For my identity portrait project, I plan to use extra props and symbolic objects in the frame to show the subject’s inner world. I will ask subjects to bring or interact with items that represent their thoughts, memories, or dreams. This way, the photograph won’t just be a picture of their face. It will tell a deeper story through the objects around them. I want the viewer to look at the props and feel like they’re understanding something hidden about the person.

Improved/Second Version

Now, I want to use props differently, not as symbols, but as tools to help people access and show their real emotions. Instead of telling a story through objects, I might include some subjects to interact with something meaningful to them and then focus on capturing their natural response. The prop is just a starting point, a way to help them feel more comfortable and expressive. The real focus will be on their eyes, their posture, and the subtle feelings that surface when they’re engaged with something personal. My goal is to create portraits where the viewer feels the person’s true emotion, not just the story of the object beside them.

Definition: Street photography is the art of capturing unposed moments in public places. Its subject is the recording of human existence in everyday life through a blend of observation and timing, finds meaning and beauty in the ordinary, telling visual stories about society and the human condition.

What I want to focus on: Social Documentary Street Photography—documenting the “lived experience” of families from different backgrounds within the specific context of Beijing.

Blog 3: 

Layers: Foreground, midground (shops/houses), background (cityscape/mountains) create depth.

The Decisive Moment: Captures a split-second of everyday life

Concentrate on Framing: The overhanging leaves and the alley’s walls frame the central scene (the man + path).

Perspective and angles: The shot is taken from above, using a high angle to frame the stairwell.

Composition – Rule of Thirds: The busy street (midground) sits near the horizontal third line, while the high-rises occupy the upper third, avoiding a centered, rigid layout.

Blog 5: Helen Levitt’s approach to photography explores how different family backgrounds shape daily life in Beijing. Her work teaches us to find significance in the quiet, unplanned moments of city life. She believed you could understand a community best by watching the small, unplanned actions of daily life and seeing how people use thespaces around them. We can apply this same principle in Beijing by paying close attention to the specific routines of families. You can learn a lot about people by watching their ordinary routines, like how they shop at a market, how children play, or their unintentional actions. These everyday details reveal their unique background and story. The city itself, from its ancient alleyways to its modern streets, forms the backdrop for these stories. By capturing real daily life, we can show Beijing through its people, not just its famous places.

Statement of intent: The title of this project is “Beijing’s Everyday Stories.” My goal is to document the authentic daily lives of families from diverse cultural backgrounds in Beijing, capturing genuine moments that reveal their unique identities. I want my audience to feel a sense of connection and curiosity about these personal stories, seeing the human side beneath the city’s surface. For inspiration, I will study Helen Levitt’s approach to street photography, particularly how she captured unposed movements and used the outside environment to reveal character and relationships. I will look for photographs that find meaning in ordinary interactions, using natural observation rather than staged compositions to tell stories about community and identity in Beijing.

ver 1. Like images created from a different perspective/skill, where the artist is not trying to show their art as it was “supposed” to be like, which it doesn’t have a direct connection to the physical world.

after class: Abstract photography is a genre of photography that does not represent its subject in a literal or realistic way. Its primary goal is not to document reality, but to use photographic materials to create an image that exists for its own sake, emphasizing form, color, line, texture, pattern, and composition over representational accuracy.

John Baldessari exhibited his ‘wrong’ series. Even though there shouldn’t be anything such as a wrong or bad picture, but his most famous of which titled ‘wrong’ shows an image that contains the usage of an unusual technique.  

Firstly what did follow the rules were its’ composition; the primary rule being broken is the rule of thirds. The rule states that an image should be divided into nine equal parts by two equally spaced horizontal lines and two equally spaced vertical lines. The most important elements of the photo should be placed along these lines or at their intersections. What “should have” been done is that lines with the rule is the palm tree, as the main subject, should be placed along one of the vertical lines. What Baldessari Does: He places the palm tree dead center, which is generally considered static, boring, and amateurish. It cuts the image into two uninteresting halves. 

In advanced, the image was filled with some awkward framing, the photograph is framed in a way that feels accidental and careless, not intentional. If a photographer would either get closer to the tree to make it a clear subject or pull back to establish it within a wider context, like maybe showing its full height against the sky or placing it in a landscape etc. What Baldessari did was the tree is awkwardly cut off at the top, not fitting within the frame. It feels like a snapshot taken without thought, as if the photographer didn’t even look through the viewfinder properly. As the subject itself—a lone, generic palm tree on a patch of grass—is banal and lacks inherent drama or beauty. A “good” photograph often relies on a compelling subject, interesting light, or an unusual perspective. This image has none of those things. The lighting is flat and midday, creating harsh shadows and no interesting contrast, texture, or mood. Even though at the same time I personally find it aesthetic and think it fits the setting😊. 

But the point is Baldessari he knows it’s wrong: 

The genius of the work isn’t that Baldessari made a mistake; it’s that he knowingly and deliberately chose a “wrong” image to make a larger conceptual point. Baldessari is celebrating the mistake, the awkward, and the banal. He argues that breaking the rules can be a more interesting and authentic approach than creating another technically perfect but emotionally sterile image. He famously said, “Wrong is just a different kind of right. It’s the way I think. I think wrong.” 

In conclusion, the photograph is “wrong” by every standard measure of good photography. But Baldessari uses that wrongness as his medium. The artwork’s subject isn’t the palm tree; its subject is the very idea of “right and wrong” in art itself. He forces us to question the authority of these rules and opens the door for art that is driven by ideas, irony, and intellectual provocation rather than traditional beauty and technique. 

In the short story “Button, Button,” by  Richard Matheson’s conflict is an internal conflict of Man vs Self. The character Norma struggles with an inner conflict between her desire for money and its moral influence on herself. The experiences of the protagonist Norma and her husband Arthur, a mysterious box that can be opened by pressing a button , they would receive a $50,000 bonus with the death of the ‘unknown’. A piece of evidence that proves her yearning for a wealthy life: “That I’d like for us to go to Europe. Like for us to have a cottage on the island. Like for us to have a nicer apartment, nicer furniture, nicer clothes, a car. Like for us to finally have a baby, for that matter.” Showing how eager of her to get that money. Another piece of evidence is when Norma reflects on the situation when she realized:”The point is,” Norma broke in, “if it’s someone you’ve never seen in your life and never will see, someone whose death you don’t even have to know about, you still wouldn’t push the button?” Arthur stared at her, appalled. “You mean you would?” “Fifty thousand dollars, Arthur.” This illustrates her strong desire for wealth over ethical concerns.

’to kill or not to kill‘