Art is Where You Find It

Hopefully it will work this time.

As the musical began and the main character woke up and sang the opening song “Good Morning Baltimore,” I instantly fell in love with the musical Hairspray. Taken place in Baltimore, Hairspray addresses injustices in America during 1960’s: racism and discrimination against overweight. Tracy, the main character played by Marissa Perry, is obsessed with the afternoon dance show called “The Corny Collins Show.” When Tracy finds out that one of the show stars is leaving the show, she decides to audition for that open spot. Even with her amazing dance skills, Tracy faced a challenge because of her physical appearance- overweight. Once she became a member of the show, Tracy also wanted integration which angered some of the show members. In the end, however, the show gets integrated and a boy ends up liking Tracy. [Read more →]

Due to limited space, we need to get images to below 100K (at least) before posting them to the Eport.

If you are using a digital camera, make sure your settings are optimized for web viewing – check your manual if you’re not sure how to do this.

You can also use the free photo-editing software, Gimp, in your applications.

Here is how I scaled down one of the photos – changing it from 516K to 40K with little loss of detail:

1. Open Gimp application

2. Click File>Open> and find file on your computer

3. A new window will open –  click File>Image>ScaleImage>make Width smaller (in this case, 600pixels) and Height will auto-adjust after you click Scale

This may be enough to reduce the size. If not, you can also adjust the “quality”:

4. Save As>Save

5. Another panel will open – select “show preview in image” to see file size

6. Adjust “quality” with slidebar to balance size with quality (you can see effect on photo in window behind)

7. Try to get the file size to below 100K. If below 100K looks bad, it’s okay to go over, but the smaller the file size the better

Recommended guidelines = under 100K; 600 x 400 pixels;  72dpi

Don’t forget to keep a folder of all originals so that when you are playing around with new versions of files you always have an original to go back to!

Play around with Gimp, google search “jpg optimization”, etc, and email me with further questions: lhorridge@gmail.com. I will be happy to meet with you individually or in groups to work on image optimization.

South Asian Dance Off
By Diane Jacob
NEW YORK

“Jaye, Jaye, Jaye, Jaye He!” These words echoed throughout the Ramapo High School auditorium as hundreds stood up to salute the Indian flag. This is the first year that there has been a tri-state South Asian dance competition, celebrating South Asian culture. Nearly 400 people attended “South Asian Dance Off,” a talent competition divided into three dance categories – classical, folk and film. A total of ten dance groups competed, five in each category except for classical, where there were five solo performances. Anirban and Maninder Singh, the MCs for the night, provided lots of laughs and helped bridge the long gaps between performances due to technical difficulties. [Read more →]

I encourage you to attend a talk with Vik Muniz today (Thursday) at Baruch. Muniz is the artist who created the backs-of-paintings that we saw in Chelsea yesterday. He will be speaking from 2:30-3:30pm in VC7-210.