Lords by Jeff Fan
Film | Photography | Art
Journal - Development as Photographer
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| Media rushes to cover a sudden breaking news. |
Over the summer, a couple of visits around DC and a trip back to China offered some, well, unique, opportunities. The extreme weather - which I am still not used to yet - yielded some chances for dramatic scenery shots: the sun full ablaze over the ocean water, or a stormy evening descending upon a corner lighthouse. The trip back to China was also quite inspirational. Whilst we remained in the larger cities throughout our trip, the stark contrast in culture and resulting difference in the way color seeps into everyday life is, to say the least, very exciting.
With a blaze of opportunities comes a magnitude of experiments and discovered improvements. Personally, this couple of months' most important contribution had been the re-defining of the role of the camera in my workflow. Previously, I had often felt overwhelmed by the camera's own vast range of functionalities, unable to figure out just how I will be able to adjust all of optimal and still manage to capture the moment. From picture style to the classic aperture and shutter, or the new auto-denoise and moody white balance, I often found myself spending much time on trivial settings that could be replicated in post, and losing out on the actual key aspects of photography.
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| Many in-camera settings can be replicated in post. |
Spending a month with my cousin, also a photography enthusiast - a much better one too, I must admit - allowed this realization to surface. She had an older camera than mine, one that had relatively more limited functionality, yet she was able to harvest results that were very stunning. I came to realize that, whilst, sure, having the curves tool or vibrance controls built into the camera is nice, it distracts from many crucial decisions that one has to make. Composition, lighting, framing, angle, shutter and f-stop: all these take up enough effort as they are, especially for us amateurs.
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| Da Boss At Work |
Whilst I won't begin praising my newer photos, I do have to admit that they are visually more effective: no awkard angles or composition; no cut off heads or missing horizon. By focussing the most on composition, my photos I believe are alot more professional.
My style of photography....
Having traveled around alot, seeing new sights, it was only natural for my first dip into photography to be landscape/scenery photography. Seeing the geographic wonders of each country and visiting the architecturally distinct cities made the need for this style most prominent, and also one that had the most opportunity for practice. Reading National Geographic was also a huge source of influence.
However, as I begun to settle down in each city, new sights came less and less frequent. I begun taking pictures that were not the typical postcard cover. As daily life became for highlighted, some sense of street photography sipped into my style. I would become eager to capture the vast cultural differences I see before me. In fact, I slowly developed an eye for spotting juxtapositions - finding the harsh realities in picturesque scenery,
Moving to London, this eagerness unveiled itself in the pool of opportunities found in this metropolitan. There were so much going on daily, from demonstrations to festivals, that I found myself looking into photojournalism. This was in no small part due to the daily subscription to BBC's "In Pictures" news section.
Nowadays it can be hard to determine just what exactly I like to shoot. At any event, a combination of landscape, street and journalism sips into my photos. Food photography was never my thing though; I was more concerned with actually eating the food before it gets cold.
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| Well..... |
Right now, apart from the usual gloom outlook on any event, I am beginning to look into fashion photography. A combination of Vogue, Stylist and one particular friend (don't ask) should take full responsibilities for this new interest. It's a hard one though. Fashion photography, unlike my previous styles, requires the set up of sets, props, lights, deployments of models and an open mind for color schemes. I hope my experiences in art will help me, but for now, nothing works better than experimentation.
2013/09/02
