Final CAS Evaluation
To start, I would like to bring up where I found myself at the beginning of this year, and add what I have done this year alone. I will then, after this, look at my entire CAS experience as a whole, from the criteria, and assess my development of skills, personal qualities, and physique due to my CAS.
After one year of CAS, that is to say at the beginning of this school year, I was here:
Action:
Gym magda- 4 hours
YogaX- 15 hours
Running- 4 hours + 5 hours
Swimming- 2 hours
Yoga Course- 30 hours
Mya Yoga- 1 hour
total: 25 hours + 31 hours
Final total: 56 hours
Service:
IVIK- 3 hours
Finnish Exchange - 10 hours
FeztFixare Fall Event (Project) - 16 hours
FeztFixare Spring Event- 7 hours
Wedding- 10 hours
total: 13 hours + 33 hours
Final total: 46 hours
Creativity:
Wedding- 10 hours
Hanna- 3 hours
Blogg designs- 5 hours
Project 1- 5 hours
Other photography- 10 hours + 5 hours
"Warrior" photos- 5 hours
FeztFixare Fall Event (Project) - 8 hours
"Candles" - 4 hours
total: 33 hours + 17 hours
Final total: 55 hours
In italics I have added what is new for this school year, and I have summed up the total hours below each category. As can be seen above, I have participated in a weekly yoga course throughout two semesters, and also an additional class outside of this, when there was an "open house" week at the new Mya Yoga studio here in Umeå. I also joined an independant "event-planning group" and assisted them in the planning, set-up, and clean-up of the event this fall, along with helping out at the event itself of course. We are also currently planning another event for which I have made a promotional poster, and helped with planning during a number of meetings. This is where I have dedicated my service time. I also took pictures at a wedding this summer and donated the photos to the couple, for which I also took service. For the creativity portion I chose to try and do something different this year, and not the same thing that I have always done. I tried new techniques, like taking picture from above, as in "Candles", and using my 50 mm and different angles and light tried to create dramatic and capturing photos in "Warrior". I also took random scatter photos with my new 50 mm and also my regular lens throughout the year, some of which I posted on here.
In total I have accumulated 157 hours of CAS over two years time. This is divided into 56 hours of Action, 46 hours of Service, and 55 hours of Creativity.
Looking at the criteria, I feel that I have accomplished almost all of these through my CAS. Below is an explanation of how I feel that I fulfilled ach criteria and my motivation.
1. Increased awareness of their own strengths and areas of growth: I believe that this is a very obvious statement, at least in my case. My mind first goes to my creativity portion of CAS where I feel that I have gained so much knowledge about photography. Not only about how to use a camera, what the different settings provide for the shot, or which setting is appropriate or what situation, but also the tools and techniques of editting photos to my liking. Since aquiring photoshop I have been actively trying to master the different options that it provides, by using actions, books, and experimenting. I have discovered that I have developed and come a long way tiwth my photography, especially compared to not only my starting point and the first few creativity posts, but also to my one year marker. From then I have grown even more within photography and I feel as though I am starting to know m camera "like the back of my hand".
2. Undertaken New Challenges: I think the largest challenge for me has been my own doing "Yoga-X" at home. Besides the program itself being Ashtanga-Yoga, one of the more physically demanding forms of yoga, the discipline required to continue doing it on my own without anyone encouraging me or pushing me to do it was a challenge. Photoshop was also a challenge for me, as I discussed above, with learing the new ways of changing different aspects of the photo, enhancing certain features, removing unwanted blotches, or simple things such as changing the size or readying the picture format for online use.
3 & 4. Planned and initiated activites & Worked collaboratively with others: I chose to combine these two categories due to the fact that I feel and they both relate to the same area of my CAS, so to avoid writing the same this twice and repeating myself, I will make them into one. Here I feel that my time with the FeztFixare- crew has its place. We together planned and initiated an event which included several different activites, food, music, and are currently in the process of planning another. This planning involved many hours of exchanging ideas with others in the group, brainstorming on a name, theme, time, price, and bands. We also had a budget that we had to maintain, and because of this we had to look at what was needed, what had to be bought, what we ourselves could contribute and who would be in charge of what areas. We had to set up for the events, both in the form of a stage, and also in the form of decorations and different areas for the various events. We also had to spread the world about the event through promotional fliers. Working together with a group involved compromising, being able to contribute ideas and materials/supplies, and a positive attitude.
5. Shown perseverance and commitment in their activities: This I see especially in my devotion to the art of Yoga. I have continued with yoga as my form of action for two years and gone in depth with my yoga. I feel that be staying with this instead of doing a variety of things, I have been able to really develop and engage in yoga, since I have a greater understanding of what yoga does for me, what I find in yoga, and how to find a calm in the storm, which I believe has been a usefull tool for me during two stressful and high tempo years of the IB programme.
6. Considered the ethical implications of action: Though I do not consider anything that I have done worthy of considering the ethical implications, I do feel that I am aware and attentive to ethical aspects of my insperational sources and I try to convey certain ethical dilemmas through my CAS. For example, the photo project entitled "Warrior" was my version of a war camoflage/ tribal face painting interpretation. I feel that war camoflage is related to so many of the world issues today, such as large power nations strive for oil control, leading to expensive, cruel, and unecessary acts of war. I connect camoflage mainly to this, and this was my intention when making these photos, to portray the "dark" sides of this ethically contreversial issue.
7. Devloped new skills: My new skills can be seen in places where I have put them to use, such as my blog designs for my personal blog, where I made use of photoshop and occasionally other photo editting programs to put together a collage of different colors, photos and text. Also the use of new actions and the use of different lenses is something that I have completely learned from scratch during this two year period. My knowledge of the concepts and ideas of yoga has also increased. I feel that I have a greater understanding with leads to a greater enjoyment and greater results from my yoga in practice.
These are the ways in which I feel that I hae developed over the two years that I have spent doing CAS. I am proud of all the accomplishments that I have made and the new skills that I have developed, all of which I will carry on with despite the end of my IB period. CAS has been a way to express myself and work together with other in order to acheive a common goal for others enjoyment. I have learned so many valueable traits and grown in both skill and mind.
After one year of CAS, that is to say at the beginning of this school year, I was here:
Action:
Gym magda- 4 hours
YogaX- 15 hours
Running- 4 hours + 5 hours
Swimming- 2 hours
Yoga Course- 30 hours
Mya Yoga- 1 hour
total: 25 hours + 31 hours
Final total: 56 hours
Service:
IVIK- 3 hours
Finnish Exchange - 10 hours
FeztFixare Fall Event (Project) - 16 hours
FeztFixare Spring Event- 7 hours
Wedding- 10 hours
total: 13 hours + 33 hours
Final total: 46 hours
Creativity:
Wedding- 10 hours
Hanna- 3 hours
Blogg designs- 5 hours
Project 1- 5 hours
Other photography- 10 hours + 5 hours
"Warrior" photos- 5 hours
FeztFixare Fall Event (Project) - 8 hours
"Candles" - 4 hours
total: 33 hours + 17 hours
Final total: 55 hours
In italics I have added what is new for this school year, and I have summed up the total hours below each category. As can be seen above, I have participated in a weekly yoga course throughout two semesters, and also an additional class outside of this, when there was an "open house" week at the new Mya Yoga studio here in Umeå. I also joined an independant "event-planning group" and assisted them in the planning, set-up, and clean-up of the event this fall, along with helping out at the event itself of course. We are also currently planning another event for which I have made a promotional poster, and helped with planning during a number of meetings. This is where I have dedicated my service time. I also took pictures at a wedding this summer and donated the photos to the couple, for which I also took service. For the creativity portion I chose to try and do something different this year, and not the same thing that I have always done. I tried new techniques, like taking picture from above, as in "Candles", and using my 50 mm and different angles and light tried to create dramatic and capturing photos in "Warrior". I also took random scatter photos with my new 50 mm and also my regular lens throughout the year, some of which I posted on here.
In total I have accumulated 157 hours of CAS over two years time. This is divided into 56 hours of Action, 46 hours of Service, and 55 hours of Creativity.
Looking at the criteria, I feel that I have accomplished almost all of these through my CAS. Below is an explanation of how I feel that I fulfilled ach criteria and my motivation.
1. Increased awareness of their own strengths and areas of growth: I believe that this is a very obvious statement, at least in my case. My mind first goes to my creativity portion of CAS where I feel that I have gained so much knowledge about photography. Not only about how to use a camera, what the different settings provide for the shot, or which setting is appropriate or what situation, but also the tools and techniques of editting photos to my liking. Since aquiring photoshop I have been actively trying to master the different options that it provides, by using actions, books, and experimenting. I have discovered that I have developed and come a long way tiwth my photography, especially compared to not only my starting point and the first few creativity posts, but also to my one year marker. From then I have grown even more within photography and I feel as though I am starting to know m camera "like the back of my hand".
2. Undertaken New Challenges: I think the largest challenge for me has been my own doing "Yoga-X" at home. Besides the program itself being Ashtanga-Yoga, one of the more physically demanding forms of yoga, the discipline required to continue doing it on my own without anyone encouraging me or pushing me to do it was a challenge. Photoshop was also a challenge for me, as I discussed above, with learing the new ways of changing different aspects of the photo, enhancing certain features, removing unwanted blotches, or simple things such as changing the size or readying the picture format for online use.
3 & 4. Planned and initiated activites & Worked collaboratively with others: I chose to combine these two categories due to the fact that I feel and they both relate to the same area of my CAS, so to avoid writing the same this twice and repeating myself, I will make them into one. Here I feel that my time with the FeztFixare- crew has its place. We together planned and initiated an event which included several different activites, food, music, and are currently in the process of planning another. This planning involved many hours of exchanging ideas with others in the group, brainstorming on a name, theme, time, price, and bands. We also had a budget that we had to maintain, and because of this we had to look at what was needed, what had to be bought, what we ourselves could contribute and who would be in charge of what areas. We had to set up for the events, both in the form of a stage, and also in the form of decorations and different areas for the various events. We also had to spread the world about the event through promotional fliers. Working together with a group involved compromising, being able to contribute ideas and materials/supplies, and a positive attitude.
5. Shown perseverance and commitment in their activities: This I see especially in my devotion to the art of Yoga. I have continued with yoga as my form of action for two years and gone in depth with my yoga. I feel that be staying with this instead of doing a variety of things, I have been able to really develop and engage in yoga, since I have a greater understanding of what yoga does for me, what I find in yoga, and how to find a calm in the storm, which I believe has been a usefull tool for me during two stressful and high tempo years of the IB programme.
6. Considered the ethical implications of action: Though I do not consider anything that I have done worthy of considering the ethical implications, I do feel that I am aware and attentive to ethical aspects of my insperational sources and I try to convey certain ethical dilemmas through my CAS. For example, the photo project entitled "Warrior" was my version of a war camoflage/ tribal face painting interpretation. I feel that war camoflage is related to so many of the world issues today, such as large power nations strive for oil control, leading to expensive, cruel, and unecessary acts of war. I connect camoflage mainly to this, and this was my intention when making these photos, to portray the "dark" sides of this ethically contreversial issue.
7. Devloped new skills: My new skills can be seen in places where I have put them to use, such as my blog designs for my personal blog, where I made use of photoshop and occasionally other photo editting programs to put together a collage of different colors, photos and text. Also the use of new actions and the use of different lenses is something that I have completely learned from scratch during this two year period. My knowledge of the concepts and ideas of yoga has also increased. I feel that I have a greater understanding with leads to a greater enjoyment and greater results from my yoga in practice.
These are the ways in which I feel that I hae developed over the two years that I have spent doing CAS. I am proud of all the accomplishments that I have made and the new skills that I have developed, all of which I will carry on with despite the end of my IB period. CAS has been a way to express myself and work together with other in order to acheive a common goal for others enjoyment. I have learned so many valueable traits and grown in both skill and mind.
Candles
Three photos from a photoproject earlier this spring. I got my insperation from Christina Perri's music video for a thousand years, and decided to try and capture candlelight on camera.
"FeztFixarna" 2.0
Similarly to previously this fall when I, together with a group called Feztfixarna, put together an event for the students at out school with the theme "Halloween", we are currently planning another event. This event is scheduled to take place in the beginning of June, that is to say after the end of my CAS time. However, we have been planning this event for a while now. In addition to this event, we have also started filming a promotional video for this group, in order to attract new memebers and volunteers during the events.
The theme for this event is "adventure" and I have among other things been put in charge of making the promotional posters for this event. I will also, as I did last time take photos during the event and help out during the rest fo the planning, the set-up, the actual event, and the clean-up. However I will only take service for the planning time and the time taken to make the poster for the group.
Planning time: 5 hours
Poster-making time: 2 hours
The theme for this event is "adventure" and I have among other things been put in charge of making the promotional posters for this event. I will also, as I did last time take photos during the event and help out during the rest fo the planning, the set-up, the actual event, and the clean-up. However I will only take service for the planning time and the time taken to make the poster for the group.
Planning time: 5 hours
Poster-making time: 2 hours
Warrior
These photos were a part of a spontaneous photoproject that I put together one evening earlier this week. My sister bought a new eye-shadow palette that contained colors that to me were very natural and earthly colors. I chose to test out an idea that I had. I thought about military camoflage and the use of greens, browns, greys and blacks in order to create a "nature-blend". I also thought about tribal face painting in parts of the world like Africa, and found some images that inspired me. The lighting in the pictures represents both the beauty of the face painting and the darkness of war in connection to the military camoflage. Within photography, this is one of the ares that I feel that I have come a long way: lighting. I have learned how to position lights, and the camera, in oder to capture light from the angles I want and also avoid unwanted shadows. Placing light in order to emphasize different aspects or focuses of the picture bring it to life in a different way.
I used an effect called "night effect" to get the blue-purple darkness in some of the pictures and regular light and color, contrast, and exposure variations to acheive the others.
I chose to name this "warrior" because that is what I feel that these pictures and themes represent.
Mya Yoga
As I have stated before I am taking a yoga class at school on friday afternoon which is a completely different experience from my own yoga at home. This class is made for development and peer support so there is a lot of attention to detail and one-on-one work between peers. This is different from what I have been doing in the past which is a more up-tempo type of yoga where there is a lot of movement and strength excercises. However, I feel that this has been good for me and helped me develop my technique and knowledge about yoga while still giving me the core and upper body strength training.
This week though, we didnt have a class as school. Instead, we were allowed to attend on free class at a new yoga studio in Umeå. The studio is called Mya Yoga and they have everything from lectures about yoga, to yin-yoga which is a more relaxed form of yoga, to meditation, to flow yoga which is more movement. I attended the flow yoga on saturday morning. This was once again a different experience since there was a new instructor, a new group of people, and this was more like what I do at home. This was very focused on continuous movement combined with static core training. It was fun and exciting to try something new!
This week though, we didnt have a class as school. Instead, we were allowed to attend on free class at a new yoga studio in Umeå. The studio is called Mya Yoga and they have everything from lectures about yoga, to yin-yoga which is a more relaxed form of yoga, to meditation, to flow yoga which is more movement. I attended the flow yoga on saturday morning. This was once again a different experience since there was a new instructor, a new group of people, and this was more like what I do at home. This was very focused on continuous movement combined with static core training. It was fun and exciting to try something new!
Winter Wonderland
Here are a few simple picture that I took today while me and my family were at the skating rink by our house. I used my new 50 mm camera lens that I got during winter break, which is a typical portrait lens. It creates a very strong focus and blurs out the background in order to further enhance the object of the picture. I have not editted these at all since I do not this that it is necessary and like them as they are.
A CAS Project
During the past few months, I have been working together with several other students in order to put together a halloween event at our school for the other students at the school. We have had meetings for a few months in order to plan the music, date, time, decoration details, games & activities, food, locations, sales, security, and other details necessary to pull off this event. We, as a group, contacted administrators, bought supplies, booked the locale, and discussed games and music.
On friday the 11th of November, we spent 11 hours setting up for the event by hanging fliers, decorating, setting up the station for sales, carrying sofas, cushions, and tables up and down stairs, and preparing sound and light settings. We then worked the event, taking shifts at the differnt stations, working through games, and selling refreshments. Afterwards, we stayed and cleaned the locale, put the furniture back into place, took apart the stage, cleaned up garbage, collected decorations and put all leftover refreshments in the Elevkår room for use at the next event.
I also took photos during the event that I later spent about 2 hours editting and fixing to post them for others to see. Since I was working and doing other things I did not take very many pictures, but I took a few that were usable. Since this was a halloween event the lighting was not very good, making it hard to take good pictures. I tried to use the night vision setting and play with the lighting to acheive interesting effects on the pictures. (Click to see large versions)
So, this task involved both creativity and service. Creativity in the planning and photography and service in the planning and the actual event.
Service : 5 hours planning and 11 hours events : 16 hours
Creativity : 5 hours planning, 1 hours of photography, and 2 hours of editting : 8 hours
Now we will move on from this and start working on the next event for spring.
On friday the 11th of November, we spent 11 hours setting up for the event by hanging fliers, decorating, setting up the station for sales, carrying sofas, cushions, and tables up and down stairs, and preparing sound and light settings. We then worked the event, taking shifts at the differnt stations, working through games, and selling refreshments. Afterwards, we stayed and cleaned the locale, put the furniture back into place, took apart the stage, cleaned up garbage, collected decorations and put all leftover refreshments in the Elevkår room for use at the next event.
I also took photos during the event that I later spent about 2 hours editting and fixing to post them for others to see. Since I was working and doing other things I did not take very many pictures, but I took a few that were usable. Since this was a halloween event the lighting was not very good, making it hard to take good pictures. I tried to use the night vision setting and play with the lighting to acheive interesting effects on the pictures. (Click to see large versions)
So, this task involved both creativity and service. Creativity in the planning and photography and service in the planning and the actual event.
Service : 5 hours planning and 11 hours events : 16 hours
Creativity : 5 hours planning, 1 hours of photography, and 2 hours of editting : 8 hours
Now we will move on from this and start working on the next event for spring.
Before and After
One Year Marker
After one year of doing CAS I have counted up where I stand as far as the amount of hours for each of the C, A, and S och CAS, aswell as what I have accomplished and acheived by looking at my goals.
Action:
Gym magda- 4 hours
YogaX- 15 hours
Running- 4 hours
Swimming- 2 hours
total: 25 hours
Service:
IVIK- 3 hours
Finnish Exchange - 10 hours
total: 13 hours
Creativity:
Wedding- 10 hours
Hanna- 3 hours
Blogg designs- 5 hours
Project 1- 5 hours
Other photography- 10 hours
total: 33 hours
Looking at this I would say that I´m on a good track with creativity, where I have more than half of the required hours and feel that I have enhanced my skills the most. I feel that my level of skill as far as photography and photoshop go have increased greatly and I am getting better response from the people around me who see my photos, and also people who themselves are very talented photographers.
I have gotten about halfway with my action, which I still think is good, but I feel that I want to take more control of that this coming year and get a more structurized routine workout and acheive more of my goals that I have not acheived this far. I would like to build up more core strength and stamina, mainly through my yoga course, that will in the end also help me in other areas of exercise.
Service will however be the most important focus of this year for me. Since I have not had much the previous years, this year I have joined a group that will allow me to get service and grow weekly through cooperation, creative thinking, and party planning.
Action:
Gym magda- 4 hours
YogaX- 15 hours
Running- 4 hours
Swimming- 2 hours
total: 25 hours
Service:
IVIK- 3 hours
Finnish Exchange - 10 hours
total: 13 hours
Creativity:
Wedding- 10 hours
Hanna- 3 hours
Blogg designs- 5 hours
Project 1- 5 hours
Other photography- 10 hours
total: 33 hours
Looking at this I would say that I´m on a good track with creativity, where I have more than half of the required hours and feel that I have enhanced my skills the most. I feel that my level of skill as far as photography and photoshop go have increased greatly and I am getting better response from the people around me who see my photos, and also people who themselves are very talented photographers.
I have gotten about halfway with my action, which I still think is good, but I feel that I want to take more control of that this coming year and get a more structurized routine workout and acheive more of my goals that I have not acheived this far. I would like to build up more core strength and stamina, mainly through my yoga course, that will in the end also help me in other areas of exercise.
Service will however be the most important focus of this year for me. Since I have not had much the previous years, this year I have joined a group that will allow me to get service and grow weekly through cooperation, creative thinking, and party planning.
Project: Wedding
These are most of the photos I took at my uncles wedding in the end of July. It was outside of Stockholm and the weather was fabulous! I´ve used different effects to change the tint and appearance of the photo and a lot of blurring to erase the background and bring forth the people as the focus of the photo. I encountered a huge obstacle during the wedding ceremony and during the party afterwards since the lighting was horrible both in the church and in the building for the party. Therefore I took most of my pictures outside, and had to edit the indoor pictures a little extra to try ot reduce the blurriness of the photos. This worked to a certain extrent but the outdoor pictures are significantly better and sharper than the indoor ones.
For this activity I will take both service, since I took pictures the whole day and evening afterwards and donated the pictures to the couple afterwards, and creativity for the editing the pictures and discovering new techiniques for reducing blur and the yellow-tint that showed up on the pictures that were inside the church.
I feel that the skills I developed through testing different techniques for reducing the yellow pigment will be useful for future photography since indoor photos of any type usually give the same effect. Mastering this technique will help me in the future with similar problems.
Service: 10 hours
Creativity: 10 hours
NOTE: Click on the pictures to make them larger.
Progression through the peephole
Hanna
Blogg Design (NEW)
Two weeks ago I made a new design for my blog. I changed the header, and the font. For the header I spent 6 hours taking pictures, setting upp lighting, and piecing it all together using photoshop and paint.
First, I chose clothing and put on "stage make up" so that the camera would capture it the way I wanted. After this was finished I was ready to take pictures! Or so I thought. I found a white wall in my room which I could use as a background and tilted my light towards me to avoid shadows from the side. This caused a problem since I had a shadow from the other side. SO, I found a lamp that I could attach to the other side to avoid all shadows. I couldn´t completely avoid shadows but it was better that nothing. This whole process took about 1 hour.
After taking about 150 pictures I was ready to open the computer and start the hard work. I sorted through the pictures and chose 3 that I wanted to use. I used photoshop and effects of photoshop to make the pictures look the way I wanted them to. I then used paint to place the pictures on a single-colored background the way I wanted them. The I took the new picture and used photoshop to place the text and make some finishing touches before it was finished.
OLD DESIGN (above)
NEW DESIGN!!
First, I chose clothing and put on "stage make up" so that the camera would capture it the way I wanted. After this was finished I was ready to take pictures! Or so I thought. I found a white wall in my room which I could use as a background and tilted my light towards me to avoid shadows from the side. This caused a problem since I had a shadow from the other side. SO, I found a lamp that I could attach to the other side to avoid all shadows. I couldn´t completely avoid shadows but it was better that nothing. This whole process took about 1 hour.
After taking about 150 pictures I was ready to open the computer and start the hard work. I sorted through the pictures and chose 3 that I wanted to use. I used photoshop and effects of photoshop to make the pictures look the way I wanted them to. I then used paint to place the pictures on a single-colored background the way I wanted them. The I took the new picture and used photoshop to place the text and make some finishing touches before it was finished.
OLD DESIGN (above)
NEW DESIGN!!
Spring
The spring flowers have started to come up in our front yard so today while I was sitting outside I decided to take some pictures of them and edit them. Here is the result of two of them.
Guitar
