Presence

Magnum photographer Simon Wheatley, originally uploaded by martin_fuchs.

I don't know anything about this man, other than the fact that he is a photographer. Like the wedding portrait I blogged on a few weeks back, I am amused to see a photographer so well photographed. I like how the subject's intensity is captured underneath the harsh sunlight. The lighting is far from ideal, and yet, the results look great. When I look at a portrait like this, I realize that my own work has got a long way to go. I can't even begin to guess how this shot looks so clean.

Maybe it's as simple as just telling a person to stand facing the sun, a "look at me", and then snap. But something tells me it's not that easy. Problems normal people have with a shot like this are nowhere to be found: washed out/overexposed forehead & nose, dark clothing blending in with dark background, blown out sky in background, lack of detail under harsh lighting, etc.

The execution of this shot is just spot on. The crop and composition are great. There's no superfluous space above the head, and the positioning of the subject 1/3 of the way into the frame is classic and works well. The crazy steel ladder and beams to the right strangely work nicely to balance out the rest of the photo. The skyline of the city in the back then grounds the photo and gives us an interesting background. This is a great example of how landscape orientation is just as suited for portraiture as portrait orientation is.

Disembodied

Chang Le Road, Shanghai, originally uploaded by Susu.

One really exciting element of photography is discovery. I'm not sure if anyone ever thinks "today, I'm going to shoot mannequins." Plastic torsos can be categorized underneath found objects. It's not like nature or landscape, where you start with an idea of what is beautiful or interesting, and then go out and find it. Broken down body parts like the ones above are definitely something you find on accident, perhaps on the way to the corner store. This is why cameras must never be left behind on even the shortest of errands. Out of toothpaste? Better get your camera. Who knows what's out there waiting to be discovered.

I would have loved to be confronted with a window display like the one above. I feel that the gestures and positioning of those arms and legs really speak to me. In the front, oblivious to its own state of disrepair, a pair of slender legs poses daintily. Below it, a figure that has not only lost its head, but has fallen over heels lies in an awkward position. Behind, a final poised half-figure with back turned to us pretends to restore order to clumps of discarded rubbish. Whoever threw these leftover mannequins in this heap must have had a real eye for composition.

I also like the starkness of the bright white, clearly defined, figures surrounded by darkness. This is all that remains of some forgotten boutique or department store: an eerie reverie. It reminds me of Shelley's Ozymandias that thoroughly unimpressed me in middle school, and later proved to be poignantly appropriate when used in Alan Moore's Watchmen (hopefully not overly melodramatic when inserted here):

I met a traveller from an antique land,
Who said--"Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desart....Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed;
And on the pedestal, these words appear:
My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings,
Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair!
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal Wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away."

Crossing

the city, originally uploaded by abre/tus/ojos.

Lighting is everything. Just like how a beautiful model can be ruined by poor lighting, a bustling intersection can be reduced to a static mess of indistinct blobs when shot without consideration of the light source. With the right eye, however, and careful attention paid to natural available light, a simple scene (above) of people crossing the street can be transformed into something magical.

What I love about the lighting here is that the low angle of the sun casts the shadows of the pedestrians down onto the striped crosswalk, adding strips of dark, textureless shadow to the alternating bands of bright reflective white and gritty black asphalt. It almost looks like the white stripes are rays of light stretching down from the upper left. And whereas I might have blindly just tried to shoot silhouettes of back-lit pedestrians, abre/tus/ojos has chosen at angle about 45 degrees from perpendicular to the sun's rays, that has captured the pedestrians with a thin slivers of side-lit highlight. It's just perfect.

Tilting the camera slightly down, he's cropped out any potentially distracting sky or buildings. What is left is a full frame of crosswalk. With the amazing highlights, each person is discreet and clearly visible. I like the sharpness of the forms, making it seem as if we have paused a bustling scene. It feels as if the serenity of the moment might be broken with one false move. And I wonder, are these people on their way to work, energized and invigorated by the rays of a new day's sun? Or are their steps heavy after a long day's work, aching, yet rushing to get home.

Lineup

Untitled, originally uploaded by Jersey Yen.

I loved this shot when I first saw it because of how nearly perfectly everyone is lined up against the wall there. You've got this one horizontal strip of light, nicely highlighting these commuters waiting for the train. It boggles my mind how each one of these people can simultaneously be so emotive. The body language and relationships of their individual silhouettes with each other and the tile background speaks volumes: lethargy, exhaustion, impatience, resignedness, intimacy, friendship, detachedness.

The blur and the skew are both elements that might be considered flaws, but are actually adding to the photograph. I like how the fuzzy forms are kind of mirroring the fuzzy quality of the lighting. That undulating bank of fluorescent lamps above reinforce this off kilter feel of the slanted platform and tired commuters. The thing here to ground us is the station placard, proclaiming the location to be Taipei, the two Chinese characters close to being swallowed by the shadows.

This photograph isn't a favorite just because it captured a feeling, though. It's a favorite because it evokes a feeling. When I looked at this for the first time, there was an immediate recognition. I've stood on that platform before. I've felt like that before underneath those nasty fluorescent lights, sandwiched by darkness. I feel like each one of those people on that platform represent a place I've been at one point. The photo reminds me of all the times I've taken the train to the east coast of Taiwan, in a sour mood about being away from my girlfriend in Taipei. In a way, I feel like this photograph is a memory of mine.

Lastly, I should mention the camera used to take this shot. It's the (in)famous Lomo LC-A. The lomo costs $200 and reigns supreme as king of the "toy camera/lo-fi" hill. Down the line, I'll have an example of color night photography done with a Lomo because the images that come out of this camera can also be shockingly saturated.