City and Mountain: My Two Homes

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The theme for my street photography project was unplanned for the most part. I started out by carrying my digital camera around with me whenever I went out and basically just took pictures of anything I thought was worth taking a picture of. I didn’t have an idea in mind, but simply capturing some images was the first part. When I found out that our topic didn’t need to be constricted to just city streets, more ideas came to me. My mom, who takes pictures of anyone and anything, gave me tips on how to take pictures by dividing the image into sections before taking a photo. So this year when I went to Alaska for a summer trip, I used those techniques to take good photographs. Since I knew I had good photographs from Alaska and good photographs from the city, I decided to combine the two topics into one.

Brooklyn is my home. I was born and raised here and love it. There’s no place I’d rather live than in New York. But for the past two years I’ve gone to Alaska on a wilderness trip and I have been the leader of the trip, working with the project coordinator/founder to organize everything. Over this time, I have grown to love the wilderness. Being in the city all the time, I love being able to get away from it all with the beautiful views and experiences nature has to offer. From these experiences, I now want to own a summer home in Alaska in the future and have already started talking to the project founder about taking over his house in Alaska when he decides to sell it. I’ve adapted so well to the culture change and I feel like Alaska is a home to me because of my comfort level there. With all that being said, this was the inspiration behind my joint topic. Brooklyn IS my home but Alaska gives me a homely feeling. I wanted to join these two places to show who I am and the environment I am surrounded by.

New York is known for its constant movement and liveliness. Alaska is known for its scenic views and snowy mountains. You would think that taking photographs of views would be easier in the wilderness because all it is is nature, no real liveliness. But that wasn’t the case for me. I had most of my trouble taking the photographs in Alaska. One image that was especially difficult to capture was the image titled, “Eagle at Ease.” Being on the water and moving, it was hard to get close to the eagle without startling it. I had to be very silent while taking my camera out and then I had to focus the camera on the eagle while still maintaining the background shot. It took me a few tries before I was finally able to capture the image successfully.

Aside from the challenging or un-challenging aspects of taking these photographs, I also had some luck. For example, the image titled, “The Sky is Falling” was simply fortunate timing for me. After sleeping on a mountain, I woke up to clouds and fog covering over the mountain tops that were next to us. I basically stumbled upon it. There was nothing difficult about it, just luck. Another lucky photograph I captured was “The Speed of Light.” I took this photo while trying to capture any images I could of street photography around my neighborhood before I had a set topic. I was walking around taking pictures of cars, street signs, stores, etc. While taking a picture of traffic moving along my street, a taxi cab happened to have drove past my camera as I was shooting the picture. What came out was a stream of light that I thought worked well and looked good. To me, it captures the idea that the city is constantly moving at a pace we can’t keep up with, and that the lights of the city holds the power that dominates the city, as shown in my photograph, “Night Light from Brooklyn.” At night time, lights from all over (cars, buildings, street lights) fill the city with color and energy, which make the city what it is.

The two different focuses in my street photography project are completely different yet they each possess their own significance and splendor. These photographs aren’t just pictures to me. They hold meaning too…which may be why I decided on these certain photos to display.

I did not use any photo shop for any of the photos because I tried to keep the images just as they were when I shot them and didn’t want to alter their appearance.