1st Presentation

Union Square in the Morning



Union Square at Night

I took the first one on one of the first few days at NY, on the 2nd floor of the Wholefoods. I took the second one a couple of days later, because I wanted to shoot the same thing under a different condition. I am always interested in how things look so much different under different light, and day and night are one of the stark contrasts. When I see them, I feel like there is more story to the Union Square at Night.

Colors



Victory

I was experimenting with auto-bracketing, and this one is intentionally underexposed. I took several photos of the same statue at different angles, and this is the one I like the best because it looks animated.

Spiral



Pairs

I took most of the photos here on the second day of class, the first shoot-out at the Union Square because we spent the first day buying supplies. And when I first saw these ceramics salt-and-pepper cases, neither did I know what they were nor I stopped to take photos. I kept on walking, a little afraid to stop because I wasn't sure if the guy who was selling it would allow me to take photos. I walked forward, but my face was turning back because I was looking at them, and then my eyes met the guy's. He let me take photos, and I took almost a dozen photos with different compositions.

Different Lightings

Even though the color looks a little bit washed away--I don't understand how that happened, because when I was editing it at first, it was much more orangy except under the white light in the middle--I wanted to show how different lightings can affect how things are seen. BTW, I got my first kebab in NY here, not on the same night, but on the first night I came to NY, before I went to watch Iron Man.

Gaze

I was sitting on the bar at Union Square, and this guy with a sketchbook and a pencil came and sat next to me. He had his head in his hands for sometime, and then started talking to himself. He sang and laughed at the end. I was a little worried if he would get mad if I take the photo, so I sneaked to take it, but then he started laughing, probably because he noticed what I was doing and thought it was funny.

After the first presentation we did in class, and through out the classes including going the Whitney Biennial, I have learned various ways to see or read photographs. And the first thing I learned was composition, what was behind what I believed as an instinct. I did not realize that I was actively thinking when I take photos, because I simply looked through the view finder, moved around, exclude or include things, then pressed the button. Of course, there are a lot of ways to make a good composition, but several things I have noticed so far are the usage of lines to create a frame or a space. In this case, I used the two white lines on the ground and the bar on the left to create a triangular frame whose tip points to the direction of his gaze. I feel like this photo is almost geometrical since there are many lines and triangles.

Gaze II

I took this photo at China Town. I noticed him almost immediately as I walked passed by, because he had puppy eyes. I tried to open up the space in the direction of his gaze.

Escape

I can't explain, but this reminds me of I, Robot.



Estranged

Even though it is hard to see his eyes from this small photo--click if you want to view it larger--he was looking out the window in such a way that made me feel like I was looking at myself, and all the other people when they are almost unconscious, thinking but not thinking, alien to everyone else and also to themselves.

Reflection



Similarities

I took it at the China Town. I don't remember the name of the restaurant exactly, but it was Joe's something. It had many newspaper articles on the crab/pork meat dumpling on the window. According to the Zagat, that place is "excellent" and other articles were similarly praising this dumpling, recounting a proper way to eat a hot dumpling without burning one's tongue. It turned out to be almost bad to my taste. But I took many photos inside, while people were staring at this weird girl who came alone, taking photos of random things with a huge camera.

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Brain Talk