It’s always fun to get out and about the RMIT campus with a creative task in mind. This week we were tasked with capture photos for use in a mini-essay inspired by the style of Eve Arnold, although I’m sure you probably gathered that from the title of this article (although I bet you didn’t pick up on the extremely weak Humans Of New York reference).
Our first photo I would like to present is one of the first ones we took (these are all in chronological order). The glass-covered bridge between buildings 8 and 10 caught our eye so we decided to experiment a bit with getting a nice composition involving reflections and the multitude of windows at our disposal. After finding the composition that worked best we waited for people to walk over the lower level bridge and try to time our shot so they appeared in the middle. I’m really pleased with how the final shot came out. There’s a lot of visual interest because of all the reflections and windows, it’s very busy, and I think that really helps the silhouette of the passerby stand out (not to mention the fact he noticed we were talking his picture and turned to look at us). Bonus points if you spotted our group and one lovely bin in the reflection.
Shot number two. This one was the result of probably 10 minutes spent in the building 10 stairwell, which caught our eyes with its bold geometry. We knew there was a good shot in there somewhere, and I think we found it. Emily acted as a stand-in while we sorted found our composition. Our original plan was to wait for someone to actually use the stairs so we could get a naturally occurring photo but it turns out most people prefer the escalator, and nobody was taking the stairs. I think it’s just as effective of a photo though, and it doesn’t really matter if it’s staged, right? I should mention I edited this one so that everything except her hair showed up as really bright, and I flattened out what was outside. This was to create a distinct point of visual interest and to emphasise the stairwell’s geometry.
Photo three! After a while, we realised we were leaning more towards street photography than portraiture, so we thought we should actually approach a stranger to ask for a portrait. There were a bunch of Mormons around the state library so I thought one of them would make a great subject for a photo. This guy was more than happy to have his photo taken, and we ended up taking 4. Originally I preferred the shot in which he was looking across the street and smiling, but it felt like it didn’t really say much about who he was (it was a bit tighter and his badge wasn’t as clear). I’d like to be more mindful of trying to convey someone’s character through a single photo of them, maybe this is something that would require a little bit of interviewing first? I wonder where the line is between a photo looking natural and looking overly staged?
Other photos not explored in this essay (chronological order, click to expand):
