For our Bridge 4 project, we had to go up to strangers, interview them and take their photographs. All three of the photographs I took ended up framing people in a similar way, something I hadn’t originally intended, and didn’t even realize until I had hung them on the wall in order to present them for class.
The first person I photographed was at night in front of my dorm at Stuy Park. Since I had lost my original photos, I had to rush to get three photos before class, so for this particular photo I was trying to rush and find someone. However, the person I photographed and I ended up having a long thoughtful conversation, and in fact it ended up being very beneficially for me. For my Bridge 5 project, I am making a film, and one of my friends who had agreed to be in it ended up getting very sick the weekend I was supposed to shot him, leaving me with a major role in the film being uncast. One of the people that I interviewed and photographed was a New School student trying to do more with acting, and in our conversation I mentioned my film. He offered to be in it and we even exchanged phone numbers, which at the time was more of a gesture since he was letting me photograph him. However, after my friend got sick I realized he was perfect for the role I needed and ended up texting him, and everything worked out really well, with him ending up in the film.
The second and third people I filmed were both at Washington Square Park, and not as rushed because I had a lot more time to take them. I took pictures of both a man and a woman, and talking with the man didn’t really affect me emotionally, but talking with the woman did. I think that while I found the man interesting enough, the woman reminded me of a younger version of my mother, which got me thinking back to my childhood a bit and reminiscing about how different things were as a young child versus now as a young adult.
The first person I photographed was named Tyler, he was a Lang Student who was working very hard. He was taking 6 classes and was coming from a group project meeting. However, he was, and still is, seriously considering transferring into the Drama program. He is trying to graduate a year earlier to save money.
The second person I photographed was man named Adam he was a chef at a local restaurant who was in the park on his day off. His life when I talked to him seemed very hectic both in and outside of his job, and so coming to the park was a way for him to relax and work through some things between himself and his fiancé.
The third person I photographed was a woman named Rebecca, she was killing time at the park reading a book while she waiting for her two kids to finish at Karate practice. She was having doubts about raising kids in the city, saying that even though they have lived her for a long time, as they get older she feels it gets more difficult.
Overall, when starting this project I definitely felt really uncomfortable and was really nervous and unsure of myself. However, as I began asking more and more people it definitely got better, and didn’t feel as awkward or weird an actually ended up being very interesting and feeling really great to connect to a stranger on such an emotional level.
