images from the top of a London bus // Street

The website http://www.ftud.net/ (From the upper deck) which is where the general public can post images that they have taken from the top deck of a London bus. This is what the current top post looks like.

I took inspiration from this website by taking images of what was happening and what I could see whilst I was on the top deck of a London bus. The bus we caught was from Oxford Circus to Trafalgar Square, so this meant that we were going along the main tourist spots - therefore there was always something happening and you could get some quite interesting photos by doing this. The images that I took are below.

This image has been taken along Oxford Street of busy shoppers. Each of the people within this image are all doing the same activity, but are all looking in different directions, walking at different speeds, all having different facial expressions adorning their face; this then conveys that each person is completing the same activity in different ways, the viewer could then want to know what each subject is thinking and where exactly they are destined to. You can also see how each person is tolerating the rain and what they are doing to divert it from landing atop of their heads, but the image suggests that most people don't mind about the rain or that they just don't have an umbrella or hood on them. Each subject have been to different shops but they have all come together in this image to complete the same activity just at different places within the same street.

 This image shows the speed that the bus was travelling at while I was trying to take pictures. It also portrays the idea of the amount of people that walk on Oxford Street everyday, which is a significant amount. One of the things I quite like about this image is that with it being quite blurred, you can therefore see all loads of bright colours coming through within the image. It also gives the effect that since it was raining, everyone was attempting to run in the opposite way of which the bus was going to try and get shelter and keep dry, but also they could be trying to get their shopping on Oxford Street done quite quickly.

 I am quite happy with this image that I took as you can clearly see textures and tones running through it, this has been created through the light and the rain that was happening when I took the image. Another thing that I quite like about this image is the idea that my DSLR camera has auto-focused on the black bar of the bus stop, by doing this it looks almost as if this image has been made up of two different images of the top of the bus stop and the underneath part of the bus stop where the three people are sitting. The three people sat at the bus stop are bundled up in warm clothes and are looking incredibly fed up waiting for their bus, each of them has a slightly different facial expression adorning their facial features - this then helps to communicate that each of the people are as bored as each other but are still different people in their own right. With the camera having auto-focused on the black bar, this has made it so the three people aren't totally in focus in the image, this has therefore created more of an effect that the viewer is then looking down at the people. Each of the three people are looking in different directions, which then makes the viewer wonder what they're looking at; then adding their individual facial expressions to this concept, it then makes you wonder what each of the people are thinking about.

                                                                                                                                  I find this image that I took quite striking and powerful for a number of reasons. Firstly, when I took this image I managed to capture lines going through the image which I am pleased with; these lines are the edge of the bus window, and a line of Barclay's cycle hire bikes which are commonly known as 'Boris Bikes'. The 'Boris Bikes' add an interesting effect to the image by them all being in a line and all having their back wheels featuring the light blue Barclays trademark colour, so they can have an advertising panel on it's rear wheel. Towards the upper right corner of the image there are a multitude of people's personal bikes bundled up together against a few street bike racks, this has been done by the bike owners to protect their cycles against theft. This is powerful and striking because there is that line of 'Boris Bikes', the across the road from them is people's personal bikes; this conveys that bikes is a significant form of transport for Londoners, it could also convey to the viewer that bicycles is one of the main focus' of the image. Also going through the image are a few roads, this then adds to the idea of transport of bicycles as they are all situated around a few roads, which would be the suspected area for them to be kept along public roads.

Kin Chan inspiration // Street

Kin Chan is a photographer off the website http://www.streetphotographylondon.co.uk who takes his images in colour. His works range from a number of different things, but the two below are my favourites of his that I took inspiration from. The top image is interesting because he took a picture from what it looks like of a corridor from the London underground system when nobody was about, by doing this the corridor looks as if its getting smaller towards the end of it. Also the lighting along the top of the corridor add an interesting effect to the image as you can see darkened rings in the corridor where the lights aren't on. The second image is interesting because you can see the panels where there's notice boards but you can't tell what's on them. Also the idea that you can see lines going through the image from how Chan has composed the image - the train tracks, the edge of the platform, the roof of the sheltered part of the platform, and where the platforms lights are; this then draws the viewers attention down those lines towards the bright sun, which looks as if its only recently rose. In the image the people are fed up waiting for a train, therefore you can see what each person does while they're waiting - for instance the man at the front is looking towards the ground with his hands in his pockets trying to keep warm, another man is looking down at his phone. 

I took inspiration from these images and therefore did my own interpretations of them, which are below.

In my opinion my images aren't half as good as Chan's because my first image has people walking on both sides of it which means I couldn't get the full narrowing corridor effect to it, also if I stood in the centre of the corridor the image would have come out much better has the central light source would have been running straight through the centre of the image which would have made my proportions much better. In my second image, I should have stood nearer to the edge of the platform of the tube station so then I could have got much more people in shot - this then would have shown what more people were doing whilst waiting for a train at Leicester Square Station. But overall for a first attempt of taking images like these in the underground, where I had to make sure it wasn't at all obvious that I was taking any pictures at all, have come out decently well. I now know from analysing these pictures of mine what I should do next time I want to take pictures like these. 

Julien Legrand inspiration // Street

Whilst I was in London, I travelled via the London underground system. Whilst I did this, I thought it would be a good chance to take some photos especially seeing as the photographer Julien Legrand from http://www.street-photographers.com based a whole project of his on 'Underground Life'. Here are four of Legrand's images that I took inspiration from.

With being on the London Underground, I had to take pictures without people realising because of the undergrounds photography rules. Therefore with having to do this, I used my phone - with doing this not all my images came out well. I also used my Nikon D70 camera, by standing still and taking the pictures from my waist, with doing this I had to guess how my images would come out as I couldn't put the camera up around my eye to look through the view-finder, but they all came out relatively well.

These are the images I took in the London Underground from my phone and DSLR camera going along Legrand's project title. I have kept the colour in my images as I think it adds effect of showing where each different thing is and the underground has colour in it as well. Altogether I am very pleased with how my images have come out and how I have used Legrand's images to inspire my own. 

London night photography // Personal

Recently I went down to London with my mum so I could do some photography and a bit of shopping. As we're currently in the middle of our street photography project we hit the main tourist places of London during the day, such as Covent Garden, Leicester Square, Trafalgar Square and more. But in the evening time we went to Victoria Embankment and South Bank to see what kind of night photos we could get and what they would come out as. We did this using slow shutter speeds to capture the light and movement of what was happening. Here are a few that I took...

All these images have some form of human interaction whether it be through light trails from moving vehicles, boats, people. I find that these images came out the best out of all the long shutter speed night photos that I took for all different reasons. But overall I am very pleased with how these images came out in the end.

Photoshoot around town and Norfolk Park - 5.10.2014 // Portraiture

Today, I went to Town and Norfolk Park with Ashleigh, Matt and Brandon so I decided to have my phone out and take some pictures of what we did today.

I took this image of Ashleigh today in which I took inspiration from one of Bryant Phethmanh's images. There are a good few differences between my image and his as I have used a different setting and Ashleigh's eyes don't seem to be open. But overall I am pretty happy with my own interpretation of the image to the right. I feel as if the pattern on the sculpture behind Ashleigh's head adds to the image in hand as it adds another range of colour to the image.

 

This is another image I took today of Ashleigh. I didn't really have an inspiration when I took this image as I seemingly took it on impulse, but I love it. The lighting and shadows around Ashleigh really add to the image in my opinion. Also you can tell that it was an action shot as you can see that she was moving, in fact she was about to throw a paper airplane across the Peace Gardens in Sheffield. The colours of the nature and the buildings behind and around her add to the image as Ashleigh is wearing all black, so the colours add a contrast to what she is wearing and the background as well as brightening up the image.

This image I took today around Norfolk Park today is of Matt and similar to the previous image, I had no inspiration when I took this as I took it on impulse. Today was a fun day with loads of random things happening, so there was many photo opportunities where I took photos on impulse without inspiration really and they came out really well. I like this image because Matt looks like he is petting the statue of a deer in its usual natural habitat. But what makes this interesting to me is that since he is petting a deer in its usual habitat, but then we know that it's a statue of a deer.