[Week 1] Assignment 1: "10 Best Liked Photos"

Hi all :)

Finally I'm back from semester break and 2nd semester has been started this week!

In semester 2, I'm taking photography class and our lecturer is Mr. Martin :D Since it's first week, Mr. Martin briefly explained about what we're going to learn throughout this semester and he gave us our FIRST ASSIGNMENT! Assignment 1 is about presenting my favourite 5 photographs by professional photograhers and the other 5 photographs by me. We had to choose total 10 photos first and then had to create an audio-video describing chosen photos (The reason why I like those photos).

Here is my video links: https://youtu.be/giVwAka7ExU

5 PHOTOPGRAPHS BY PROFESSIONAL PHOTOGRAPHERS

1. Margaret Bourke-White (1906-1971, USA)

She was an American photographer and war correspondent as well. This photo was taken in 1950 which was during the Korean War. These two people in this photo are mother and son. The story of the photo is the son came back alive from battlefield and finally they met each other again. I really like how Margaret Bourke-white could manage to convey emotions of the mother and son in this photograph. When saw this photo, I felt so emotional because I could feel how much the mother missed her son while he was in the battlefield. Other than that, this monochrome photo makes me focus more on the story of the photo than colour one.

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2. Hamada Hideaki (Japan)

He is well-known Japanese photographer for taking photo of his two son’s ‘daily living life’. In this photo, as usual, he set his sons as a subject. The subject (Two sons) is positioned off-centre so that it looks more balanced with minor objects. Also, they are not conscious of the camera so that it looks more natural and unembellished. Other than that, I also like this kind of side perspective angle and diagonal lines which create great movement of the photo. I see my eyes following those diagonal lines. Also, pastel colour such as light yellow in the photo gives sense of warm and refreshment as well.

3. Kotori Kawashima (Japan)

Kotori Kawashima is a Japanese poetic photographer and popular for his ‘Miari-chan’ series. He followed his friend’s daughter who is Miari-chan for a year and took photos of her daily natural life. Personally, I really like when the subject is a little kid because when I look at photos of little kids, somehow it purifies my mind and they are so energetic. Mostly he used a film camera to take photo of this series and I think it gives more vivid and richer sense of colours than just a digital camera. Other than that, the reflected rainbow prism light on her face attracts my eyes and it makes the photo more interesting and it also creates variety of colours..

4. Romain Jacquet-Lagrèze (France)

Romain is a french photographer who takes photo about Hong Kong. This photo is one of his 'Vertical Horizon' series of Hong Kong’s skyscrapers. I really like how he could manage to take low-angle shot of this building because this low angle shot captures the soaring height of this skyscrapers and also it greatly emphasises the 'vertical' as well. Personally, I want to try this kind of low angle shot if I can get a chance to do. Other than just architecture, the full moon shining through the passing clouds makes this photo more engaging. I think the man-made building and nature are perfectly harmonised.

5. Cocu Liu

Cocu liu is well-known for taking street photography and urban scenes. Street photography is my another favourite subject and this chosen photo is one of my favourite photo from his 'Chicago' series. I like an obvious straight perspective angle like what you can see in this photo. Natural lines by buildings highly attract my eyes into the photo. I also like how he could manage to capture the motion of moving vehicles. Blurry vehicles create sense of speed and dynamics. Also, still buildings and rushing vehicles make an interesting contrast.

5 PHOTOGRAPHS BY ME

1. This photo was taken in 2012 on the way to Jeju lsland with my friends. I took this photo in the airplane before I landed. I wanted to choose one of my sky photos for this assignment because I love taking photo of the sky in the airplane. I like the slanted composition to the right side. This composition gives dynamic feeling of movement to the photo. Other than that, I also like the gradation of bluish colour in the sky. The sky is clean and it relaxing my eyes.

2. This photo was taken when I went to Busan, Korea with my whole family in 2013. To be honest, I can’t really remember how I took this photo but, I like the variety of colours of lights. Also, each light has different thickness, length and different types lines (some are solid lines and the others are dashed lines) and these differences make the photo interesting and unique. Moreover, these extremely colourful and curvy intense lights give sense of bouncy. Those lights look like they are dancing in my eyes.

3. This photo was taken in 2015 when I went to Perhentian Island, Malaysia. As you can see, there are quite lots of empty space because of the sky and the sea in the photo. But I like this empty space because it makes a boat(subject) stand out from the photo so that It attracts my attention to the subject. Also, this empty space arouses the imagination about out of the frame like what would appear beyond the horizon line. Other than space, the horizontal line gives sense of stability to the photo.

4. This photo was taken in last year when I went to Nagoya, Japan. I took this photo while I was waiting for the train at station. As I mentioned earlier in Cocu Liu’s photograph, I really like clear and straight perspective angle. That’s why I picked this photo as my favourite and I like how it gives a sense of distance. Other than that, this photo contains quite a lot of vertical, horizontal and diagonal lines and those lines create sense of dynamics and tension to me. I can see my eyes following those lines.

5. This photo is the latest one that I took during the semester break. This is my lovely cute naughty 4 years-old brother! I like to take photo of him because I want to record his childhood as photos to show him when he grows up in the future (What a nice sister I am haha). I like how I captured his naughtiness in this photo like playing with the huge leave and pretending like it’s an umbrella (according to what my bro said haha). Also, I like kind of dramatic contrast between the small kid and big leaves. I placed the subject (my brother) followed by rule of third so that it creates more energy and interest.

Overall, I really enjoyed this my first assignment because I could look through all my old photos and memories in my camera and some from smartphone. Also, I realised that every photographers has their own style and that different styles make their photo special. Through some researches about chosen photographs by pro. photographers, I could learn plenty of different techniques that those photographers used and I could understand them better. I hope that I can be like them after semester 2 :D

BYE BYE ><