Over the first semester of this year, we were allowed a lot more freedom than we had been in the past to take pictures as we wanted to. Our main focus for this semester was ‘photographic seeing’, which means living in the world as if through a viewfinder, always seeing the world as the elements of a photograph. Over the semester, this skill grew and developed, and hopefully will continue to do so in the future. The principle assignment we were given was our personal project, in which we could decide the theme and subject, and over the course of the semester, take photographs of our chosen thing.
I chose street photography as my personal project. I freely admit to the frustration and difficulty of street photography, particularly in making each shot unique and memorable in a place that cannot be contained or controlled. My chosen theme helped to develop my photographic seeing because, having gone to different markets several different times, I was forced to imagine ways of capturing individual moments of real street life. My photographic seeing developed because I began to change how I approached many different subjects.
I went on two photo shoots for my personal project during the semester, but because of a series of unforeseen catastrophes (aka, my film was incorrectly developed), I was limited on the amount I was able to print. In the end, I had four photographs in total. The first photograph is from Chinatown.
The next three photographs were taken in Imbi Market, but they were very difficult to print because it was very dark inside.
