Introduction
I live in Hong Kong and street style shooting is what revived my passion for photography. However, the crowded streets do not always allow for graphic Henri Cartier-Bresson-esque shots, and this has made me look at the decisive moment from a different angle and lead more to me capturing a moment in life; which I suppose inverts the traditional view, capturing the usual not unusual.
One thing that has always struck me about Hong Kong is how much smartphones are part of the culture here and always have been in the close to 7 years I have lived here. You may think that is not unusual, mobile phones are everywhere but, think back. I left the UK in 2009, and if you had a friend with an iPhone it was unusual, they were in their infancy, you would crowd around them to ask to see it. However, immediately on landing in Hong Kong, I felt like a Luddite not having an iPhone. Everyone was connected 24/7.
And this has just grown and grown faster that you can imagine everyone see now is glued to their smartphone – it’s not just iPhones now! With this in mind, I wanted to capture a set of images that use mobile telephones to illustrate my Hong Kong style of the decisive moment.
I shoot primarily around 35 to 50mm focal range when working on the streets, this a focal length I’m comfortable with and for this project I did not try to shoot in one day I shot images over a period using the following statement of intent:
“Use black & white images to capture the prevalence of mobile telephone use in Hong Kong society.”
All the images were converted to black & white using the same technique in Lightroom & Silver FX 2 The decision to use Black & White is to avoid the distraction that colour can bring to the scene and allow the viewer to concentrate on the subjects.
The semi-finalist images (see blog post https://petewalker-ocalearninglog.com/2015/10/20/assignment-3-semi-finalists/) we then left to marinate for a couple of weeks so that I could view them with a more critical eye.
The images
Image 1.
In this image, we have an older man heading up an escalator in an MTR station making a call. I like how in this moment of the man in his world. He is focused on both the call and his direction of travel holding the handrail tightly. Behind him are two women around his age who you can see clearly are engaged in a conversation. The image was deliberately framed with the escalator running from corner to corner
Image 2.
Here I like the captured moment of a man just looking up from his phone in a crowded MTR train, his face shows a moment of surprise perhaps from a message on his phone – however, the positioning of the other passengers looks as if he has an audience and he is shocked to find them there. I like this image; perhaps it could lose some of the train roofs, but that would spoil the overall set dynamic.
Image 3
The typical commuting scene here we captured the moment of 3 people oblivious to each other all engrossed in their life. You look at the scene and decide what each is doing. Man in the suit is checking business messages or email, the young guys perhaps watching a video or a video call with a loved one, the man in the background playing an online game.
Image 4
Here I like the fact that we have an older and younger person both checking their phone, with the live feed of the stock market in the background. Again this fit to my vision of the decisive moment because the image brings the question; are they both doing the same thing? Are they making rapid changes to their investments?
Image 5.
This couple appears lost on the busy surrounding of Mong Kok, have they stopped to consult their phone of perhaps Google maps. The moment to me is they are unaware of their surrounding; let alone the photographer in front of them, as they find out where they are.
Image 6
Walking along with eyes focused on the phone, such a “normal sight” the moment again raises a question to the viewer, what are they focused on? Why is so important? How do they not collide with others? This image was shot “from the hip” the angle was intentional could be stronger if less space to the left side.
Image 7
Here I like how the main subject is almost silhouetted against the contrast of the bright corridor. He is on the phone and smoking in his break-time, a classic look at the back of any restaurant and bar.
Conclusion
I have found this a very challenging assignment as I have tried, with each image, to capture a moment in the daily life. I overall I’m happy to have kept a theme throughout the pictures, but tried to make each of them as a little individual.
While the shots are all exposed well, and well standardized with uniform crops and black & white conversation, the project does have weaknesses – particularly it might be a little too far from the Decisive moment norm for some viewers. I wanted to stay away from producing Cartier-Bresson clones. Also on the presentation side, there is perhaps a little too much dead space in a couple of the images (image 2 & image 6), which could be cropped away, but it would then affect the overall presentation of the set.
On reflection I’m in 2 minds as if I have pushed thing too far conceptually here but I stand by my work – some of the images maybe a little too crowded. This is an assignment that could go on and on refining the shots, as is the way with the decisive moment, but is now time to submit for feedback.