Week in Review - March 9th - 13th, 2026

Hello! First blog post, hopefully not the last :)

This week was relaxed as school weeks go for me. 

We have two current focuses in photography at the moment. For the first, we took colour film photos with old Holga cameras and finally got them back from lab processing! For those who don't know, the Holga is a plastic toy camera which is famously unpredictable and very prone to light leaks, vignette, and more. It is not like a traditional film camera in any sense. The focus has only four settings, and you have to hold the shutter down continuously to take your image. High risk, high reward. If you like an unpredictable analogue experience, see if you can find a Holga for sale somewhere. Official Holga cameras are no longer being produced, but you can find knockoffs and old models online. Now that we have our film reels back, it's time to scan them in and touch them up in Photoshop. Unfortunately for me, majority of my film didn't show up. Only one of my images is going to make the cut. The rest are extremely underexposed, which is a big shame. Hopefully scanning them will pick up more than the eye can. Here's to hoping. 

Our second focus is creating a plan for how we want to make a photo book (a zine, for all intents and purposes). It can be through any medium we covered throughout the semester, those being medium format film, DSLR, and the Holga. I am choosing to use the DSLR for my project personally, but I know a few people are using the medium format. Right now, we have around 2 weeks to take, edit, or print out our photos. Next Tuesday we have our initial proposal due, which simply includes the what, how, and why, plus any inspirations or sketches. My current plan is to ride the train line to every stop and take a picture/statement from a stranger at each one. Lucky for me I've been wanting to do something like this for a very long time, regardless of it being an assignment. This is just a bonus! If you want to read my proposal, check it out here. The other people in the class have had very unique ideas as well. My friend is working with the idea of fashion and how ones personality can be seen through the clothes they wear. She actually had me model for this series, which was super fun! Hopefully I'll get those pictures for myself soon. 

Art history classes were also quite relaxed this week. A focus on performance art and feminist pieces for one, the medieval crown/communities for the other. The Sainte-Chapelle (1248, Paris) stood out to me thus week. Super intricate stained glass work with 1,113 individual scenes from the old/new testament, plus scenes from the life of the patron, King Louis X (he's a big deal in medieval art history). Take a moment to scroll some images of this beautiful gothic architecture, if you have the time. Here is the official website for the Sainte-Chapelle.

Fridays are when I run a D&D game for the school my dad works at. All of the members are in grade 7-8, so they're a good age to start learning with a pretty simple campaign. Running these campaigns with them has been the highlight of my weeks. They are the strangest, silliest, and most out of the box D&D players I've ever had the pleasure of meeting. Our Cleric is a giant chicken. Our Barbarian is a sentient teddy bear. They use their bonus actions to do backflips 75% of the time. It's awesome. We are currently at 3rd level, undercover at a political gala trying to protect the local mayor. I did not have enough planned this week, so most of what we did was sports team quizzes and a battle bracket. It is March break next week, so I will have around two weeks to write up a solid plan. Since I write and plan all my D&D adventures, it takes me a bit of extra time to plan. Eventually, I will make a separate post fully D&D focused and share links to my past adventures if you want simple pre written, early level campaigns. 
This weekend I need to start (and finish) an essay for my medieval art history course. This won't take me too long, but it is technically late already. Once I get it finished up, I will have time for some fun projects. I am taking up the task of creating thumbmails for my good friend Kieran's YouTube channel. He makes awesome gaming based commentary videos. Check him out on his channel here! Look out for his new video, because I'm in it :)

Monday will start early for me, as I am going to start taking pictures for the aforementioned photo book assignment. Hopefully the weather will be alright, and people will be open to having their pictures taken. 

Happy first blog to me! Love ya.

S.B.