I met up for dinner with some friends from high school at our favorite soup dumpling place in Chinatown. I got there a bit early and wandered around taking pictures. We're working on a light assignment for class (which boils down to "take pictures of interesting lighting") and I thought I would test my skills at night. Well, it was freezing and I needed to keep my gloves on, making it nearly impossible to move all the buttons, wheels, and pulleys necessary to get the exposure right and I just switched to automatic.
I always feel a bit uncomfortable taking pictures in immigrant neighborhoods because I have the assumption that there may be a different attitude towards picture taking. In Chinatown, the tourists have 5 or 6 cameras strapped to their bodies so I quickly felt more comfortable and pretended to be a tourist.
My take on the "light" assignment for last night was simply to take pictures of well lit stores in contrast to the dark streets. When I slowed down and looked though, I saw that the windows were much more interesting than just being light. There was an interesting interplay between public and private as people sat at their window tables looking out as I looked in. Because many of the shops are restaurants or markets there is a working vs relaxing tension as well. One person's toil is another's gain.
No comments:
Post a Comment