My artist for set 2: Naoya Hatakeyama

Naoya Hatakeyama’s six photographs:

 

Naoya Hatakeyama is a Japanese photographer who mostly take photos on the intervention on the landscape of the Earth and natural materials. Additionally, he also takes account of reflection on water. As he was born in 1958, his heyday of taking photographs were 1990s to 2010. He presented his work in many exhibitions and awarded of the Photographer of the Year Award from the Photographic society of Japan in 2003. One style that I can notice from Naoya Hatakeyama’s work is that he portraits changes that is happening from the photograph even though it does not move like a video. For example, the waves created from water demonstrates a change, and it reminds me of abstract beauty and reflection.  I generally think that Naoya Hatakeyama both take photos that are reflections of water and light because in order to reflect natural object on water it obviously need light. As can be observed from the photo above, handful of photos have a dark background while it reflects upon water. The lights from the subject can thus create reflection to the water pool. When I look at these images, I feel an impression of majesty and clear reflection. What I mean by the “majesty” of the subject is when a small change is inflicted in this photograph. The first photograph that is posted above, which is incongruous with other images, is actually similar with others since small fragments created by the explosion(?) create beautiful effects like the light and the wave does while it is reflected on water. Since the photo is not targeted on any person, I think Naoya Hatakeyama is trying to create abstractness into his photographs by differentiating the texture. One theory that I can apply to Naoya Hatakeyama’s photos is unique aesthetic value that is not widespread. Hatakeyama intentionally blurs subject, or even take focus of various subjects in one photos. These techniques are hard to find from photography.

Photo analysis

Naoya Hatakeyama-“Ciel Tombé” (Fallen Sky), 2008

Visual: The repetition of water drops that are covering the Eiffel tower is reflected upon the light of the tower and creates a unique pattern of water drops. The water drops are a 2D-shaped  shape in this photograph, while the background, The Eiffel Tower, is 3D-shaped. It is taken from the nighttime of the day, since the background of the Eiffel tower is dark and it lit its light on. Lines are difficult to observe in the image since the water drops are dominant in this image, but the color, mostly orange, of the bright, shining Eiffel tower can be clearly perceived to the audience. The artist uses both bright and dark tone, but it is hard to tell the focus of this photograph since the importance of two substance(objects) apparently seems the same. I don’t think there are rule of thirds applied in this photography, but I am not 100% sure about it.

 

Technical: One clear thing that can be noticed from this photograph is that the artist utilized great or high intensity exposure to the background so it completely blurs the Eiffel tower. That way, the audience can only predict from its familiar and renown shape that implies the Eiffel tower. The shutter speed seems moderate(250ISO, 1/150) since there are no motions that are demonstrated in this photograph. No idea of the camera type, but it is sure that Hatakeyama used sufficient lightings and exposure to create a photograph like that.

Conceptual:

As stated above, Naoya Hatakeyama’s work is a unique work that gives a feeling of another vision. For this image particularly, it gives me a impression that I am looking the Eiffel tower throughout a window while it is raining. Although the water drops are intentional work made by the artist, the special concept that I feel is that I get a natural feeling and it feels usual.

 

 

 

When I completed set 1, I could not take or think of any ideas that can relate to my concept entirely. That way, I needed a new inspiration l although I wanted to keep taking photographs on reflections on light. I generally thought that reflections upon water cannot be treated as reflection on light since the main “subject translator” comes from the water. However, I changed my opinion and thought again that reflection on water originally comes from sunlight or other sources that emit light. That way I want to take photos like Naoya Hatakeyama, that both uses water and light to create abstract work. In conclusion, I can not wade away from my original starting point, and can take photos that are not theoretically exactly same from the last set, so feel less bored and more motivated.

 

 

Contact Sheet Annotations

All photos:

 

The Yellow Selection:

 

The Green Selection:

 

The Red selection:

Annotations:

All photos to Yellow selection:

Although my vision of taking photos that was reflected on light was the same, it was not exactly the same since I also focused on reflection on water so it demonstrated a reflection of an object. The most ideal example I can found from my set of photos is photo 1 from the screen shot above. This photo contains a reflection of my sneakers on a Saturday morning. The bright sunlight and reflective glass window makes another silhouette of my sneakers. That way, it creates a lot of abstract beauty into my project, and it could be selected as a yellow selection. In contrast, photos that were faraway from my vision was removed from the yellow selection. For example, photo 16 did not fit with my vision well mainly because of two reasons: 1, I could not take any signs of reflections, and it could not create abstract beauty. That way, although it is not written on the contact sheet, I crossed out photo 16 and wrote “no reflections, no beauty and can give the audience a big confusion.

The Yellow selection to The Green selection

As stated above, the majority of the yellow selection portraits reflection on something. What decided between the range of yellow or green was the similarity between Naoya Hatakeyama’s photographs. When I observed his renown photographs, it created a replica of a object and the water part of the reflection shone with light. Photo 1,2, and 3 from the green selection fits with Naoya Hatakeyama’s work as it makes another silhouette of the subject, whether it is created by light, water, or both.  Although some reflections were created in photo 14 and 15 from the yellow selection, it did not matched with my artist that I got mostly inspired of. In conclusion, I crossed out photo 14 and 15 and wrote “reflection that is not unique; it does not fit well with my vision that have to match a little bit of Hatakeyama’s work.

The Green selection to The Red selection

This step was the most difficult step to take while I was organizing my photos. The last aspect that I wanted for the photos to be selected as the red selection was beauty. Not only the photos that were selected as red photos had perfect reflection on certain objects, but also it had abstract beauty and pointed out a unique technique while taking a photo. Additionally, another similarity I can found after I collected three photos in the red selection was that there was a specific subject to make audience more focused. In contrast, photo 3 from the green selection have an ambiguous subject that it could not express beauty well as other photos. That way, i crossed out images like photo 3 and wrote “no specific subject, reflection cannot be delivered clearly.

 

Critique of Red Images

My first red photo, as discussed earlier, portraits my own sneakers that gets reflected by a glass window and sunlight. This photo contains sufficient reflection take take account of two different elements, and creates anew silhouette. I got inspired by Naoya Hatakeyama who similarly created a replica when he used any reflections. Formulating a new 3D-shaped subject is perceived as an unique technique because it is not considered as abstract photography nor street photography. Next time though, I would try increase the shutter speed and intensify the exposure settings of the background to see what would happen if I did that.

My second red photo demonstrates the reflection of water, and the main subject is the building. Although the maximum, vertical point of the real building cannot be predicted, it can be approximately guessed because the reflection can show the audience a wider range. There are four different buildings that are reflected upon water, which creates a diversity of abstract beauty as it create unique shape by each compartment, and the texture of the water generates the audience of a soft impression. Next time, I would try to take photos of the whole building so I can compare the reflected silhouette and the real building itself.

Last but not least, the third photo of my red selection have a lot of subject. The main subject is a person walking down the school hallway. Other photos from above usually utilize water as a reflection tool, but the shiny floor from the school and lightings could create a silhouette of a person even though it was not water. I was very surprised that the floor could reflect the subject very easily, so this photograph made its way to the red selection although the vision was slightly off-wards from Naoya Hatakeyama’s work. If there is a chance to enhance my project, I would try to input more color on the silhouette, so it does not become dim as it is shwon in the photograph below.