Post 8: Photo Project

For my first writing project, I am choosing to examine this documentary photograph. Its title is Barcelona Nights and it was taken by Liam McAllister, may 25 of this year. The main reason I choose this photo origionally is because all my life I have been interested in sky scraper type buildings, and one day, as an architect, I hope to build them myself. I feel that the main focal point of this photograph is the to tall buildings. They are located in the center of the photograph, create a contrast with the relatively flat surroundings, and also apear to form the mid point of a triangle with two other bright points in the composition. As far as subject matter goes, this photograph contains two tall buildings, some bright street lights, multiple palm trees, and then a few small maybee one story buildings. Another major component of this photo is that it is taken in black and white. This photo was taken this year, so the reason for greystyle is obvioulsy because the author chose for it to be that way, not because of a lack of technology. As a result, the photo is sort of divided into two different sections, what is iluminated, and what is not. Beings as the title of this piece is "Barcelona Nights," it is possible that the author is using this proticular color scheme to draw attention to what he feels is important at night in barcelona. There is even a large part of the photo where you cant even see what is there due to the darkness. Another interesting contrast in this piece is that everything, besides the two buildings, appears to be very low to the ground and dark in color. While this strategy might be used to draw further attention to the buildings, it could also have ambiguous meaning. For example, this could be saying that the small town, beach lifestyle is being overshadowed and over looked due to the large urbanization of the area. I will attempt to explore these ideas further in my upcoming project.

Past Experience with Photography

My past experience with photography has only been the typical take random pictures with my phone and occasionally use a digital camera on vacation. It has never been what i'd call a "hobby" of mine, but I still do place value in obtaining good pictures, specially in memorable moments. Id say my favorite pictures Ive ever taken would be photos of the rocky mountains when I go snowboarding. To me, mountains are the most incredible thing visually in the world, due to there massive size and magic appearance. Another time I have enjoyed taking pictures was when I lived in Australia. I knew I wasnt going to be there forever, and everything seemed so unique and new, so I wanted to make sure that I would have a way to remember how great the experience was. I was only in 5th grade at the time, so none of my pictures were that great, but I had the opportunity to take pictures of things that most people will never have the opportunity to see in their lifetimes. For example, I used an underwater camera to take pictures at the great barrier reef, I took pictures from the bottom of a 300 foot waterfall in the rainforest, I have a picture om me with 3 parrots on my shoulders, I took pictures of the opening and closing ceremonies during the 2000 Olympics in Sydney, ect. I guess in a way, having captured some of these special experiences through photography is what makes me value it because im sure I would not remember my time in Australia nearly as well without all my pictures from there. The last way I would say that I use photography quite abit would be for things like facebook. Although these are rarely high quality or meaningful pictures, they often reflect just what is going on in my life at that time. I still feel like im close to some of my friends from highschool because I can see whats going on in their lives and they can see whats going on in mine.