Sean Oulashin

Portland FRINQ

E-Portfolio Essay

In signing up for the Portland Freshman Inquiry, I lacked any expectations, coming to the class
with an open mind. I had the general idea of that the class would focus around the history of Portland, but
I had no idea that it would be the experience that it was. The Portland FRINQ motivated me to go out on
my own and explore the city, and experience with my own five senses the history and culture embedded
in the city. Main session and mentor session have both given me opportunities and taught me so much
over the first quarter, it can be a challenge to correctly do it justice in the form of writing.
Coming from a photography and filmmaking background, I gravitated towards presenting my
work in a visual manner. For all of the field assignments (assignments that gave students the opportunity
to find or explore something physical in the city of Portland), I made sure to capture exactly what I was
seeing and pasting that into my field journal. The Re-Photography assignment was meaningful to me
because it let me experience history through the lens of a camera. I have always intrigued by historical
photos of anything, but in this case, Portland. Standing in the exact same spot as a photographer did 100
years ago was a very fun experience, and really let me experience the growth of the city from a first-hand
perspective.
The transect walk was an interesting assignment simply from a photography perspective. The
assignment was to take a one-mile transect (or walk) across any span of Portland, and to record
experiences in any way in the field journal. I took the opportunity to create a photo map to present
adjacent to my photos so that the viewer could see exactly where I took the photo. The onlooker could in
a sense experience the transect walk with me. This assignment gave me a greater understanding of the
growth of industry and urban revitalization that occurred to make Portland into the metropolis that it is
today. People, especially students, take walks every day, so adding the element of a medium to record it
all better documents the whole experience.
The monument study gave an introspective look as to what is memorialized and praised in the
city of Portland. I chose to study Mill Ends Park; the widely-acclaimed “world’s smallest park”. I chose
to study this because I knew that for visitors and even residents of the city, it is often overlooked. It is one
of the many attractions that contribute to the constant attraction to Portland. Not many other cities have a
park situated in an abandoned lightpost hole in the middle of a crosswalk, which in addition may or may
not be home to one or many leprechauns.
I hope to continue using photography as my main medium to present work, along with writing. I
love being able to show rather than tell, but I have realized that writing is a great way of backing up the
thousand words that each picture is worth. For me, photography is like a visual log of the experiences and
memories captured during my time in this class. It also lets the onlooker see and, in a way, feel exactly
what it was that I was feeling at the time. The process of printing photos out and pasting them into my
field journal is something I’ve noticed I really enjoy - I like building the physical page and arranging
photos in a way that is visually stimulating and interesting to look at. All the steps from the conceiving an
idea for a project, to shooting it, to post production have become very important to me.
Alongside the photographic opportunities given in the course, I feel as though my writing has
improved tenfold since the beginning of the term. I now know how to take information and interpret it
into a cohesive piece of writing to respond and interact with a given text. Reading sophisticated text such
as Portland in Three Centuries by Carl Abbott is easily absorbed and translated out back through reading
responses. Reading good writing acts as practice for becoming a better writer.
Through the first quarter of the Portland Freshman Inquiry class, I have learned not only about
the city of Portland, but about methods of learning. The class has lead me to develop a whole new way of
taking notes when annotating a chapter, helped me improve my writing, and helped me honor the process
of the creation of a piece of work. The theory of “praxis” - learning by doing - is something I will take
away from this class and apply to my everyday life, because from experience of it first hand, I know that
it is an effective strategy for digesting information. The class has helped me a lot with time management
as well. In the follow-up mentor session that after each Portland session, Matt has helped students learn
how to use D2L, and given us an insurmountable amount of resources to help students during their first
year of college.