TD PH1300 - Intro to Photographic Practise Journal

Part Three - Street & Documentary TD

Street photography: can be quite unpredictable, as I cannot control the environment in which I am working in, however sometimes happy accidents happen which ads an atmosphere or a property to the images. “The Decisive Moment” is you anticipate the moment and capture it at the right time, I took this technique to the streets of Liverpool were I had to come up with a set of street photography images that are strong.

My first image is of a girl walking towards bus stations, what instantly draws me to this image is the patterns and repetition of the stations in the background, the dark structure stands out but not too much that it distracts the viewer away from the girl.

With my second photo it’s a very different scene its of a girl protecting her face with her bag as it torrential rains, what I love about the image is how I have framed and positioned the girl, with the negative space I find it draws the viewer in. I picked to use this image because I feel empathy and a character within it.

 

I chose to use the man with the saxophone as my third image as the instrument stands out a lot grabbing the viewers attention, its as if the saxophone is over exposed because its so punchy and eye catching. By making the foreground sharp and in focus it throws out the background again making it easier to catch the attention of viewers. I feel that the image is calm and relaxed but in reality it’s completely opposite. 

For my last street photography photo I took an image of a man standing there looking at something, because I haven’t captured what it is he’s looking at it makes myself and the viewers question what is it that’s so intriguing and got him dazing. I really like how he’s standing in the middle in focus wearing vibrant colours making the image more attracting, it also helps that his surrounding are mainly black and white.

Documentary- The Photo Story: With street photography I wasn’t always able to control the environment however with the photo story I was because my subjects knew I was taking photos of them, my story was based around different types of dog walkers in one park (Victoria Park) I had to approach people and ask them questions and get to them and their dogs. At first I was nervous and scared of the reactions I would get but after a few goes I was happy and built up confidence.

I had to take into consideration different elements, which would help me to produce great images that would tell a story, some of these were the Natural Light, Background Viewpoint and Eye Level. By taking them into consideration it had helped me with the compositions and variety of images I was able to produce.

My first image is of a woman walking her two King Charles spaniel in the early hours of the morning I used a zoom lens to capture this image unlike my other images this women didn’t know I was taking photos of her this created a natural feel that isn’t staged. I get a sense that she trusts her dogs and they trust her she’s not even looking to see if they are following her they just know to follow.

Because this image was took in the morning its very calm and cold and I find that because I used a zoom lens it works very well, I love how the floor leads to the subjects which are in focus and the background is blurry drawing the viewer into the centre of the image. The caption for this photo is "Early morning dog walk"

My next photo is of a women with her Great Dane, this is my personal favourite because of how the dog stands in front of the women as if its protecting her, I get a sense of loyalty and pride from the dog. This image works very well because of the contrast between the dog and the owner, the dog stands there big and tall protecting the old timid owner it really expresses the relationship between them.

Caption- "The Proud & Loyal Dog

Another photo that I am happy about is of Sam the dog he is a mixed breed of Collie and Corgi, the more I spoke to his owner the more I got to learn about him, unlike the Great Dane Sam was only interested in his toy he could run around for hours. The composition is quite strong I find

Caption- Sam the happy energetic Mixed Breed

Each time I went to the park to take photos I improved in myself and my photos got better and I built up the courage approach more dog owners, the first time I went my photos weren’t very good I wasn’t on eye level with the dogs so the more I criticised myself and others gave me constructive criticism the better I got.