Seeing Things

My goal is to recreate the feeling of being in a dream: each image tries to convey a small contradiction or keep the viewer from being fully able to grasp what is happening in the photo. This is supposed to mirror what dreaming is like: not everything is clear or correct, but in the moment, it feels real.

I want to try to take photos of urban environments that feel especially desolate and futuristic, yet nostalgic of the era of the early 2000s, and the mentality of an “urban hell”. I would say my project is a hybrid of option three, with the core feeling being nostalgia, and option four. The parameters I set for myself were: no people, and solely photos of architecture, although I guess you could consider the trains in “Laid to Rest” as not really architecture.

I chose prompt number four, to create a set of parameters for myself. My parameter was to find one interesting physical characteristic, such as bright eyes or certain clothing color, and to work on staging photos. This characteristic eventually ended up being cool hair, and I got to collaborate with the yearbook team (who rounded up some very willing models for me to work with).

When doing documentary projects of this nature, I often end up with a smattering of individual photos that don’t work together, so my other self-requirement was to make a cohesive series. I don’t know whether or not I adhered to this one perfectly, but I definitely followed it more than usual.

My attempt at describing a recurring dream I had when I was younger. It was very abstract and hard to explain with words, but it included shapes, lights/darkness, textures, and a sort of weighted feeling.

I chose prompt 4: The greatest freedom is to have no choice. Make and write down a set of parameters within which you will work. This could be geographic, psychological, thematic or technical. The point is to make very strict and precise choices about how you will NOT work. The stricter the better.

As suggested by the title of my work, I took pictures while riding in the car (regardless of whether it was moving or still). I drew inspiration from my daily commutes — I spend a lot of time looking out the window, and I thought that it would be nice to capture some of the scenery that I see everyday.

OPTION FOUR: The greatest freedom is to have no choice. Make and write down a set of parameters within which you will work. This could be geographic, psychological, thematic or technical. The point is to make very strict and precise choices about how you will NOT work. The stricter the better.

My personal guideline was to take photos of people, both staged and candid. This was a big and somewhat uncomfortable leap for me, as I’m accustomed to mainly photographing inanimate objects. It was hard to ask people to have the permission to take their photographs, but I think it’s becoming something I’m more comfortable doing.

 

I chose option two, to take a single photograph everyday for 10 days.

I wanted to capture the essence of one’s imagination vs. the truth. Their dream vs reality. !1!!

I took a couple of pictures every day and chose one from each day. I think that taking pictures that would ‘define my life’ is impossible because, technically speaking, I’m not the same person now that I was when I took the pictures. For example, I liked my brother a lot more 5 seconds before I took his picture as opposed to 5 seconds after.

Hello!

For this assignment, I choose option 4, to work within a set of geographical, thematic, and technical guidelines to create a series. I took these pictures over a 2-hour walk from my house to Edgewood Park and back, using only a high-zoom lens (55mm to 200mm), and only of moss, lichen, and fungi.