American Dream

My theme for the street photography project is American dream. I want to express my feeling towards American dream that doesn’t exist anymore. Throughout my photographs, I try to tell the viewer the hardship of immigrants, came to find a better life, in the New York City. With the ideology of American dream, these immigrants, who were doctors and businessmen in their old country, came to America only to find themselves washing dishes and selling fake merchandise off the street. I also connected to the new immigrants because my parent went through the same struggle. Living in a Chinese community myself, I want my photographs to be dark and serious.

For me, I separate my photography into two sections, each with a different purpose and meaning. For the black and white photographs, I take photographs of only hard working immigrants in New York. I believe with black and white style I can best portray the daily life of immigrants. For my colored photographs, they represent hope, and some of the colored photographs will be used to illustrate some of my feelings not relating to immigration. I think by categorizing my photography this way, I can find a better balance that will be clean and direct.

I have never done street photography before, thus this is my first experience. I was surprised that I was nervous. Shooting photographs in crowded locations such as Chinatown and Flushing made me uncomfortable, I was always afraid of the stares from the crowd. In the beginning, I would hesitate to shoot photography up close of people, fearing they would be offended. I think my biggest accomplishment during the street photography is having the courage to ask people if I can photograph them.

For my first photograph of Manhattan, I was bothered by the frame. I did not want to include the whole view, yet unable to decide which part of Manhattan I should photography. In the end, I decided to use this frame because it allowed me to include the trees, which showed how far away I was from the building. Without much experience with the camera, the focus of the photograph represented precisely what I wanted the skyscrapers in Manhattan to be like. I wanted the building to be there yet blurring.

It was also difficult to take picture of street vendors as well as the workers in the supermarket in Chinatown because the crowd was in constant motion. I had to wait for the right moment. Since I took these photographs at afternoon, I had to battle with the diminishing brightness from the sun. Using the black and white style, I was able to convey my ideas at the same time avoiding the empty darkness in these photographs. The black and white style created depth to my photographs.

I took all of my photographs in Flushing while walking home. The photograph with the chef, preparing food, was the first one I took. I could have only included the chef, but I decided to include the food at the left as well. I wanted to frame this way was because I want to show the viewer the job of the chef, chopping the same type of food over and over again for days. I want to point out that new immigrants came to America to make a living; they didn’t care about their interest in the job as long as they are getting paid.

For the colored photograph of a street in Chinatown, I had the option to shoot it from the closer street corner or the farther one. I decided to shoot from the farther street corner because I wanted the photograph to have a shape, with the street narrowing in the end. I regretted that I took the photograph in the afternoon, there wasn’t any detail about the building in the photographed that I wished I included. Every time I walked in Chinatown, I would always compare it to cities in China, the familiar Chinese signs and traditional Chinese stores. The street photography project gave me an opportunity to share about my opinions that could only be explained by photography.

With my last photograph of sunset, there is still hope that American dream still exists for someone. But the truth is that, gradually, the window of opportunity is closing, like the sunset.