'In The City' Proposal

‘In The City’ Proposal – Laura Parkinson

When I think of what the city means to me, I always come back to the same thought of being alone. However ridiculous that sounds, in a crowd of people, I find it virtually impossible to connect with anyone. The hustle and bustle of people drives me mad, so in a crowded city centre, I always feel like I am the only one there.

For this project, I want to create a series of images representing this idea. Using photographic techniques and post-processing that I will learn off tutorials, I plan to create a series of images showing myself and other people seemingly alone in what should be a crowded cityscape.

When researching this idea for more inspiration, I found that lots of photographers have used neutral density filters to photograph this idea. The photographers Lucie and Simon photographed cities around the word in a seemingly post-apocalyptic state using these filters, and only captured one or two figures in the entire shot.

The photographs produced by Lucie and Simon are something that I want to produce by using a neutral density filter and post-production in PhotoShop. My photographs will be similar in idea; capturing an almost empty cityscape, but on a smaller scale. I will be photographing busy hotspots in Manchester, and capturing a lone figure, be that myself or a model. I think that my idea will work well, as it portrays my feelings towards the city and its atmosphere in a photographic way. However, because I have not worked with neutral density filters before, I will need to do some smaller experimentation before pursuing my final project.

Lucie and Simon’s photographs have partially inspired me because of their use of setting and composition. All shots have been taken at a wide angle, from a distance, so that the figure is not as noticeable until the viewer looks more into the shot. The initial shock is the emptiness of the cityscape. I want to make the models more prominent in the shot, by bringing them closer to the foreground rather than it being like a search.

Before deciding on this idea, I did some experimentation of what I thought the city was. I initially developed this idea from the city being busy, and produced some candid shots whilst walking through a crowd. This idea is the opposite of that, but I feel that this proposal has more potential than simply producing candid shots of strangers. I plan for this set of photographs to have some sort of emotional feeling towards the viewer. Whether this is successful as a plan or not will be identified after the set has been produced.

When photographing my set, I will need a neutral density filter and the ability to know how to use it. This may mean watching tutorials on the subject to gain a better insight into how to use them than I already have. I do not want to start my shoot with only the basic knowledge I have currently.

Reference

http://www.petapixel.com/2012/03/28/post-apocalyptic-photographs-of-major-cities-around-the-world/