A Process: East Boston to Downtown

 A Commute 

    According to the Merriam-Webster Dictionary, process can be defined as "a natural phenomenon marked by gradual changes that lead toward a particular result" (Merriam-Webster, 2020). The processes that fill our lives take up a large part of our time, inform our decisions, and dictate our direction. To me, a leading factor in how processes impact our lives is the space it takes us to. Given the nature of the definition, it is implied that a process is comprised of a start and an end. To illustrate this, I decided to capture my commute as a process. The seven photographs that I selected, are intended to display a clear starting point, the notion of travel, and an end location. 

    For this example, public transportation was used as the method of the commuting process, specifically on Boston's subway system. With the perspective of someone who frequents using this mode of transportation, my immediate thought was that using public transportation is an incredibly sensory experience. A person is required to navigate their direction through reading signs, making decisions about their route, and being spatially aware of others around them. Therefore, I attempted to depict that in my approach to this project. With my camera in hand, I took a regular commute of mine with the intention to be extra aware of my senses and where, when, and how they were being stimulated. Each moment I felt or saw something interesting, I did my best to capture the moment and what gave rise to my attention while keeping in mind the photo composition techniques covered in this week's coursework.

    Outside of the specific requirements (i.e. cropping photos, producing a black and white photo, basic color correction), I found that I began to fall into a pattern with how I chose to edit my photos. Attracted to bright photos, I boosted the exposure on all of my photos. To me, doing so gave a light, dreamy feeling to the content of the photo. More than I have in my previous experience, I also increased contrast to more accurately represent the moment as it appeared in my mind's eye. Since discussing contrast in our previous classes, I've been attuned to the benefits of contrast and how it can be used to create meaning or make a piece interesting. Additionally, I added yellow and magenta hues to the overall photo, this is displayed in each of the photos I selected outside of the black and white. This was due to my interest and attraction to warm photos, and to bring a sense of cohesion to the entire collection. In 2019 Greta Gerwig illustrated this idea in Little Women, where the tone of her shots conveyed the where in time each scene lied in the achronological storyline. To give a viewer an understanding of my story, I decided to give a consistent appearance to each photo. 

    To choose the photos for my story, I started with a bookend approach. I took an establishing shot of the start and ending location of the storyline to give a clear indication of the beginning of the story and satisfy a conclusion. Next, I selected out of my close up to middle range photos with the intention to imply progression. Owing to this being a project on a process, my goal was to make clear that there was movement along the travel experience. As described above, many of the photos within the bookends are intended to drive a sensory experience and give the viewer a sense of feeling to what the commute felt like. To provide movement, I attempted to answer the questions, who, what, and where, as the story progressed.

    The greatest challenge I faced in this assignment was selecting the photos that best conveyed the story. It was hard for me to choose between photos that I felt accurately portrayed the process being documented and photos that I felt where stronger in composition or more interesting. In this way, my creativity was challenged. Rather than solely relying on the strong characteristics of one photo, I was forced to consider how adding a photo to a collection could make the entire project better. In the end, I was much happier with my collection of photos and how they conveyed a story than I was with any single photo. 

Black & White Scene Establishing

Detail/Close-up

Off-Centered

Medium Distance

Cropped Within Original Aspect Ratio

Focal Point Centered

Square

Outtakes

As acknowledged above, selecting my photos was the most challenging aspect of this assignment. Each of these I believe to be strong in composition, but weren't as relevant to the storyline or serve the intended project of the project. For this assignment, I pushed myself creatively to take photos of moments I wouldn't regularly document using the techniques taught in this week's materials. This resulted in finishing with more photos that I liked than I was able to include but will highlight my favorite outtakes from this contact sheet below. 

Outtakes Contact Sheet

Leading Lines in Chinatown

Reflections on Washington Street

Caffe Nero & Paramount Building

Before & After

When tasked with including a before and after photo, I decided to take a closer look at my photos that made the greatest transformations. With being cropped, color-corrected, having added exposure, sharpness, and more, my ending photo of Caffe Nero saw one of the more significant shifts in post-production. Throughout my photo journey, I have loved looking at the before and after shots of my work. Doing so serves as a reminder of how interesting a photo has the potential to be, even if it doesn't seem as if it could from first-glance. 

Before

After

References:

Merriam-Webster. (n.d). Process. In Merriam-Webster.com dictionary. Retrieved September 27, 2020, from http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/processe