gemmaphotographingthecity

Photographing the City

[gemmaphotographingthecity]

Inspiration

René Magritte Empire of Light ( L'empire des lumières )

[gemmaphotographingthecity]

Other experiments.

A less colorful approach. 

[gemmaphotographingthecity]

Street lights in London: day and night

1. Covent Garden

2. Covent Garden

3. Leicester Square

Starting with the photos of gas lamp as it represent the old London. Then will be the electricity lamp in Covent Garden, representing the modern London. Lastly will be the electric lamp in China town, representing London as an international city with different culture. 

I hope to show the change of time in London history by these street light photos. Light is a crucial component in photography, therefore I also wants the contrast of natural sunlight and artificial light in photography and the paradoxical combination of day and night in my photos. 

[gemmaphotographingthecity]

Piccadilly at Night; 1958 Henry Grant

The photo I choose is Piccadilly at Night, 1958 by Henry Grant. The first thing that catch my eyes are the contrast of light. The photo was taken at night, instead of photographing the illuminated advertising boards itself, the artist chose to photograph the reflection on the ground. If the artist film the advertising boards directly, the light maybe too bright and blur, like the street lamp from behind. Now the way the photo was taken, the light are soft and gentle and the boards’ pattern are relatively clear. The light and contrast in this photo is well balanced. I also love that the car is the only moving subject in the photo while everything else are still. The moving car create a contrast and add some dynamic to the photo. The center of interest of this photo are the light reflections on the ground, it took up most spaces of this photo. The focus is soft. I love this photo’s composition, there is a clear diagonal in this photo. About half of the photo are real objects, while the other half from the line are just reflections. It is fun and beautifully composed. This is one of the photo from a series of Piccadilly Circus photos taken by Henry Grant. The artist has also taken photo of the Statue of Eros and illuminated advertising boards. All of these photos shows the contrast of light and have a relatively large spaces being leave blank. This series of photo documented how Piccadilly Circus was like at night at that time.

[gemmaphotographingthecity]

Final project suggestions

[gemmaphotographingthecity]

Light pratice

[gemmaphotographingthecity]

1/80 5.0 ISO 800

I turn the ISO up because the light is not bright enough in the museum. Also a smaller aperture for more light to enter. The shutter speed is not too fast and enough for light to enter.

This is an old iron candle bracket. Before there are gas lamps or electricity, people use this kind of candle bracket to light up the street and their homes.

[gemmaphotographingthecity]

This is what Hong Kong used to look like Credit to Allen Cheuck

[gemmaphotographingthecity]

One of my favorite photo taken the other day. 

[gemmaphotographingthecity]

Pilot phase - final products

Street lamps in London

All of them are taken around buildings in daylight from 2 to 4 pm.

The first two are taken between streets, the second two uses a more old fashioned building as background, while the last two are giving a more modern style. It shows the variety of lamps from old to modern in nowadays London.

1. Regent’s Street

2. Around Trafalgar Square

3. Oxford Street

4. Chiltern Street

5. Waterloo Station

6. Broadwick Street

[gemmaphotographingthecity]

Inspiration: Wong Kar Wai: Color Obsession 

It’s not related to street lamps but Wong Kar Wai is my favorite director. And his framing, use of colours and light inspires me in every way possible. He is so good at using colour to create and capture emotions. Every frame is a photo.

Credit to GlassDistortion

[gemmaphotographingthecity]

Inspiration:

The idea of typologies in Bernd and Hilla Becher’s work, in particular their Water Towers project. Each photograph was taken from the same angle, at roughly the same distance from the buildings. To help give the images some uniformity, they only took the images on overcast days and early in the morning to avoid shadows. (Phaidon, n.d.) In this project they wanted capture a record of a landscape that was changing and disappearing before their eyes. Typologies not only recorded a moment in time, they prompted the viewer to consider the subject’s place in the world. The Becher’s wanted to “connect one image or one encounter or one object to the next and the next and the next” (Stimson, 2012)

This inspire me to do this project as street lamps changes though time and are being slowly replaced by led lights and other new technologies. And I also want the viewers to consider about what does street lamps meant to them and how do they affects their life. Street lamps exists all over the world, people from other countries can also connect to it and consider the subject’s place in the world.

Credit to Alex Taylor Photography

[gemmaphotographingthecity]

Just in case you want to find the gas lamps as I did, here's a map by the British Gas!

[gemmaphotographingthecity]

Reference: London's Last Gas Lamps

[gemmaphotographingthecity]

Why I choose street lamps as my subject?

First, there is a Cantonese song that I liked a lot is about street lamps. The lyrics is something like ”When I am tired and lost, the street lamps will guide me home”. Street lamps exists in every country and serve human over years and years. Most of the time we don’t pay much attention to the street lamps because they are always there and it has become part of our life. We only know how important they can be when the whole city blackout. I have an obsession with light, just like most people do. Street lamps share warmth in darkness and guide every soul home after each long day of work. It is, for me , a comfort to see the street lamps in the dark. 

The other thing is that street lamps has its own historical significance. Gas lamps exists way before we have electricity and there are still 1500 of them running in London now. The street lamps is the witness of history. By 1800s, many visitors to London were amazed by the bright city light. According to German writer Karl Philip Mortz, he describes the street lighting as a “festive illumination” on a visit to London. Now, the oldest gas lamps are in  Westminster Abbey and the newest lights up a Covent Garden arcade.  Street lamps is part of people’s everyday life and witness the change in people’s life since the middle of 1700s.

I think street lamps are kind of overlooked in daily life, that’s why I want to make it the hero this time.

[gemmaphotographingthecity]

Just some other street lamps i got.

[gemmaphotographingthecity]

Street lamps sequence. Zoom in.

Taken at (in order) Carnaby street, Trafalgar square, Southbank, Waterloo station and Baker street.

I try to photo them from the same distance and same angle, to make a series of typology photos. But its hard to capture the same angle and the same background, so I try my best to do so.