Awakenings

There is, for the most part, not a single place in the world better suited for street photography than New York City, where the streets are always alive, and the sidewalks transcend their usual role of walking paths and are instead, the very life of the metropolis. The street photography project made me see this life in a whole new way, recognizing beauty and activity in every aspect of my day, and with every snap of my camera shutter.
My projects theme was the people of New York. Deciding on a theme was an interesting and thought provoking experience. It amazed me that it was so difficult to think of a theme in a city as bustling as this one. After racking my brain, without coming up with anything that sparked any true interest in me, I decided that New York is too big and vibrant to analyze or examine without first experiencing it. With this in mind, I decided that I’d just walk around the city, live it and take pictures as I did so. I figured that the pictures I took would speak for themselves. I simple brought my camera with me for walks in the city, and indeed, they started to form a theme on their own. I came upon this realization after noticing that all of my pictures seemed to be peering into the faces on New Yorkers. Looking back at my photos was like a log of my stream of consciousness, one point of interest to another, and nearly all of these points of interest suggested a fascination with the people of New York. And so, it was not so much that I chose my theme, but more that I stumbled upon it simply because it is what I love about New York.
The thing I enjoyed most about this project was that it highlighted the parts of New York City that I had started to take advantage of. My senses had started to dull to the things that had once stirred an intense sense of awe in me when I first moved here. So it was much to my amazement that this project awakened that feeing with every frame I shot. I once again looked at the crowds as insane messes of thousands of different personalities, rather than a horde of commuters getting in the way of me and my given destination. At one point, I looked at a puddle on 23rd street and was taken aback by the beauty of the reflection of a building in the water. It was as though the camera lens gave me a whole new angle from which to view the streets that I had started to become so accustomed to.
Although the project was very enjoyable, it was also fairly difficult to take pictures that I was actually satisfied with. I constantly felt that I had to be on the move, so as to avoid conflict, so I didn’t have a lot of time to frame a good shot. I used a really low quality camera and had some major difficulties getting adjusted to the settings because I am used to manual 35 mm cameras that I have a lot more control over. Eventually, I decided that quantity would have to take precedence over quality, and simply started shooting as often as I could. This method proved to be effective because as I became less concerned with getting a good shot, and more concerned over capturing every point of interest available to me, I started to get better pictures. In fact, my favorite picture is one of a girl walking past. The photo is incredibly grainy but the spontaneity of the photo created a really interesting composition and makes for a shot that truly depicts the fast paced nature of the city that I love so much. The photo was shot in a split second, without even looking into the viewfinder, but I take pride in it because I captured a moment so that others can appreciate it.
Overall, this project was a really good experience. It was a really welcome break from the usual nitty gritty assignments that I get in my other classes. It felt amazing to get to express myself creatively and to push myself to actually start, and finish an art project, which is something that I hadn’t don’t since I left home three months ago. Photography as a medium is perfectly suited for the liveliness of New York and it was a pleasure to partake in it.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, November 27th, 2007 at 11:38 am and is filed under