Images of My Thoughts

The strong well of the plants has always been an inspiration to me.  The most inhabitable place for any living organisms, you can find the wonder of that nature.  In order to grow and become adaptable to the surroundings, there need to be obstacles and trials and those things are there for people to overcome.  However, I feel like so many people, including me, we tend to back away from anything that is not within our comfortable habitat. The fear of unfamiliar territories is a major reason why we back away.  We do not want to fail or to be laugh at; we want to protect our pride and not show weakness to anyone but ourselves.

However, slowly, I have discover that the fear is almost not acceptable if people want to succeed.  Fear comes from our head, so therefore, it is possible to train yourselves to neglect that fear.  I feel that plants get it easy, it is like they are born to endure the sufferings of the world, they can be cut down but they never stop growing.  Only if I am like that…

From politicians to athletes, Platon has shot them all.  With one simple front light, he is able to show the personalities of the portraiture.  How does he do it?  Communication.  Portrait photography to me is one that causes much more difficulty than any other genre of photography because of the concept of posing people and being unnatural.  First of all, I am uncomfortable of telling people what to do; how to place their hands, how to tilt their heads; how to sit a certain way in order to achieve the shots I want.  Even if all the poses are the way I wanted, I am rarely happy with the images that come out because everything seems forced.

Platon on the other hand, his ability to talk to the subjects and able make them comfortable in front of the camera amazes me to no degree.  The posture, expression as well as the level of confidence that all the subjects possess in his photographs, and then to capture that in a confined time and space, it is a gift that I would gladly have without a second thought.

So, I am going to try a new way to shoot portraiture.  Whenever I am shooting portraits, I am going to set up everything and then sit the subjects down and try to connect with them so that they are able to show who they are really are and at that point, take the shot.

The more I look at photographs, the more I am amazed how something that seems so simple can be the most difficult thing to achieve.  Photography takes discipline, that includes the patience, the ability to take control of the situation, the skill to see what the camera sees instead what our eyes see and the knowledge that everything can be improved upon.

Here are some images of Platon, I might try to include some of mine with the idea of mimicing Platon’s style later on, but we will see =P.

President Vladimir Putin

David Beckham

Whiling driving to Pennsylvania in search one of the oldest bars in the United States, Rohman Inn, Me and Bob just stop by a bridge and took some pictures.  The bar itself is amazing: cracked floors, old artifacts, great atmosphere and plus a beer is $1.50.  Bob got the number for the owner of this location and going to call and see if we can take any pictures in it, so, hopefully soon, people can see how ancient this inn is.

In the meantime, enjoy the random images.

my child is a prize
she adds color to my eyes
and to all my different lives
but the truth of her beauty lies
in the black and white insides
the depth that color hides
and the mother in me cries
as the child in her dies
holding onto prides
knowing she is wise
but still a sadness tries
to prolong the goodbyes

- Sue

This beautiful poem is written by Erica (the model)’s mother, Sue.  She was looking at the color version of this image (October 9th) and this one at the same time and without the distraction of color, she notices more how beautiful and thoughtful Erica is in the cyanotype image and hence the poem to describe her thoughts.

As an outsider of this mother and daughter relationship as well as the author of this portrait, I cannot help but wonder the different meanings that this image give to people because of the different social background everyone is at in relation to this image.  To me, this image is a part of something greater, it is just a piece of the puzzle; however, to Sue, that is obviously not true.

When I first heard that she wrote a poem because of the image, I was overjoyed.  The idea of reinterpretation of images is part of the main reason why I love photography so much.  Now, people are expressing their thoughts behind my images and this idea makes me feel like I am going in the right direction.

As I told Sue, “An image without thoughts behind it is just a dead end picture; but with this poem, the image has become a tale that connect the mother to the daughter,the readers to the author and the viewers to the photographer.”

Here is the B&W image to match the poem:

Each pair of eyes of photographers is unique.  The idea of seeing the 3 dimensional but capture it into the 2 dimensional while reinterpreting the image just really fascinates me.  Photographs now a days are never the exact interpretation of the truth.  The framing, the subjects, the alterations of the image, and the context within the series of images bring photography into a level of beyond the surface of the world, perhaps, it is a level of revealing the inner qualities of the world from the perspective of the photographers.

This is the reason why I love photography so much.  It has become a communication mechanism between the people who see the photographs as well as the people and the photographers.  Furthermore, this communication is not restriction by any kind of barriers; it is a communication of the minds.

One of my goals in photography is not just to produce beautiful images; but to produce meaningful images that can be aesthetically pleasing.  I believe that with thoughts behind the images that I produce, even if people do not see the thoughts, they can sense it, hence, making my images stronger.

This triptych below was one of my projects in my class.  Three of them show the isolation of the space and the loneliness of the subjects; yet, these images were taking in a chain grocery store, a town park and a local high school, respectively.  All three places do not give the vibe of loneliness or isolation when I was there, but in order to accomplish what I previsualized, I was able to alter the environment into a one that I desire.

I believe that the way people live have become more and more degraded as the convenience and the popular trends embedded into people’s minds. People have forgotten their basic instincts and their abilities to act and react. We are numbed by the injections of laws and rules that without a set of rules we cannot function. The problem is that we never question those rules.

And because of those rules, we have stopped challenge ourselves to become more than what is socially acceptable and because of that, the art of individualism is lost. The most common interpretation behind the Japanese proverb today, ” See no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil” is usually describe the people who do not want to be involved into situation and therefore, they turn their heads the other way to avoid the confrontation and wrong doing.

This following image tells exactly the opposite of the proverb. We need to see the bad influences around us and be aware those things so we that those influences will not be affecting the way we should live. We need to see the rules and decide for ourselves that whether they apply or not, no more following the what is popular but know what exactly what you want.

Of course, it is always easier to say than to do. But, this is just an encourage for people that we should be more than a puppet of society and start to become individuals.