Project ideas

I'm having to now think of three ideas for my final project. I've been thinking of two of these ideas months and I could have started them at anytime, but now I have the push I need to see them through.

7am

In my former life my commute used to start at a ridiculously early hour. I used to start work at 7.30 am so before 7 am I was out of the house and heading to the train station. As I left the station and started the 15 minute walk to the office, I used to think a lot about the people that would start work even before I did. I would mainly think about the people whose job it was to make everyone else's life easier, like refuse collectors, police officers, medical staff, delivery people, retail staff, train drivers and bus drivers. These are the people that keep the nation going and without them, everything would grind to a halt. 7 am in a bustling city can feel quite still and lonely; it's rare to see people engaging in conversation at that time as I imagine that if they're anything like how I used to be, I simply wanted time to wake up before starting a long day at work. I want to spend some time looking at 7 am in different parts of the city over different seasons to watch the city waking up. This would take several months to complete as it's important to capture how different the city looks at different times of the year.

This would be a series of colour digital shots and posted on a blog in order to reach as wide an audience as possible. A 35 mm lens would capture the street perfectly, in the style of Henri Cartier-Bresson. I really love Sean Tucker's street shots and how he's able to capture light so wonderfully. I need to make time to be patient to work a scene like he does, which will mean I should be able to capture something like this:

Sean Tucker's street photography

His use of light manages to isolate figures perfectly, which would help to enhance the narrative of a person going to work in the course of undertaking their job, early in the morning.

See more of Sean's work here http://www.seantucker.photography/street/

I also love the work of humanitarian photographer David DuChemin, particularly his Venice series.

David DuChemin's Venice street photograph

The seasons would play an integral part in the ability to capture early morning shadows, so this would need to be done during Spring and Summer.

The photographs would be colour digital and shown in a gallery.

See more of David's work here https://portfolio.davidduchemin.com/index/G0000Jeh.S0a0GMY

---

Old/New

In a similar vein, thinking about the contrast between my former role as working in the mortgage industry for a high street bank for many years and now I'm studying photography and learning how to tell stories through images. The contrast to me couldn't be greater: every decision I made had to be justified, for every task I undertook, there was some type of compliance and legislation behind it and every conversation I had was monitored. I know these are the times we live in but compare that to now, where decisions made are my own, albeit still having to provide justification for doing so, but the bottom line is I have creative freedom and I'm not assessing tax returns and accounts all day. That's really important to me (I'm not a fan of accounts and tax returns).

So I've decided this will be my final outcome for this term. It will be in the form of a series of colour digital images that provides a compare and contrast with my old job and my current role as a student.

---

Hair

I want to capture the variation of hairstyles and the current popularity of the afro in various formats, within the Afro-Caribbean community, particularly for women.

Eve Arnold, Black is Beautiful, 1968

I love this photograph for its simplicity: black and white and available light. I'm sure Arnold took her time to ensure she got the shot she wanted but she has made it look effortless.

This would be in the form of a gallery series, to reach as diverse an audience as possible. It will be made from colour or black and white digital images using a 50 mm lens, which would give a 75mm equivalent on a crop sensor camera. The photographs would be street or other location based.

https://www.pinterest.co.uk/michwalk/black-hair/