Our class selected eight photograph’s in total, dividing it in half of colored and black-and-white photograph’s. I believe that all individual photograph’s has its potential of street photography in various perspectives, atmosphere, features, etc. The selected photograph’s are based on how they blend well with each other, how the mood is matching, and how it shows similar textures. The main topic of the selection refers to “the daily life in China,” therefore the photograph’s capturing natural moments of people, streets, architecture, food, and culture. Not only including various traditional features, but also the usage of frame, composition, color tones, and light grabs the viewers attention, which leads to an increase of engagement. At last, the selected eight photograph’s represents the very definition of street photography with its unposed moments creating an eye-catching scene.

First, the colored photograph’s with its naturally colored color tones represent not only China’s historical element, but also the busy life in every corner of the Hutong’s. To point out the photograph that captured the moment of the yellow food store, the photograph significantly caught the blend of the natural movement of the lady inside the store, the bit of sunlight joining the frame, and the steam of freshly cooked food. The lady’s movement relates to the definition of street photography-a skill of photography that focuses on the natural, daily moments with the sense of beauty in our life.

Besides the store photograph, all four of them creates an inclusive atmosphere, especially with the eye-level composition, natural movements, warm color tones. The eye-level composition greatly represents how street photography is taken in unplanned, or immediate situations. The natural movements of various populations increases the daily mood with some excitement, adding some engagement as well.

Next, for the monotoned photograph’s, they deeply captured the texture and depth of the Chinese culture. The various contrast of light and dark colors increases the depth, which leads to the long Chinese history. Focusing on the street photograph that shows the different agricultures and populations in China, the photograph deepens the shadow created by the natural light.

1. A snapshot of all your pictures from the day

2. 3X3 of the top 9 pictures

3. Top 3 pictures

The first photograph is my top 1 photograph of the trip. The perfect symmetry of the lining stores really increases the completeness of the photograph. As Sally Davies influenced me to take photo’s that captures the symmetrical elements, or the geometrical elements, I believe that this photo made my statement of intent to become true. Additionally, the various colors of bright red, yellow, green, and white catches the viewers eyes, which can be related to the rich Chinese culture. The top part of the photograph that shows the redness of the lanterns also represents the Chinese culture blended with daily moments, also creating a rhythmic sense of flow and guides the viewers through the space of inviting light.  The man eating the food at the right side increases curiosity of what the man is eating. The usage of light in the photograph that focuses on the man is also an aspect that makes the photograph more complete and natural.

The second photograph is what I would say as my top 2 photograph. I really like how the two stores create a sense of symmetry with the geometric shape of the rectangular store. The photograph captures the interaction between the people and the food, relating to daily life moments as well. Also, the natural sunlight facing the stores gives the warm and calming atmosphere with its colors, including brown, yellow, and light grey on the bottom. As my statement of intent included information about the mixture of daily life in China and the food culture with the sense of symmetry, I feel like this photograph greatly captured the natural moment of two ladies getting ready for the foods, making the photograph more engaging and interesting.

The third photograph is my top 3. The storefront deeply represents the street Chinese culture with its real Chinese characters, the natural light, and real -life actions with the people around the store. The store owner, customers, and the stream all together creates a short story of the daily life in China, as the street food not just only represents a simple meal, but as something that connects individuals together. Moreover, the photo’s composition centers on a lively street-food movement by capturing the pots and bowls, increasing the visual texture of the steam. Also, the store owners, or the cooks, movement increases the interest and depth of the interaction between the vendor and diners. As my statement of intent included information about the street storefronts with the mixture of food, I feel like this photograph worked as how I wanted it to turn out.

The message I aim to convey through my street photography is the exploration of China’s heritage through the lens of its street storefronts, especially focusing on the traditional food stores that continue to shape daily life. By capturing moments of old architecture that eventually became street markets with the hands that prepare time-honored recipes, it celebrates the tradition and the connection of the generations. Moreover, focusing on the lines formed by narrow alleyways and stores that shows perfect symmetry, with normal viewpoint,  it really creates the daily and natural mood as that’s what we observe in our real life, too. The main colors of warm, muted colors, such as red, brown, and yellow also represents the rich atmosphere of China’s culture. These elements combined to a single photography will create an engaging dynamic composition with the connection between the food and the culture, relating to the Chinese stores as living traditions thats in our daily life.

I got my influence from Alex Webb, a street photographer known for his unique and complex compositions that capture street life with various colors, often focusing on cultural narratives in public spaces. I loved how Webb’s photograph’s have some connection with the culture of where the photo was taken, for example, the “Hot Light/Half-Made Worlds” series, which captures the cultural texture of Caribbean and Central American street life.  Sally Davies, who is known as her amazing frame of capturing various types of stores also influenced me with the idea of symmetry. Her photographs often focuses on framing the stores and the balance of dark and light colors. Her photographs grabbed my mind with how daily storefronts we see everyday can hold deep meanings that touches our mind. With my photographs, I want my viewers to understand and respect the importance of culture in our daily life. While some may think that modernity is the key point that we should focus, I believe that saving the culture and history is the ultimate goal for our world. Having unique symmetry and compositions will help to lead the viewers attention to the overall well-completed photography

Sally Davies is a street photographer known for her fascinating frame and composition of the viewpoint. Lots of her photographs focuses on filling the blank spaces, which leads to a greater interest and completeness.

List 3 things the photographer might have been interested in capturing in this picture?

• The person inside the store looking at the camera(the outside)
• The similar tone of muted grey colors
• the format of the photograph of how the rectangular shape of the store fits perfectly in the frame

If you were the photographer, what title would you give it? Explain why.

• Senior
• Senior, referring to the meaning of a person who is a specified number of years older than someone else, or a student in one of the higher forms of a senior school, anchors the image with its time, memory, and quiet mood of daily street life. First, the grey toned palette acts like the oxygen in our life, something necessary in the photograph to make it outstanding, and deepening its aged mood. While the light and soft color keeps the general atmosphere calm and gentle, the bit of mint peeking out adds a spark that blends out the tine of the overall photograph. These blended colors gives the message of time, how time has passed, how time has made the outer part of the store worn out and fuzzy, while the inner part might have the warmest feeling.  The first keyword “time” with the mixture of grey toned, or classical, or colors with low saturations, expanded the calmness and timelessness, making the photograph as a whole to have a deeper view.
• The second keyword is memory, which really focuses on the person staring at the window. How the photograph captured the person’s gestures, both facial and hand, maximizes the depth, leading to the meaning of thinking of the past, or continuity of the past, or even the present seeking to past moments. The texture also highlights the old memories; old, tarnished metal, dusty air conditioner, and the worn-out wooden wall. These features all combined to a single photograph make the antique mood even deeper and deeper.
• At last, the sunlight coming into the frame on the bottom left adds the final touch to the photograph, increasing the completeness with its warm mood. Rather than changing the whole mood or texture of the features, the sunlight helps the viewers to lead their attention to small parts as well. Besides the sunlight, the geometric shapes of the windows acts like the frame inside the frame of the store, keeping the focus by not just keeping the photograph to have a soft, calm mood, but adding some straight lines and rectangular shapes increases the clarity, too.

Describe the use of line, shape, Pattern, texture, tone and focus – USE THE NOTES ABOVE AS A GUIDE. SOME EXAMPLES of WORK BELOW.

• The line formatting the shape of the store is really straight-forward. The balanced ratio of the lines with the windows just creates the shape that brings daily moods as we see those stores daily. The different sized geometric shapes also increases some interest as the size of the store, door, air conditioner, and the windows vary.
• The texture of the photograph seems pretty plain as it isn’t a zoomed-in photograph. However, I feel like the texture of the outer part of the store will be rough and worn-out, with some peeled off paints, and those textures will lead to the increasing mood of “seniors”.
• The tone of the photograph is what makes it outstanding. The muted, grey tone of the photograph also makes it look more classic and aged, also leading to the idea of the passage of time. The various saturation of grey increases the depth of the photograph with the shadow, as well.
• 

The image below is my mood board.

I planned to take photo’s that really captured the Chinese culture embedded in our daily life by taking photo’s of Chinese restaurants and boards. Focusing on the topic of the “Chineseness”, I also aimed to focus on the composition and the symmetrical format of the photograph, which increases the completeness.

In the mood board, I included various photograph’s that matched with my statement of intent. The top half of the photograph is mainly street photographs that focused on the composition of the stores and how the geometric shapes in the photograph increases the fullness as well. Those photograph’s are mainly taken by Sally Davies, a street photographer known for her car and street photography. As Sally Davies was also the photographer who influenced me to take store photography, her photograph’s are mainly included at the top part of my mood board. The bottom half of the photos capture the Chinese cultural streets, which I also intended to capture.  The architectural textures mixed with the rich streets and stores creates a unique sense of balance, also increasing the completeness of the photograph by filling in all the gaps, or white spaces, that might seem boring. Also, the mixture between retro storefronts with a sense of modernity, which evokes memories was my ultimate goal. The Chinese cultural colors, red, yellow, and green caught my mind as well. The warm toned lights from the storefronts contrasting with the cool toned outer part of the street seems like they create an urban feeling. Lastly, I want to focus on the street aesthetics with the aged features, which includes the candid moments and the natural worn-out textures of the storefronts, leading to the past city life.

This first photo is taken in the library, capturing the moment of two people having a conversation. The middle viewpoint of the photograph emphasizes the natural mood of street photography. The color’s of the photo, black, grey, white, and navy,  really blends well with each other, too, having a tone downed, calm, and peaceful atmosphere.

• Perspective and angles: The angle of the photograph is the eye-level angles, which highlights the realism, making the photo feel natural and much more straightforward. The angles gives a daily mood of our life, which is the key point of street photography.
• Capture Gestures: The photograph captures both the hand and facial gesture; the man using his arm to explain something, and the frowning face of the woman. These gestures gives the mood of seriousness and importance of the conversation going on in the photograph.

This is a photo of a girl walking around the hallway with her camera. The low viewpoint and the dark atmosphere increases curiosity. The fishing technique, a technique where the photographer finds a composition or scene they like, and waits patiently for the right subject to appear, is used in taking this photograph, as I waited for a while for someone to pass the hallway that had an engaging mood.

• Layers: The color layer of the photograph really grabs the viewers attention. The light part of the top left part of the photo and the darker part of the bottom left of the photo adds depth. The depth also leads to a mysterious mood as the girls clothes are also showing dark shades.
• Balance and Harmony: The dark mood of the colors creates a smooth balance, increasing a connected and harmonised atmosphere. The bit of navy and greyish tones also leads to the highly balanced, but suspicious mood.

The photo above has a girl working with her camera as the main focus. I tried placing my hand right on top of the camera to create a mysterious, dark atmosphere, and I feel like it was successful with creating the depth, too. The normal viewpoint of the photo captures the daily moment, increasing the reality. Also, the different lines created by the table and the computer create a kind of movement as the computers are tilted in various angles.

• Capture Gestures: The photograph above captures both the facial and hand gesture, the girl having a  concentrated face with her hands trying to figure out what’s going on with her camera’s memory card. Those gestures increases the viewers curiosity!
• Look for things that are out of place: The lines of the computers also grabs the attention as it creates a kind of movement, leading to a lively, but also calm mood with the balance of the gestures.

This is a photo of a teenager stopping in front of a claw machine. The various usage of bright colors in the background, blue, yellow, and a mixture of purple with the girl wearing a strong eye catching red colored t-shirt really creates a strong contrast, leading our focus to the girl. The view point of the photography also grabs the street photographical aspect of natural moments.

•  visual elements: The bright, vibrant color tones, red, blue, and light brown, creates excitement and playfulness with the claw machine at the back. These neon lights in the parts of the claw machines also evokes a dynamic, busy, and energetic mood.
• Capture Gestures: The hand gesture of the girl pointing at the dolls inside the machine increases the interest and curiosity, by leading to the question of “What’s inside the claw machine?”

This is a photo of Jamaica Blue at ISB, with the warm, calming mood of sunlight. The placement of the warm sunlight mixed with the wooden counter emphasizes the restful and windless feeling.  Also, the square shape that the sunlight creates really grabs the viewers attention due to its perfectly matching geometrical features.

• Balance and Harmony: The balanced color mood of the photograph is what makes the photograph revealing and eye-catching. While the top part of the photograph, which seems like it has a bright, vibrant color tone, with the bottom of the photograph showing a warm wooden tone might create some contrast, the bit of blue and red at the bottom with some yellowish tones mixed in the top part creates a harmony.

This is actually a photo that I took at 798, which is a photo that kind of has the pictorialist mood, but captures the moment of a girl walking pass the street. This photograph captures the moment of a girl with the narrow, symmetrical street, creating the depth. Also, the color usage grabs our eyes as muted colors are majorly used, green, grey, and blue. The bit of bight sun on the top with the dark bricks on the bottom creates a type of contrast, too. The photo seems pretty zoomed-out, which made the girl look small, and the street look larger. I believe that all of these aspects combined together creates a really dreamy photo.

• Focus on the Background: The background of the photograph with the perfect symmetry increases the completeness of the photograph with the contrasting features, as the left part shows some natural trees, while the right side shows the walls of a building built with red bricks. The three main colors, red, green, and grey at the bottom, also shows a kind of balance as the colors seems like they have faded away.
• Don’t Move – fishing technique: As the photograph captured the girl in the symmetrical street, it emphasizes the moment, or scene, as a whole, creating a subtle tension as the same time.

Street photography is a specific type of photography that focuses on observing real-life scenes that occurs daily. These types of photograph’s often capture natural moments, but in an attractive way by its various forms, for example, lot’s of street photography includes features such as buildings, humans, trees, and so on. These photograph’s interacts with us by the sense of beauty and the uniqueness in our daily life. Through street photography, we get to view our world with various perspective with the frame, composition, and the different features. Also, I feel like the most important part of street photography is the naturalness, unposed, unintended, unplanned, fresh, etc. The way these natural moments create grabs the viewers attention and make our daily views in an unique way is why street photography is getting more and more popular these days.