Old Man with Disabilities But is Not Disabled

On the weekend, I decided to take a photograph in South Luogu Lane. I walked for the entire day, but I didn’t find any good-looking photographs because there were too many people. It was way too cold, and both of my hands were freezing; I could not persist anymore, so I decided to go home. Before I went to the subway station, I found this old blind man playing with his erhu. He seems very immersed but people go past by didn’t really care that he is there. So, I found this was going to be a good moment to show how people were passing by, but the old man was still immersed in his music. I found a corner where there weren’t too many people walking. In my camera, I placed the old men on the first line of the 3×3 box. And then, I am waiting for people to pass by the old men so I can show how people neglect the music. To show the people moving, inspired by the Japanese photographer Daido Moriyama, I found out that motion is a good way to represent people walking fast. I decided to keep the people blurry to show how they are moving and to keep the old man clear to show he is concentrating on his music. I decided to use time-lapse mode to show the contrast between the people who were moving and the old men who were still. I quickly opened M mode and set the time-lapse time to 1/5. Even though this underbridge place is dark enough, the time-lapse of 1/5 still made my frame overexposed, I minimized the iso and the aperture, but it was still overexposed. Most of the photos weren’t exactly clear because I didn’t keep my hand exceptionally still because it was too cold. I took a lot of photos of this old man because it is very difficult to get exactly one person on the left and one person on the right. Also, sometimes my camera will give its focus on the walking person, but I want it to focus on the old men playing music. On this old man, I took about 200 photos, and there are only two photos that I think were successful. The first successful photo is the first one on top. I placed the old men on the left, which creates a unique angle inspired by the Japanese photographer Daido Moriyama. There were exactly two people, one going right, and one going left; I was very lucky in this photo. In Lightroom, I adjust the position so it is not tilted. Then, I made the walking people darker, and I used the mask in Lightroom to make the old men in the middle lighter and more appealing. I also added a storytelling filter because it made this photograph seem like it is complicated. Inspired by Sophie Calle, this photo shows not everything in this world is as perfect as we thought; there are always people who are struggling, but even they are working hard to find a way out. These two photographs also perfectly reflect what I wanted.