When I first attempted this project, I strove to emulate Lartigue in two ways. The first, of course, was to capture an instance of joie de vivre, that irrepressible liveliness that we so often see in his work. The second was to capture this moment sponatneously, to seek this happiness in an observed, rather than controlled, setting. This led me to New York City, a place, I assumed, that abounded with subjects only waiting for me to immortalize them in print. The result was, I think, partially successful. Like Lartigue, I found inspiration in my surroundings, using the medium of a snapshot to offer cultural insight; just as Lartigue's photographs have become iconic symbols of Parisian life in the twentieth century, we can say that my own endeavor to depict Brooklyn life in the twenty-first. However, as photographs, I do not think that they are my best work. I struggled with factors such as lighting and exposure, as well as including unwanted subjects in the frame of the image. The photographer's inability to manipulate these variables seems to be a two-edged sword: this same characteristic can lead to both endearingly messy images that portray the chaos of our environment with honesty, or the amateurish effect of a snapshot taken without thought to formal choices.
This failure led me to reconsider my origial proposal. Recalling what had gone wrong the first time, I chose to sacrifce my conceptual goal of discovering joie de vivre spontaneously, in the hopes of improving the end result, (the photographs posted above.) I think that despite a greater deviation from Latigue's example, these are stronger images. One of the most difficult areas of the shoot was working with the lighting. Although I think that the quality of the lighting, (overcast rather than idyllicaly sunny,) lends interest conceptually, it also made correcting exposure more of a challenge.
Hannah, much better images here and a nice written reflection. I particularly like the images of Rosie playing hop-scotch and the final swing image - here she looks almost like a doll, swinging and thinking on a cloudy day. The swing image is not exactly joyous, but it freezes a really interesting moment. Nicely done.
ReplyDeleteSome of your images are a little soft, but I can understand this is due to using a high ISO on a day that didn't provide much light.
"This led me to New York City, a place, I assumed, that abounded with subjects only waiting for me to immortalize them in print. The result was, I think, partially successful."
Your commentary on NYC/Brooklyn is wonderful. So many artists - much older and more experienced than you and I - assume that travels will present subjects for them... In my opinion, it's certainly worth shooting these experiences, but it's best not to have particular expectations.