Final Image:
Story board:
Transition Types
For my transitions in this spread of photos, I wanted to use something that indicated movement between the larger images. I chose feet going up and down the stairs. I put smaller images of these in between wide shot photos of the full subway station or full photos of people. I also used the swipe of a metro card as a transition that would show going from the subway station down to the platforms where the trains come.
First Draft:
This was the first draft of my project. The minor changes I made included the slight resizing of a few photos, and the removal of the black boarders. At first I felt the boarders made it look more comic-like, but removing them made the image cleaner and allowed some of the bright white sky in some photos to bleed into the boarders. That would give the effect that they are not just still, framed images, they are things that can bleed into the whole piece with no defined sense of time.
Project Description
For my project, I wanted to capture the movement of my transitional space, the Union Square Subway Station. When in this space, there is always so much going on. No one stands still for very long. People go up and down the stairs, in and out of the turnstiles, onto different platforms, and in and out of trains. Most of the time, everyone’s in a rush. To show this, I chose to make two of the larger images establishing shots of the station. The center photo is taken from the outside. It is right in the center because when you are walking to the station to go to your next destination, that’s what you see, it’s what your eyes are locked on. The other establishing shot on the top left shoes the view right before entering the station. As always, people are going up and down. This image may seem familiar because it is the one I chose for my single image project. I favor this image because it shows both the inside of the station below ground, and the park above. All the way on the upper right side is what you would see exiting the subway station. Once again, there are people moving out. This one juxtaposes the previously mentioned image because, instead of seeing what you would see just as you are about to enter, you are seeing the view exiting. Right in-between those two large frames is a pair of photos that work very well together. One shows a group of feet moving down the stairs, the other going up. This further emphasizes the sense of movement throughout the station. The transitional feet are a common theme throughout this piece. They can be seen again in the center left image, drawing you eyes downward, then again right below it. Those feet seem to be walking right off the page. I did that because the movement of the subway station cannot be captured in one set of photos as if it only occurs once, in one moment. It goes on and on, whether you are there to see it or not. Next to the feet, is a photo looking straight up from the stairs to the towering buildings above. In my final piece, the corner of this image bleeds out in to the boarders. This goes along with the idea that this is not a still moment, it is continuous. The lower center picture is a detail of the stairs and railing, the stairs and implied line of the railing leads the eyes from the bottom of the photos back into the rest of the set. The last two images give a sense if what’s next. One photo is a woman’s hand swiping her meter card to enter the train platforms. She is heading out of Union Square to her next destination. The last photo shows people exiting. Different from the large photo of people exiting on the top right, this one shows one figure already off the steps and heading out to wherever he’s going, while another follows suit.
Format
I wanted my images to be set up like a comic. I was very much inspired by the readings that went along with this project. The subway station is full of clean lines and architectural elements, I also find clean lines and crisp white space very aesthetically pleasing. I set my images up in various sizes so that it did not only have to be read linearly. It can be read from left to right, from up to down, and in a circular motion. Basically, you can look at it any way you want, any way your eyes take you. Just like you would look at all the movement going on in the actual subway station. In my final project, some images have white spaces that bleed into the boarders. That was meant to Gove the sense that the movement within the station is not just captured in single moments and single frames. It is continuous.
