Personal Projects: Street Photography
"Everybody Street" illuminates the lives and work of New York's iconic street photographers and the incomparable city that has inspired them for decades. The documentary pays tribute to the spirit of street photography through a cinematic exploration of New York City, and captures the visceral rush, singular perseverance and at times immediate danger customary to these artists."
everybodystreet.com |
Photo Challenge #1 'ways of seeing':
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LOOKING DOWN: For this type of picture it is important that you are at a high place so that it makes everyone seem quite small and vulnerable, depending on the kind of light there should also be some shadows around the people walking however you may need a different kind of angle to see the shadows.
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SHADOWS AND REFLECTIONS:
To create shadows there must be a certain amount of light so that it creates a certain contrast and you also need a person or object facing away from the light to create the shadow
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OVER THE SHOULDER: Make sure you are behind someone, I always feel like it gives a better effect when your subject is not right in the middle so that you can see the landscape or what they are looking at.
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WALK ON BY: Stand parallel to the person walking so that you can see both of the person's legs and it makes it more effective because you can see the way that they are walking
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First set of pictures I took:
First set of pictures I took out on the streets:
What I learnt about street photography from everybody street
The amazing thing about street photographers,is that they don't act like normal people walking down the street to get to their job, they are very agile and observative ,they are almost like a ballet dancer, they are very balletic. Street photographers don't think about wether or not they're going to take a picture,if they see something interesting, they will take a picture of it with no hesitation, almost like a Samurai.One photographer which particularly interested me was Boogie because unlike some street photographers he went to drug addicts and took pictures of them,however,when he was changing the film or lenses his hands were shaking but as soon as he went to take a picture his hands were completely still.
The equipment that the photographers use all depends on what they take.The camera that most street photographers is the Leica.The reason that they use that specific camera is because it's small, light and portable which is good because it's easy to carry around and that's mostly what street photographer want, I also feel like it gives the picture a special effect which gives the photo a more 'streety' kind of effect. Some photographers use SLR's which are just to film and some photographers just use the most well known camera which is the DSLR.
Of course different photographers like different things so they will all go to quite different things so they will all go to quite different places,however one thing which all street photographers have in common is that they all like unique things,things which you don't see on the streets everyday such as a burning shoe or a beaten man.
Street photographers are mostly interested in gestures and the kind of movements people make. Street photographers just love being there because anything could happen, they like things which are ephemeral,because by simply taking a picture of it, they can make it last forever. Obviously different street photographers will be interested in different things, however they are mostly interested in things like graffitis or how people look, for example if there was a protest in the streets, photographers want to pick out on certain people and their emotion,gestures,movement or even most interesting poster!The reason why they photograph on the street is because it's very unpredictable,especially busy streets.
There are many risks involved in street photography, for example you could get punched if you are caught by someone and you are taking a picture of them and they don't like it / don't want you to, or it could get worse, if you are a more risky photographer and you like taking pictures of gangs and rough areas you could get shot or stabbed if you do one thing wrong. Some photographers may even get addicted to drugs because sometimes people people offer them some.
To be a successful street photographer and make a successful photograph you will need to capture something which isn't often seen on the streets,something which will make you say wow.The picture would really need to capture the emotions on somebody's face and the picture needs to tell a story.
The equipment that the photographers use all depends on what they take.The camera that most street photographers is the Leica.The reason that they use that specific camera is because it's small, light and portable which is good because it's easy to carry around and that's mostly what street photographer want, I also feel like it gives the picture a special effect which gives the photo a more 'streety' kind of effect. Some photographers use SLR's which are just to film and some photographers just use the most well known camera which is the DSLR.
Of course different photographers like different things so they will all go to quite different things so they will all go to quite different places,however one thing which all street photographers have in common is that they all like unique things,things which you don't see on the streets everyday such as a burning shoe or a beaten man.
Street photographers are mostly interested in gestures and the kind of movements people make. Street photographers just love being there because anything could happen, they like things which are ephemeral,because by simply taking a picture of it, they can make it last forever. Obviously different street photographers will be interested in different things, however they are mostly interested in things like graffitis or how people look, for example if there was a protest in the streets, photographers want to pick out on certain people and their emotion,gestures,movement or even most interesting poster!The reason why they photograph on the street is because it's very unpredictable,especially busy streets.
There are many risks involved in street photography, for example you could get punched if you are caught by someone and you are taking a picture of them and they don't like it / don't want you to, or it could get worse, if you are a more risky photographer and you like taking pictures of gangs and rough areas you could get shot or stabbed if you do one thing wrong. Some photographers may even get addicted to drugs because sometimes people people offer them some.
To be a successful street photographer and make a successful photograph you will need to capture something which isn't often seen on the streets,something which will make you say wow.The picture would really need to capture the emotions on somebody's face and the picture needs to tell a story.
My 2nd set of street photography:
My Winogrand analysis
In one of our lessons we wrote a bit about this picture which a very famous street photographer took, I mostly focused on the way the picture look and how it was presented by the photographer, I was trying to analyse what he was trying to tell us from the picture, I personally picked out the meaning of the picture (mysteriousness,etc...) and how the rule of thirds is applied to this picture and added some diagrams on it to show how it was applied, I did the same for how to women's hair was similar to the tree behind them.I talked about how it looks like the women are walking down as if they were stars on the red carpet and were more important than the rest of the people because they are in shadows, the picture also has another layer because if you look behind the disabled person you can see there's a glass where there is also things happening but on the other side of the street. The disabled person to me represents misteriouness because you don't know very much about him or her as you don't know their gender and you cannot see their face.
My favourite street photographer
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those are a series of photographs from my favourite street photographer, Jason Martini, I really like him and his photography because they all mean something, for example the mirrored picture, to me it means that you can go both ways in life or that there's not just one direction you can go in. Jason Martini is mostly interested in people themselves rather than objects on the streets, Jason has posed and unposed pictures of people.Jason also likes "crosswalking" where he would stand in the middle of the road as people are passing by and that will create a sort of silhouette look because the black point is so strong. |
Bruce Gilden
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Bruce Gilden is a member of the Magnum photo agency, he is very well known for his street photography work which is mainly based in New York city, he usually jumps out at pedestrians unexpectdly and takes a picture of them at a usually low angle and very close up to their face with his off camera flash. The off camera flash gives it a " ghostie " effect because the shutter stays open for a longer period of time and makes the people focused but a little unfocused at the side which makes it look like they are ghosts.
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Bruce Gilden inspired pictures:
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These are just a few of the Bruce Gilden inspired photographers which our group has taken, it was quite hard to take those pictures because the camera's were on a setting we never used before so we had to try and experiment how to use it using people in our group. WWW: I like how the pictures have the ghostly effect where because they are moving the side of them isn't completely focused, there are also a lot of pictures where the emotions were really captured in the picture. EBI: I think it would have been better if people didn't know we were going to do it and didn't hide their faces, I also think that it would have been better if we went on the streets to take the pictures. |
My 2nd set of pictures:
My favourite pictures:
I have chosen these pictures because I love the facial expressions on the people's faces, especially the first picture because the girl and the horse kind of have the same expressions on their faces, most of the faces are quite blunt because I didn't jump in front of them to get a picture, I tried to do it quite sneakily.
Challenge #3: diagonals
These are pictures which I think are really strong with diagonals and really show them quite clearly and they don't just come up once.
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This slideshow shows how the diagonals rule works.
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www:I understood the rule of diagonals and created pictures which had quite a few diagonals in them also to help me make them more effective and noticable I tilted my camera.
ebi:I could've tried to take pictures at higher and lower angles and also I could've tried to find some diagonals where I didn't need to tilt my camera to make it more "natural"
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Homework
controlled assessment:
For this Assessment my idea is to pick all of my favourite pictures that i have taken and put them all together, by this I mean that I will get a big piece of white cardboard and stick them all onto it in an informal order where they will be on top of each other and presented quite messily around the board, I am doing this to create the sort of street feeling because the streets are quite chaotic and informal so that is why I am going to reflect on for my assessment piece, I am also going to be going out on the actual streets rather than the school streets to create a more real feeling and vary my pictures, there will also be some coloured pictures and some B&W pictures on the piece of cardboard.They will be individual images and will all be different because I would like a variety of different pictures as I feel like it would look more varied. My pictures will all be of people as I feel like it gives more of a 'street' feeling because there's mostly people on the street and people make the streets more chaotic than things. They will have a different kind of angle and they will not look the same because I prefer when pictures look different and not the same as it makes it seem more varied.