Time & Composition: Project 1
I planned three walks in Manhattan, NewYork. The three routes can be walked as one cycle, and my starting point is my school, the University Centre of Parsons at 13th Street fifth Avenue.
In my plan, the three walks are defined as: one straight walk from East 14th Street Union Square to West Village; one irregular walk from West 14th Street eighth Avenue to the Cornelia Street and one Stairs-like walk from Cornelia Street to East 14th Street Union Square, crossing the Washington Square.
I walked the routes few days ago and it is a rainy day, I bought my camera with me, slowly walking in the afternoon. There are a few people walking on the street with umbrellas, and especially in the West Village, when I walked on some small streets, I can even hear the birds singing in the rain. The whole city is quite and peace, unlike the other days that people are hurrying to work, students are chatting and tourisms are busy; I have been slowed down in that afternoon, talking pictures of NewYork City in the rain, a cool rainy day in a hot summer.
I never took photographs by professional cameras before, and this is my first time to record my feelings and my walks by taking photos, I am not sure what should I take along my way, it seems like everything have their own stories for years. I am not sure about what composition should I use to record things, will it be good enough when I present them? I could not tell, but what I do is that I just take pictures of whatever I saw on my way, no matter it is something small or something big, for me, what I saw combined together to form this city, an unique city.
I am standing on the land and holding my camera, changing the ISO rate and Shutter’s speed. I took three sets of photographs from different part of the three planned walks, and finally I decided to choose five photographs for each set. Some photographs included people and cars rushing by the streets, and some photographs are telling the stories of still life objects, such as posters, plants and architectures.
I marked down places that I stopped at, I stopped there and took photographs, recording the streets and people on the streets in one particular day. I smell bakery when I went around the Union Square at 14th Street, saw people going in and out of coffee shops, and there are dogs walking slowly in the rain just like me, they are not worrying about the rain or work, they just live simple. I smell fruits in the West Village when I walked past a small supermarket, saw people crossing the street when there is no car rushing through, and I walked alone on the Cornelia Street whereas there’s no one walking there besides me, I listened carefully when I stopped at a parking station and took photos, I heard birds singing, flapping their wings and reach the light-grey sky. I smell the rain when I was walking around the Washington Square, the fresh air in the green park full of trees and plants, saw posters on the lamps saying that someone’s dog was lost, the owner would like to pay one thousand dollars if someone may find his(her) dog, the rain dipped on the posters, leaving wet water marks and moisture on it.
I learnt how to use camera during those walks, and it spends about fifty minutes, sometimes I walk in a fast pace and sometimes I tried to slow down, to get the sense of the city in the rain, the feelings toward the city told me what should I record by my camera. If I can do this again next time, I believe I can do better, not only for using the camera, and also the compositions and objects I will be choosing. Overall, I think it is a fun project, and I learnt how to use the professional cameras.
Map of the 3 walks:
Set 1(Straight walk):
Set 2(Irregular walk):
Set 3(Stairs-like walk):
Thank you for reading!
