taking all of this in, I feel like I've done a decent job on my mission project. I'm not saying I did a good job, or a bad job, but something that can be enough after having messed up so much throughout the first months of this project. I've learned a lot from the mistakes I've made, and now I know how to avoid them. I've also learned how to jump back from those mistakes, and still make the best out of the project, even when I want to finish it perfectly because it relates so much to my passion. Realizing these three things now, I see that they do kind of connect to the school's mission. I didn't see it as much before but I do now.
I've learned how to organize myself to pursue my passion for learning, specifically on photography and handling personal projects. I've learned how to create socially responsible solutions through the process of my project, trying my best to fix it when I was so close to deadlines. And finally, I learned to practice a life of integrity, by being honest about how my project is going, to others and to myself. In all, I learned a lot from this project, and I learned a lot about myself from the process of this project.
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check out my photos on
6. photos I took
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