The Brief
Mindmap
MoodBoard
Researches on Photographers:
1) Ashraful Arefin <Behance>
More examples of Ashraful's work:
2) Craig Whitehead
More examples of Craig's work:
3) Elliot Verdier
More examples of Elliot's work:
4) Mary Catherine Messner <Behance>
More examples of Mary's work
5) Filomena Ferreira <Behance>
More Examples of Filomena' s work:
Unedited Example Shots + 'Test Shoots'<in Nepal>
I decided to combine both experimental edited images along with unedited test shoots and still keep the example images minimal and short.
Theses images are a mix of shots I took using my prime lens and 15-45mm lens.
As you can see, I wanted to experiment with including people but still keep them ‘hidden’ somehow.
Final Chosen Images:
Once again like for the other module, I didn’t include these final images on the example shots above to avoid any sense of repetition, I decided to save these final chosen images for the last just so it can be viewed altogether rather than mixed with the example shots.
Talking about the final chosen images, I loved how these images turned out in the end - again with the help of post production I got achieve the cinematic street photography concept I was striving for to capture the streets of Kathmandu and finding simple frames that I found aesthetic and photograph them.
As mentioned earlier, I wanted to show how I could include people in my photographers without ‘fully including them’ - with the help of long shutter speed <on the 5th image> I got to achieve showing a sense of versatility in my work as there’s a limitation of just 5 final images.
Finally, taking about the moon image <second image on the left side> I wanted to include that specific image to show how I aimed to respond to one o the photographers I researched about <Elliot Verdier> who had an aesthetic to what I had photographed of and created a story with just the elements captured within the moment <without the inclusion of people>.
I believe whilst selecting what images I wanted as my ‘final images’ , I wanted an image that would be like an image that is completely unrelated to the rest of the 4 images but still have that cinematic street photography essence to it.
Post Production
Once again the best part of the project - Post Production.
I used almost the same editing features from the Exploring the Industry module - which were ‘Curves’, ‘Hue & Saturation’, ‘Colour Balance’, ‘Clarity & Structure’, ‘Dehaze’ and finally ‘Soft Grain’.
To differentiate my images from the final images of the Exploring the Industry module, I wanted to create an ‘taken on a film camera’ type of effect and to achieve this I decided to include ’Soft Grain’ with lowering the Impact to 24 and bumping up the Granularity to 57.
But the real game changer was when I experimented with ‘Colour Balance’ - I decided to play around with the Midtone which led me to this beautiful palette of pink and red which I believe elevated the the image(s) so well, but I felt like the images could’ve been better and needed more life - this is where Shadow and Highlight play a key role.
With me changing the Shadow of the image to partially pink and partially hints of blue, it produced an even more subtle soft feel to the image. Finally with me changing the Highlight to somewhere between orange and red, it added more depth to the red/pink element of the image.
Evaluation:
I honestly really enjoyed during this shoot as my aim was to present my images in a cinematic manner and personally I believe I have achieved that despite taking these photographs in different time and within the span of 4 days.
Taking these photographs was not that easy - especially in the busy streets of Kathmandu where people are always filling up the roads / alleys; but eventually in the end, I managed to achieve what I wanted out of the shoot and that everything was worth it.
A lesson I learned during these shoots were that no matter how chaotic the environment is, people will eventually find their way to keep the hustle going and moving ahead with life - especially since Nepal as a now ‘developing’ country has and had surviving through many ups and downs, people seem to be moving ahead, push themselves to make ends meet and try to be as progressive as they can.
By the end of trip, as a photographer I realised that photojournalism is something that naturally is in me especially when it comes to reflecting back on what took place at the time of the shoot, how I picked up certain life lessons and including my point of view to the things I learnt - all these points I have mentioned is very crucial because as an artist, it is important to take away at least one thing and try to apply with your life too.
Group Exhibition at Photobook Cafe:
