City Project, Self evaluation

This project was in the beginning about the dirtiness of the city. There are so many health and safety rules and yet the underground is one of the dirtiest places of London.

The idea was to go to several underground stations and represent the dirtiness in them. However there were complications; I learnt I could't take pictures in the underground, it is forbidden, and on the chosen I was to go a large amount of stations were closed. I came back with a handful of useless pictures. However I had realised something else, as I sat there talking to my friend I realised that practically no one ever stooped. There was always a flow of people. I decided to focus my idea on that. I shot in rochester station using a friend as a model with him walking or running around. the pictures came out as I wished, always moving, never in focus.

Naoya Hatakeyama, Underground

For my first idea i had looked at the artist Naoya Hatakeyama and his book titled Underground where he explored large sewers and caves. His pictures are almost repulsive as they show dirty unidentifiable things. 

When my idea changed I started to look at Cartier-Bresson's decisive moment. Especially the famous picture of a man deciding to jump in a huge pool of water, frozen in mid air in the middle of his jump. I also looked at Walker Evans and his subway portraits and his idea of the forever moving people in the city.

Cartier-Bresson, Decisive Moment

Walker Evans, Subway

I based my picture on both artists, Cartier-Bresson's moving man and Walker Evans idea of the forever moving.  It was interesting changing ideas n such a different way, I preferred my new idea to the old one far better, but at the same time I wish I could have continued the first one, just to see how it would have turned out and which would have been better represented.
I enjoyed this project, and found it more challenging than the las environment task.