Photography: Self Reflection 2

Self Reflection 2

Connect
-Idea and visualization on your topic as you shoot

Expand/Extend
-How / Did you expand your knowledge about the topic

Challenge
-The trouble that you faced before/during/after the photo shoot


After consulting and several test shooting, I decided to capture the life of a cosplayer behind and in front of camera. I always found cosplaying as very interesting and intriguing. As I shoot the photos, its very fun and enjoyable. My friend who is the model was very co-operative and willing to let me in her house to photo her preparation before going to cosplay photo shoot. My idea is to take the photos on chronological order starting from her preparations such as putting on make up, wearing the wig, the journey to the locations and finally when she act as the characters for photo shooting. Cosplaying to most people has always been regarded as an activity that is useless,  a waste of time and money. But there are some people who considered cosplaying as their hobby and even passion. I want to capture that. I want to show through my photo book that these people exist to bring the character; from movie, books, novel; alive. Other than that I want to focus more on the preparation and effort put into the act of cosplaying. As I observe, my friend is able to sew her own costumes and make her own equipments for her cosplay materials. She also has a wide varieties of wigs to use for different characters.

I learned a lot of things when I was photographing my friend. When I walked out with her dressing up as a character, I noticed that people do react to the situations, they ignore, stare or come to us and say " very nice! " You have to have a thick skin to be able to ignore all the stare and rude comments from people. Cosplaying can also be used to increase a person's confidence and that what happened to my friend. Her confidence increased and she has become more comfortable going out as a character.

The trouble that I faced during the photo shoot was probably the chance of me photographing her as my model. Because she has her own photo shoot with her own photographer, I felt like sharing her between me and the other photographer. That limits my time and photos as I have to wait for the other photographer to finish shooting before I start shooting. Another problem that I faced was when I was in her house shooting all the equipments and materials. Its very troublesome and hard to bring out all her materials in storage room and as a result her house got really messy and also her room's light is quite yellow in color and that affect the photos. Editing was not very hard as I used Adobe Bridge and Photoshop to adjust the photos. It's very helpful and convenient tools. But printing the photo book was proven to be the hardest. Printing error happened quite a lot in terms of colors. The photos will either be darker than what I had in mind or they turned to be very yellow. After adjusting, I finally got it right and the result was quite good.

Here are some photos that I took

Special thanks to Mantou and Kei 

All photos are taken and edited by Roselvina

Photography : Self-Reflection 1

Self-Reflection 1

Connect

-Idea and visualization on your topic as you shoot

Expand/Extend

-How/ Did you expand your knowledge about the topic

Challenge

-The trouble that you faced before/during/after the photoshoot

My initial topic and idea was to document the activity of BJJ (Brazilian Ju Jitsu )

I have never heard of this type of martial art before. I got to know this martial art through my friend Alex as he practiced this martial art. So I want to learn and understand more about BJJ and to make a photo-book out of it.

I made plans with Alex to meet up and shoot him as he practiced. It was going fine, but as I didn’t really understand what the martial arts is about, I had difficulty capturing the good angle and composing the picture. After I research more and consult with my teacher, I kind of get what I should do better.  The pictures that I took were too random and have no sense of composition. More expression of the people should be shown to capture the emotions about what they are doing and what is happening. So I made plans with Alex again to shoot some portraits. When I was working with him, I find it really difficult to direct him and in conclusion, working with him was proven to be challenging for me.

These are some photos of Alex that I took in the training place and studio;

What I had in my mind was different from the reality. I understand that it is my project and not his. So not to complicate the matter, I decided to change my topic before it was too late.

My new topics are to capture either the life of a cosplayer or to capture consumerism in Singapore focusing on what they eat in daily routine.

The challenge that I faced when I shoot the hawker center was shooting strangers. You don’t know their reaction when they are photographs against their will. Such that it made me a bit awkward when I shoot them.

Sharing session

My colleague gave me advice that I should have more focus on the photos that I took. Maybe focus on the atmosphere, the food that they eat or the people who are eating the food. That is a really good point as I lack focus and still confused about my topic.

One way to solve that problem is to set up the breakfast, lunch and dinner with model or friends as that way I can direct them better and thus the photo will result in what I imagine.

Photography SIPF

SIPF

Singapore International Photography Festival is held annually in Singapore in several different locations and it's showcasing photographs by chosen photographer from around the world. This year is my first time visiting the SIPF and I visited 3 places (Deck, National Museum of Singapore and Chapel Gallery)

There are a lot of very interesting photographs in the exhibitions. Some of my favorites are "Declared Detachment" by Russian photographer, Mariya Kozhanova, "Leave your Myth in Greece" by Greek photographer, Panos Kokkinias and "Trace of Time" by Singaporean photographer, Carrie Lam. There are a lot more photographs that I love but the list will be too long.

Declared Detachment is telling a story about society and environment in Russia. The series are trying to portray how the children or young generation that were born in the time of a society that is very structured that they lost their identity and individuality. Her series are about Russians who cosplay to run away from reality and turn to become anime heroes influenced by Japanese mass-culture of cosplay. It's a very interesting series with a deep story behind it. Her lighting and locations chosen were very well composed and well used. Her works are mounted without frame in the (NMS) National Museum of Singapore.

Leave your Myth in Greece is one of my favorites series. The photos are wide shot photos about landscapes in Greece. It's very beautiful and the use of colors makes the photos even more stunning. From his series, human figures are being juxtaposed with the proportions of nature surrounding it. It's creating the feeling of alienation since the people are portrayed to have almost no contact with the rest of the world.  The photos are mounted in landscapes format without frame on black partition. They can be found on the second floor in NMS.

The last is Trace of Time by Carrie Lam. Her series of Trace of Time is very interesting and intriguing. It's about the relationship of a mother and daughter. In her picture, she put herself in the same situations as her mother. She is trying to understand what her mother would have felt when she shot that picture 20 years earlier. She combined 3 different photos together into one making a one long photo and framed them on a plain black frame. I think the reason she put 3 photos into one picture is to give the feeling of transition and progression of time. The same place but on the left photo is her mother 20 years ago while on the right photo is herself now, and the middle photo act as the separation and transition. Her works are display in NMS.

Photography : Shiro Ang

Photography by Shiro Ang

Shiro Ang is a cosplay photographer from Singapore. His photos are all well composed taking much consideration about the anime characters and the surrounding environment. In order to capture the emotion and attitude of a certain character from an anime, you must first understand the characters and how they behave in the anime. Locations scouting are really important to match the characters and the anime itself. The subject of his photos are cosplayers, mostly female cosplayers. He uses high-key lighting to beautify the model and emphasize the dreamy and fantasy of such an anime.

From what I observe, the formatting and framing of the images will have to depend on the characters as a whole and the feeling that the characters want to convey. But most of them are portraits and landscapes format. 

For my project, I would like to photographs a cosplayer, their hardships and their achievements. Focusing on their activities and routine for cosplaying. Although I myself don't cosplay, I was always interested in cosplayer. I think that they are very confident and interesting. The things that I will shoot are the preparations before photo shooting, their clothes, wigs and equipment for cosplay. The characters that my model has chosen are Inori from Guilty Crown and Kise from Kuroko no Basuke. These characters are chosen by my model as I want her to be comfortable with what she wear or rather cosplay as. Building relationship with your model is important as well, for him/her to be comfortable with your presence and thus it will be easier to capture the expression that the characters are trying to convey.

Photography : Bill Henson

Photography by Bill Henson

Bill Henson, born on 7th of October 1955 is a photographer from Australia. His style of photography is considered as contemporary art photographer. His works has been exhibited nationally and internationally in galleries such as the Solomon R. Guggenhein Museum in New York, the Venice Biennale, the Art Gallery of South Wales in Sydney, Australia and Bibliotheque Nationale in Paris. 

When I first saw his works, I was mesmerized by how beautiful the photo is. His works really convey pure and raw emotions. The use of chiaroscuro can be found throughout his works, by underexposure and adjustment in printing. Chiaroscuro can be defined as when there are big contrast between dark and light in a piece of painting, photography and other types of art. Even his photographs of landscapes bears similar traits to his portraits photos. It is really unique and a smart way in using underexpose picture as your strongest characteristics. His photographs reminds me of a painting because of some traits, such as dark, plain background with contrast object as the focus. It is beautiful and well composed. Most of his photos are landscape oriented while some are portraits oriented, some even a bit square. The way he cropped his images are to strengthen the emotions and feelings that the photographs carry and by formatting them in certain size, that can adds on to the overall look of the series.

Photography : Hiroshi Sugimoto

Architecture by Hiroshi Sugimoto

Hiroshi Sugimoto is Japanese photographer who has a base in Tokyo as well in New York City, United States. From all his photography series, I am most interested in his Architecture series. He captured famous architecture in a very unusual way. He purposely made the architecture blur which was very unique and different. As we see a concrete building, it's personality can be defined as harsh, rigid, coarse and even stiff. By blurring the images appropriately, you can change the personality of the building into soft and smooth. It is a juxtaposition attribute that Hiroshi was able to capture and portray in his Architecture series. 

In that series, he shot many well-known architecture such as Opera House in Sydney, Eiffel Tower in Paris, etc. Even though he blur the images, people can still know what kind of monuments he captured. His photos are all in black and white which give the feeling of memories and past. Maybe the reason his photos are blur and in black and white is because he want to let the viewer to think about their own memories and experience when they visit these popular architecture. As different people have different experience, he is able to relate to many different people through his photographs.

From his photographs, I learn to see object or architecture in different way and interpret them under different reasoning. As sometimes when you capture an image with blurry effect, they can create a whole new image. He really helped me during my second project which is about Light as the subject. When you are trying to capture direct light, they can form quite sharp and strong shape. But when you apply the blur effect on the images, the light will be softer and that really change the personality of the photo altogether. I also learn to be deliberate in every move that you make when capturing and editing the photos.

These two photos were captures and edited by me.

Photography: Andrea Gursky

Andrea Gursky ( born January 15, 1955 ) is a German photographer and Professor at the Kunstakademie Dusseldorf, Germany. His photograph style involves a large format architecture and landscapes, often taken from high or elevated point of view. In all of his photographs, I can see that they are very minimalist using lines as the main element. He was highly influenced by his teachers, Hilla and Bernd Becher.

Hilla and Bernd Bercher's photographs

Andreas Gursky's photographs

I can see the influence from Hilla and Bernd Bercher on Gursky's photographs. Even though the subject is different, Gursky photographs a lot of architectural or man-made landscapes in large format in modular format. A lot of lines were used and that really gives the photo a strong personality.


The Rhine II

This piece of photograph is considered to be the most expensive photograph in the world, it was sold at a price of £2.7 million on an auction at Christie's New York. A lot of sources said that it was because the photograph is not just a photograph, it can be considered as a piece of art. Further with only 6 collections of the series, it became almost as rare as Pablo Picasso's paintings. Gursky's photos are so detailed and technical, it need months to set up in advance and require a lot of adjustment to get right.

I really respect Gursky for being able to produce such work. When I look into The Rhine II, I feel very calm and composed. The texture produced by each element really work well together and there is so much mystery in the photo. It left us wondering " where is this place " and " what could have happened ". From his photographs, I learn to choose my subject carefully and to be honest to myself about what I want to capture and what I want to achieve.