Saul Leiter

Saul Leiter is an American artist and photographer. As a teenager, he studied painting and photography in Pittsburgh and moved to New York. Saul Leiter Street Photography Collection inspired me. Saul Leiter’s entire Street Photography Collection is about standing at the crossroads of fashion and abstract expression of street photography. The series is influenced by shapes, colors, and turning reality into Saul Leiter’s own vision. In my opinion, Saul Leiter’s photography often includes blurry subjects, reflections of the rainwater or window, and motion to create a unique abstract expression. Saul Leiter once said that everything is worth photographing. Walking in the streets of New York, he shot everything with the kind of freedom that allowed him to experiment with his photos.

Package, 1960

The photograph shows a passenger with a package in his hand and walking in the land of snow behind a moist glass window. The first time I saw this photo, my eye was drawn to the massive man in the middle and how his body was blurry. I like how he settled the image into a cold color tone. I like how he leaves the man blurry to show that he is moving and uses the raindrop to decorate the frame further. He used Negative space to leave enough empty space around the subject, the man in the middle. He also used raindrops to frame the whole photo. The entire image didn’t use many light techniques. Still, the tiny light source beam in the top left corner is attractive and unique. Looking at his body movement and facial expression, I assume the man is in a hurry or too cold and wants to find somewhere warm. His blurry figure shows that he is moving fast. In this photo, the technique used depth of field to throw different parts of an image in and out of focus. While this sometimes brought attention to a subject in the photo, it was also a way to simply play with abstracting objects. The artist used a long shutter speed to preserve the figure of the man and show the message of how fast rhythm is in New York City; Everyone is in a hurry. Leiter focused the camera on nowhere; the raindrops are the most straightforward thing you can visually see in this image. From looking at this image, he used an extended depth of field aperture setting. This use of an extended depth of field aperture setting tells the view where he purposely blurred. He must used a shutter speed that is not too short cause you know he reserves the motion, and I really like it.

How Does the image inspire?

Saul Leiter’s street collection highly inspired me by his unique perspective of framing and how he connects reflection with this kind of blurry motion style. Leiter has said that he never went searching for a photo. The photos, instead, will come to you. By simply standing in a place and being observant, you will notice that, while standing at one point and looking carefully, there are always tremendous and unique scenes you can take. I tried this idea once in ISB because my legs hurt too much. I was sitting in one spot, and I found a lot of super special and unique scenes. I will also try his technique of relating this motion photo with a reflection by taking a photo in the rain, after the rain, or behind a piece of glass.

https://www.eyeem.com/blog/10-lessons-we-can-learn-from-street-photographer-saul-leiter

https://www.saulleiterfoundation.org/

Mind Map:

What will your message be?

Think about what the audience should feel when they see your final presentation:

I want my final photography project to be more of a storytelling reflection photography project. Instead of taking regular reflection on buildings or architecture, my project should include motion, emotion, and connection with the locals.

One of the techniques that I can use in taking storytelling philosophical photos is the rule of thirds. Since a philosophical storytelling photo has a massive chance of implying a chaotic scene, using the ‘rule of thirds is essential to stabilize and organize the frame. The leading line has the same function in organizing and stabilizing the frame. The wide angle with the wide-angle camera is very often during a philosophical storytelling photo. The frame was taken with a wide-angle camera, which creates a better visual use of impact and story. The black and white filter is also a wise choice for storytelling and philosophical photography cause the black and white creates a sense of higher sense and empathy in your picture. Using symbolic methods can incorporate an article into deeper meanings related to the story you want to tell and is in your photo. During every day’s sunrise and sunset, the sky and the whole city imply a color of gold or yellow. During that time, the rays of light shuttle through every building and reflect over anything reflective. Taking photos in one of the two golden hours in a day interprets your frame into a more inviting atmosphere.

Revising Favorite Personal Photo: Compare your favorite images to the others.

What I like about this photo is the scene of a person’s reflection of two of his shadow displayed in one capture. I like how my photo is set in black and white, creating a better, more meaningful, philosophical feeling and attracting the viewer. Unlike these everyday landscape photos, this photo contains a theme: the relationship between the physical and internal you.

I like the mood of this photo. The photo is brisk and vivid, and this is a shot during my field trip to Sichuan. The photo does not strictly refer to any story but captures some of my important moments. The meaning of photography is to turn your significant moment into eternity.

I took this photo in Hong Kong by accident. I was walking toward the subway station when I saw this scene. I felt lucky to know this moment: A plant placed in unarmed houses still thrives on the light of street lamps. I took this photo because I thought the plant’s spirit could inspire people born in harsh conditions and tell them to never give up. In my point, the meaning of photography, other than capturing moments, can inspire and stimulate people. However, these photos with Philosophic Theory are rare.

I like the landscape and the blur of the boat. The blur of the ship really shows it is moving interstate, which is a lively photo. The photo is like a particular video video. Taking this kind of photo( blurry subject with clear surroundings) could be one of my styles later. Maybe it will become the primary current in photography, and I will be famous.

Statement of intent

I found that taking the motion with a subject would interest me. I thought about taking these extreme storing-telling philosophical photos(tell you a lesson through photos), which was my initial idea. But later on, by revising my experience of photography. These scenes are sporadic and probabilistic. So, finally, I decided to take the motion with a subject-style photo, which better captures some critical moments and interprets the meaning of photography. If I can take a meaningful philosophical photo, I will still take it, which will be great. The working title of my project is “Dynamic Bejing.” I” want my audience ” to feel uniqueness, integration, and authenticity. I will get inspiration and develop my ideas by looking for photographs with vivid subjects and clear backgrounds to show motion. However, putting this style into reflection is going to be challenging.

Mood Map:

-Image contains reflection often tells a story or a principle.

-Light is a great source of reflection. mirror, water and glass are also some common resources where you can utilize reflection.

-By using reflection, the viewer’s can see the world in a different angle.

-Reflection makes a common things meaningful.

-Reflection really rely on your technique of use of angle

-You can take a photo of a common thing but in the reflection there is some additional component on that common thing. For example,

Lee Friedlander

Lee Friedlander is a American photographer known for his innovative use of reflections and frames Her photo often includes some new style of framing and reflection by mirrors and other reflection articles. Friedlander often use window, rearview mirror to reflects event or special things happened on the street or shops mostly in new york.

Naoya Hatakeyama

Naoya Hatakeyama was born in japan and was really interesting in all kinds of human activity and city’s beauty. His tokyo collection shows the relationship between nature and the culture of city. His artwork is often setted in unexpected perspectives which gives the viewer a interesting experience of viewing his artwork.

Lisette Model

Lisette Model is a person. She likes to use mostly glass as a reflection tool to reflect onto these urban setting where there is often a relationship between the people and their environment. Her theme is always on the relationship between a subject and it’s surrounding.

Antonio Gutiérrez Pereira

Antonio Gutiérrez Pereira is a human lived on earth who takes photo of earth’s creature. Antonio has a speacial method of twisting their face after a bottle or sometime transparent. By using this method, she wanted her viewer to understand person’s identity and the representation of the nature of photographic.

Robert Holden

Robert Holden is an American photographer who likes to travel. His work often contains personal narrative stuff and experience. His way of blending his personal travel stuff and story with broader social themes lets his work to stands out amount the others.

In summary,

Even though all of these photographer use different techniques and object and subjects in their photo, their work all contains the relationship between human and the nature environments by using reflection, framing, distortions.

Firstly, I got a tiny skeleton character, so I decided to from a scene of a skeleton cutting down  trees. By using Rule of Forth and Balance, i divided the whole photo by fourth even lines and placed the skeleton character on the second line to the right and other lines with the stick. By getting very low on the ground, I create this very unique perspective of this tiny character cutting down tree. The sticks behind represents trees and the skeleton, which often represents death. This photo is a powerful reminder for human being that cutting down trees can cause irreversible damage to our environment and ecosystems. It also tells us the selfishness and greed of most human beings.

Rule of Thirds

I placed the Cybertruck on the left bottom corner while the Lamborgini (yellow car) on the top right corner of the 3×3 grid.

The Cybertruck located at the bottom line while the line of the stairs is in the middle. This creates a balance.

Leading Lines

The basketball court line guide viewer’s eye towards the cybertruck. It seems like a road and leads the car forwards.

The edge of the water fountain creates a scene of a car driving on a bridge. The guide line guides the car and there it will move to.

Symmetry and Patterns

While the symmetrical pattern of different intensity of shadow is not balanced, I placed the cybertruck to the left to create a symmetrical and balanced scene.

The identical pattern of the bricks and the differentiate of the light on each side of the wall creates a visual appealing to the cybertruck.

Framing

I used natural grass to frame the Cybertruck. The moral of the grass guides viewer’s eye towards the Cybertruck.

The two pillar frames the Cybertruck and balenced the whole photo.

Depth of Field

The blurs background emphasized the subject, the cybertruck. I should have..

The blurs door of the heater transfers a feeling of cliff.

Negative Space

I saw there two huge empty display stands, so I placed my two tiny toy car on it to create a sence of negative space. And the photo is really balanced since it is equally divided.

There are nothing around the car and creates an empty space to solitary the car.

Balance

This photo creates a sence of negative space but the sence of balance has been completely shown in the photo. The three display stands equally divide the photo into three equal parts.

The earth is not balanced but the cybertruck is. This photo shows balance in another way.

Perspective

I took this photo from the bottom of the ground to the sky which creates an usual perspective. But anyways, the cybertrunk was not the best object to put there.

I took this photo from the top of the car.