Major Project

A Major Project

As the work for this project will be undertaken over a period of several months, I have decided to base it on where I will be able to spend most of my spare time. I am currently based in Bangkok city, but have to travel often to other Asian cities. Unfortunately, I rarely have time for photography during those trips.

As the project is to be split into 6 different stages, I’d like to propose the following;

Stage 1 – produce a set of images showing the typical street vendors that sell food. In Bangkok, an everyday scene is that of people all over the city sitting down on small stools eating freshly prepared noodles. The noodle stalls are sometimes simply cooking utensils placed on the back of a pick-up. Many of the noodle vendors are proper shops with tables and chairs placed on the side walk.

Stage 2 – produce a set of images showing the night scene in Bangkok. This could range from skyscrapers to traffic flow.

Stage 3 – originally I had suggested covering the different modes of transport in Bangkok, but later agreed with my tutor to limit this stage to only one form of transport as the limited number of images for the submission would not be sufficient to cover the broader spectrum of the Bangkok traffic. I chose tuktuks as the main theme as they are such an important and original part of Bangkok traffic.

Stage 4 – produce a set of images of the river side scene in Bangkok. The old part of Bangkok has hundreds of canals running through it with houses, shops, temples and restaurants facing onto the waterways.

Stage 5 – produce a set of images showing some of Bangkok’s more interesting temples.

Stage 6 – produce a set of miscellaneous images of interesting parts of the city. This may include some of the inhabitants, the street dogs, demonstrations, police etc.

I want to process each of the photographs in a similar style. I plan to desaturate certain colours as a lot of street photography is overly complicated with all the colourful advertising everywhere. Then I will increase the contrast using colour toning and blending modes. This is somewhat of an experiment for me and so I haven’t quite got the technique right yet.

Note; after discussing my submission of Stage 1 & 2 with my tutor I have decided to lessen the amount of post processing. This is to avoid drifting too far from the original capture. I will still do some post processing to the contrast and colours to add some drama, bring out the textures and create a less confusing display of colours. I want the overall project to document what I am actually seeing, but in a slightly more dramatic and dynamic way than the original unprocessed images can show.

Here are some samples of the work that I have started for Stage 1 of my Major Project

This next one is a sweet drink vendor. He was standing in an alleyway and so not much light to work with. I think it's the same guy I took in an earlier shot of the main road.

I liked the variety of transport in this image.

Got the bus just right here because the other side of the road was not very interesting.

This is a common sight in the old parts of the city.

I really like this next one because I've managed to capture the back end of a bus in the window reflection but instead of being too bright like most of the street traffic in these images, this reflection has come out well exposed.

Coincidence? This next image is also a favourite. The exposure is just right, the composition is interesting and the textures in the street and wall have come out just the way I wanted them.

The background was a killer in this image so I blurred it out.