Friday, January 21, 2011

Urban Photography

The point of the urban photography project was to capture the elements and surprises of an urbanized area, by following the techniques of a selected artist, while adding in one's own twist.  I imitated the French photographer Eugene Atget's style.  His stylistic ways were mostly entitled to compostitions where the camera was facing up, which allows the buildings' size to be expressed.  He also took a lot of storefront pictures.
I looked at Atget's pictures and then tried to use some of his strategies to imitate his style, so I took a lot of my photos from different or unusual angles.  Also, I tried to capture the size of the buildings by comparing them to the long streets.  The sharp angles and geometric shapes in the picture of the long street and the picture with the three tall buildings reflect on the geometric style of Atget.







My favorite photograph from the collection above is the first.  The angle of the camera facing upward, makes the viewer feel very small, as if the buildings are towering down above them.  I also like this photo because it captures Atget's style because it is a streetview photograph.

Reflective

I used to love looking in puddles on rainy days, seeing myself in the reflection, or walking down the busy streets of San Francisco, glancing at the store windows, and seeing the other pedestrians stare back from the glass.  So when I learned of this project I knew I was going to choose reflective as my adjective.

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This photo captures the relfectiveness of a rainy day.  The wet stones portray another picture copying the real thing.  I like how some of it is a bit shaky and hard to see.  This makes the pictures look like it was not too poised.

This picture was taken inside with little light.  The table is glass so it reflects the lamp and window above.

This last picture outlines the word reflective, because whenever anybody thinks of the word, water comes to mind.  I like how the composition cuts off the rest of the pool, giving off and air of modern lines and corners.  The reflection of the house makes clear that the picture is of a pool, with the
ripples from the rain.