Brief
Create a series of between six and ten photographs from one of the following options, or a subject of your own choosing:
- Crowds
- Views
- Heads
Use the exercises from Part Two as a starting point to test out combinations of focal length, aperture and viewpoint for the set. Decide upon a single format, either vertical or horizontal. You should keep to the same combination throughout to lend coherence to the series.
LITTER
For assignment 2 – Collecting, I have followed the suggested theme of views – specifically looking at litter in the busy urban landscape of Hong Kong.
The idea stemmed from an individual cigarette packet I saw in the street. Litter is usually something people don’t pay much attention to, however, it is closely related to how people live their lives in the city and you sometimes can’t help but wonder the stories behind some pieces of litter.
Upon editing the shot, I would like to think I have been subconsciously influenced by Gianluca Cosci’s work – Panem et Circenses; however, I don’t think the depth of field of my shot is as razor thin, and also, I had deliberately included a human element to my all shots.
I did the shoot while going for an afternoon walk through Mong Kok to Jordan area of Kowloon.
This assignment was shot with:
- Crop sensor camera (EOS M3); with
- Fixed focal length of 22mm (equivalent to 35mm on full frame)
- All images are shot at f4 with Auto ISO (for handheld shots without the constant need to adjust for changing light)
I was quite confident in my choice of lens and aperture. The images turned out ok; overall I am pleased with the pictures. After assignment 1 – I made more conscious decisions on the compositions during my shoot to eliminate as much as post production cropping where possible and also focusing more on a single object in each photo hoping to draw out a more coherent view of this collection. I had also been more consciously thinking about my subjects before taking the shot, and convey why I was thinking the particular piece of litter meant something to me from how I positioned my shot.
Below with some of my thoughts on the images:
Image 1
The bright yellow lines and the lemon tea carton first caught my attention and I also noticed they were parallel to each other.
Image 4
The towel looked like a small wounded creature lost in a big city. I also asked myself why there was a random towel there.
Image 7
A torn lottery ticket on an empty street – signifies a broken dream, lost of hope in winning your way out of a relatively poor neighborhood.
The edit was a challenge in this assignment – I came back with 133 decent images from the day, which I reduced down to 21 and cherry picked to just 10, which I think are the best work and can be netted into a coherent set. On the downside, I am slightly concern if this is too much of a “one trick pony” with me deliberately highlighting a single piece of litter in a dramatic manner.
The litter I picked in this collection is completely at random. As an improvement, maybe I can focus on more about seeking out the litter, which has more texture or more interesting shapes by exploring in more areas of Hong Kong. Where possible, capturing litter interacting with litter instead of just with the environment setting.
