Jorge Dasilva’s capstone

Capstone process paper
Jorge Dasilva Everyone remembers something. It could be from 50 years ago or from just a week ago. We all have good memories and the ones we don’t want to dig up. These are some of mine.

I grew up living in a dorm that is part of a college campus, the University of Pennsylvania. We’d call it “the quad.” There were college kids around. Some were our baby-sitters and some would wave at us. Most of these memories are scarce and not very detailed. When I look back in time I mostly see general colors and shapes of buildings. I do have one very vivid scene: I see an open field with a tent. At the same time, I’m inside the tent looking at a picture book about crabs. It’s a white crab holding a fish in one claw and on the back of the crab’s shell are tiny red dots and then that’s it.

At the very beginning of this process, my idea was of organizing a photo exhibit at the Green Line café. I took about 50 photos in three weeks, and I also used photos that I took beforehand. I looked over them in my free time, and I made slight edits to them. Most of my edits were because I’d rather have them be as raw as possible, as a stylistic choice. I’ve cut them down to 25 photos, to pick the 15 I have as the end result and for the final project.

I went through the process of selecting the final group of photos with my mentor Lori Waselchuk, who is a professional photographer. Together we looked over the 25 photos to choose what works and what doesn’t work, Choosing each by what photo really means and looking deeper into each photo by looking at emotion, meant also looking at colors: How the colors work, how the shading works, and how it looks in a total of how everything in the photo works together.

I worked at the Green life Café as a dishwasher, and I thought it would be a great place to host a photo exhibit, it’s easy to get to and very accessible by trolley, and it’s a nice space that already had the art of other artists up on the walls. So I had a plan to ask my boss for the permission with hosting it there, after my shift. The photos would have been 15 x 36” each, in simple black frames, either made of wood or metal depending on what’s available. I wanted them hung on the walls where viewers can walk around socializing while looking at the photos.

But now all social events and gatherings are canceled and we are having a virtual presentation“ and I will have each photo on each Google slide that I will talk about, according to each memory I have of that certain place or thing.

I thought this was going to be a foolproof plan but ith the Covid-19 pandemic cancellations. My plan for the capstone idea was to host a photo exhibit with 15 or fewer photos that will be hanging up in the green cafe on May 20th. But now the pandemic made sure that no one can leave the house, no social events, I thought of an alternative solution to so I’ll still be able to have my capstone project. The new plan is to have a google slide presentation to show my photos and have assigned writing according to the photo. This was the biggest challenge for my capstone. Overcoming this hurdle was seamless with creating a google slide with the photos that I’ve chosen. The biggest help that I received in creating this capstone was through being a part of the Teen photo program at the Philadelphia Photo Arts Center (PPAC). In this program, we learn about other professionals and about the history of photography. This is the place that I was planning to use for printing out each photo and framing them.PPAC is a program where a gathering a couple of students who are all interested in photography add in high school and practice and learn more about photography

With slight setbacks, I believe I am most proud of is that I had a backup plan to follow the rules of social distancing and another thing that I am very very proud about is how much improvement my photos have shown throughout the years since when I picked up a camera, which was at least five years ago. I impressed myself with my art and that is the best feeling. I am also very proud that I was accepted at a university with these photos as part of my portfolio, which is really great. I had the idea of having my photo exhibit for a while now, and I am not very happy that I could not finish it. But everything happens for a reason I guess,