A month ago, we went on a photography trip to the 798 Art Zone to take photos and explore abstract photography. We had previously written statements of intent (mine being “Finite”, which is in its own blog post).

Full contact sheet:

I took a total of 173 photos during the trip. I tried to emulate Andreas Gursky’s style. However, it was difficult to find subjects that matched his since the Art Zone used to be a factory/worksite if I remember correctly, so it is, therefore, more industrial (whereas Gursky’s photos feel more liminal and sometimes staged and perfect). I also took quite a few industrial photos since they match my statement of intent and because the Art Zone is full of opportunities for those.

“Yellow” contact sheet: 798 Photos – Yellow

I chose these photos since I felt that they best fit the style I was going for and my statement of intent. In my opinion, these photos reflect things that we often overlook in our lives – clouds, outlets, factories (specifically, the process in a factory where things we use are made), the past (telephone), et cetera.

“Red” contact sheet: 798 Photos – Green (I’ve accidentally labeled this contact sheet as “Green”. Please forgive me for the error.)

Out of these 8 photos, I’ve envisioned two triptychs (though I’m still thinking about titles).

Option 1 will be made up of photos 1, 6, and 7. These photos (except for the clouds one) were taken by pressing my phone’s camera against something and taking a photo of the blurry, dark result, which doesn’t look like much at all, but one could still make out some composition – foreground, background, etc. These images match my statement of intent since people often look at photos taken by professional photographers or stock photographers and completely overlook the artistic elements of the photos. Before I took photography, composition would be the last thing I’d be thinking about whenever I was looking for stock photos – which is funny, since I was overlooking the things that the photographer was doing to make the photo actually look good.

Option 2 would be the three industrial photos: 2, 3, and 8. I applied the silvertone filter to these images using my phone. They match my statement of intent since factories and industrial places are where the things we use everyday are created, but we rarely think about them.