There are so many magnificent things to photograph when it comes to New York City, so how do I even begin to find one specific theme? I had plans to go out with some of my friends the other day and I brought along a camera, hoping that something of interest will arise. I would say I am quite lucky to have found some beautiful objects to take pictures of. In the end, I ordered my photographs in the presentation in a way that can be told as a story.
At home, there are a few cameras for me to choose from; there’s my mom’s Canon digital camera, my dad’s DSLR, my brother’s Canon DSLR, or my iPhone camera. Why did I choose my brother’s camera in the end? I have only used the camera once a while back with not too much familiarity, so I decided to give myself a challenge. The lens, in comparison to that of my dad’s, is significantly lighter. The quality of photos, is also potentially better than what my mom’s camera can capture. Thus, I trekked to the city with the Canon DSLR and started to play around with the settings.
Before I started photographing away, I had looked at some photos online of professional photographers to get an idea of some techniques I am able to try to imitate. Some were also featured in Max Flatow’s photography presentation, which include the rule of third. I also made use of the depth of field. Something I noticed in certain photos was the way light was captured. One of the terms I defined in a previous assignment was bokeh, which is the way a lens can blur an image, particularly any light. There are many examples of bokeh in my presentation.
At first, I had a few themes in mind which turned out to be quite boring for me to capture. These themes, such as different foods offered in New York City or the different footwear worn by everyday New Yorkers, didn’t require much work when it came to taking pictures. It was also difficult to capture a picture of a stranger’s food or shoes without having to have an awkward confrontation. In the end, it was the challenges that I had to face that gave me an idea of what image to capture. Who would have known?
The first problem that I encountered was the time. In one of my photos, I pointed out the fact that the sun goes down quite early these days and I was caught at a bad time. It was starting to get dark and it was hard to capture a picture in a good light. I am not a fan of flash, so I decided to use other settings so that there would be enough light. I changed the shutter speed setting so that more or less light could be caught, depending on how I wanted to present the picture, which in turn, presented me a small opportunity.
Another one of the biggest challenges that came across while doing this project was presented even before I took my first shot. I was using a camera that I was very vaguely familiar with. Instead of keeping the setting on auto like I used to do most of the time, I decided to test myself and play around with all the functions and settings. My first shot was extremely horrific; the subject could hardly be made because of how blurry and shaky the photo was and the lighting was so dark that some things could not be differentiated. It took me over twenty shots to finally get a stable picture, but that didn’t mean I was satisfied with the way the image came out to be.
This challenge, not only introduced to me a potential theme for my slideshow, but also turned out to be something that could help me personalize my photos more. I mentioned earlier that I really enjoy bokeh and the way it looks. As the skies grew darker, the city lights came on, as well as the lights on the Christmas tree in Bryant Park. This gave me a chance to catch some bokeh in the background while changing up my depth of field for different subjects.
This Street Photography assignment really gave me a chance to play around with something unfamiliar to me and tested my capabilities. I have always been interested in photography but I have never had a reason or motivation to learn how to use a camera to its fullest potential or to pick it up as hobby.
