Photography Project 4 - The Perfect Stranger

As the project title suggests, we were supposed to photograph strangers, and I was tempted to play around with that idea, by challenging the brief and photographing friends whom I can 'control' and 'manipulate' to create the sense of perfection and at the same time, not be someone I know, thus making them 'strangers'. I eventually decided against it, and decided that I should just go out there and challenge myself by asking people that I've never met if I can take pictures of them.

I was going to look for people who stood out and/or caught my eye, but because 

I have decided to go with a more ‘professional’ look for my portraiture project because I wanted to capture the ‘perfection’ element. A close-up shot really shows how comfortable they are with the situation they’re in, and their expressions often reflect their mood as well.

I simply wanted to capture them in their moment, from how relaxed they are to what they’re doing at the particular time when I asked to photograph them; it is the true reflection of them as a person, as who they are. I feel that it is more natural capturing them as they are rather than telling them what to do, like not to smile or to pose a certain way, and I really like the outcome of my work because I feel like it is a glimpse into their personality, and because they are strangers, it is much more real to ‘know’ them in their natural 'state'.

Photography Project 3 - Movement

These are the 4 final images that I have decided to use for Project 3, and I have chosen 2 photographs that explore movements within space (clock and water) and 2 within landscape (gulls and train).

I wanted to go for a theme, to have photographs of similar styles, but I decided against it because I felt it would be kind of repetitive, which is why I have chosen to photograph completely unrelated things, though they do have a link that ties them together.

1. MOVEMENTS WITHIN SPACE

The idea behind photographing the clock came when I remembered how the second hand is consistently moving as time passes by and ticks away. I felt like it was the perfect way to capture ‘movement’ of the physical needle (and of time) within the confines of the path it moves along. Using a longer shutter speed and lower light intensity, I used it to capture the visible movement of the second hand needle so that the movement can be traced. It definitely helped that the second hand was in red, which made its movements trackable.

As for water, I wanted to capture water as something that is always flowing. Water is almost never still, and its shape changes with the path it moves in. It is difficult to catch a stationary frame of flowing water, which made it a challenge, and I decided to photograph it from a slightly elevated angle so that I can capture the different shapes and the freedom in movement of water.

2. MOVEMENTS WITHIN LANDSCAPE

The photographs of the gull and train weren’t extraordinary, but I wanted to have some of movement in the human landscape, and there is nothing more fitting than flying birds and a moving train.

In a similar way of using ‘animate’ objects with the freedom to move, I photographed gulls as a way to connect it to water. I like the blur effect that came with the gulls flying, it a contrast to the focused and unmoving background, and I felt that the perfect way to capture this was through a shorter shutter speed. The effect that came from it was more effective than leaving it for a longer exposure, and the crisp juxtaposition is useful in demonstrating movement.

As for the train, I went with the idea of a moving ‘inanimate’ object travelling along a fixed path, much like the clock. In the same way the second hand needle orbits the face of the clock, the train passes to and fro on its tracks. It is a typical way of showing movement, but like the photograph of the flying gull, the blur that came from the passing train was effective in showing movement against a still landscape, which effectively captured the idea of passing time.