How my photography has evolved.
It is 11:00pm as I am writing this. Just felt like I needed to finish of this sort of trilogy of my photography journey.
As time passed, so did my photography and cinematography. The key to my apparent success was the commitment to actually go outside and shoot no matter what. Even if it was really bad and the weather conditions were tough, you had to work around it. If you keep shooting and practicing, it is guaranteed that you will improve. So that was what I did, I went out everyday during holidays to take pictures of everything I saw, to some degree. When my eye caught something, whether it be a good composition or some cool animal or whatever, my brain instantly saw that vision; where I essentially pictured the image I took, edited, in my brain and posting it. That was how I found my style and way of shooting. Before, when I first started, all I did was to just take a picture of anything at all and try to pretend it looked good, like some kind of contemporary artwork. Back then I was just practicing how to actually use a camera and when that was done, I focused more on how to frame my shots and what actually looked good vs what did not. This all happened over a period of a couple of years as my skills and camera collection grew. As a novice photographer, I would say that finding your own style of photography was essential. It was like finding if you prefer painting watercolor or oil based, its a preference and it really helps to lock in your skills and improve effectively. I chose a more general style: landscape and street. I guess as a cinematographer I loved to capture motion and wide, breathtaking views of my favorite countries and landscapes. A cool example was a shot I made in Japan during Christmas of last year. I was in the Tokyo Haneda Airport, one of the coolest ones i’ve ever visited. I would say apart from Changi, Haneda was my favorite airport. There was this really long walkway that connected the departure terminal of the airport to a hotel called the Villa Fontaine Grand and Premier. That was also one of my favorite airport hotels of all time. Its tall, lavish, marble hallway that opened to the grand foyer was breathtaking. There stood models of old samurai shogun armor and dozens of self service stations. The hotel had contemporary architecture, but hinted at the old Japanese style of ridged wood planks for walls with a dimly lit, luxe feel. Writing this, I can still picture that grand foyer that led to the Fontaine Grand restaurant and walkway. I hugely respect the Japanese style of operating; all staff members were extremely respectful and all desks were well manned. The self service stations were futuristic and I already felt like Japan was ahead of their time. The walkway leading up towards the hotel entrance had one side lined with floor to ceiling glass that presented a beautiful vista of the Sumida river that passed near the airport, and the other side of the walkway was lined with a series of old Taisho-era styled shops, with dark smooth stone walls. They sold all kinds of Japanese merchandise, and I could not help but take my camera out and compose an shot looking ahead down the walkway.
Villa Fontaine Grand walkway
Hasselblad X2D 100C
Sumida River
Taken out of the Villa Fontaine Grand hotel room.
The point of this story was to not tell you about how much I love Japan and its architecture; I really do, the point was to show you readers how my sense of composition and the ‘vision’ has developed over the years. The picture in my first blog was a well shot one, however it lacked a true purpose, it didn’t tell much of a story, or a smaller one compared to the ones I shoot now. The point of my photos are to tell stories, and the purpose of my blogs henceforth are to describe my creative vision in as much detail as possible to help you readers take better photos. This is why I love doing this so much, because every photo I take has a long story behind it, as shown with these two.
I hope that in the future my photos and movies can tell deeper stories and convey the emotions within them to an audience. The movie Civil War produced by Alex Garland really shows this well. The story follows a war photographer as she tells stories by taking photos of the true nature of war. The photos truly capture emotion and a deep story which is my goal for the future.
This is a shorter blog - I guess I with real memories and a passion writing about photography is a far cry from English Language GCSE I had to sit last year. All descriptions were written from memory, aided by pictures I have taken (this further reiterates my point of how photos tell a story)
If you are still reading, thank you. Tomorrow I will be explaining the stories of my other shots i’ve taken in Singapore and how and why they work to convey a story.
