Here are some inspiration I got while working on my composition! I thought it would be nice to share it here. I realised that I seem to go towards the direction of the social issues of the world, as most of my inspiration photos gives a distorted view of the society.
“The Night Watch” is a photographic series of security guards who protects the nation at night.
All strange things happen at night, and we are strangers to the dark. We don’t quite explore it; we find ways to live around it, whereas for some, they guard the night while the city sleeps. We often forget the heroes who are always around to keep us safe while we are at our most vulnerable. The quietness and the mystery of the night, takes on a mystical charm which is so colourful, but also dark.
Being labelled as the second safest country in the world, we are able to sleep soundly knowing the safety we have. I wanted to prove how well-protected our country is by doing excessive research to come up with a large collection of photographs of security guards, hoping to give an impact on how safe we are, by showing shots of guard posts or security guards. I chose to shoot at night as it it when the city is most vulnerable, and with the heroes guarding the night, we can all sleep soundly in the comfort of our beds without any worries.
Find the unseen that is overlooked, bring forth and start appreciating.
For this project, I’ve been to about 3 industrial areas – Marsiling, Jurong and Bukit Batok, and many many many condos. I’ve shot about 50 places till my camera died on me. I wonder how I’m gonna do my Project 3… Nevertheless, here are the 30 images with a mixture of private houses and industrial areas that have made the cut for submission.
This project was quite tough as I normally start shooting after 11pm so that the street has lesser people and it’s quieter, in order to achieve the “stillness” I want in my photos. Basically for this project, it was a shoot and run style as the guards were quite aware of my presence and I think they thought I was some suspicious person LOL. The condo guards are harder to take as they are much more alert than the industrial areas ones. Overall, it was fun shooting this series and I am very satisfied with the outcome as it turned out exactly how I wanted it to be, especially the lighting 🙂
But next time, if I’ve a chance, most likely I wouldn’t choose to shoot the night again. Although it’s beautiful, it’s super scary. But well, maybe?
After consulting Robert on Project 2, he mentioned that the concept of atmospheric photos is too generalised and wide, and that I should scope down to a certain area. He suggested since I wanted to focus on night lights, I should try to further expand the professions in my “Before Dawn” series. Hence, I decided to focus on the profession – the security guards in Singapore.
Here are the first series of photos taken and showed on the first consultation with Robert.
Robert commented that this photo does not really work as most of my photos are quiet, still and taken as a far shot, and there is hardly any human presence in it. Whereas for this it’s nearer and the guard is quite evident in the picture which distracts the quietness of the photo.
I really liked this photo as there’s a series of lighting colours, however Robert mentioned that the focus of this photo is ambiguous. Is it the guards, or the car?
As most of my photo does not really have a human presence, or they are hidden, this picture might not work as well as the guard is quite prominent in the scene.
Do check back for more photos on the next post!
Lights of the Night, a continuation of “Before Dawn”
While I was doing my “Before Dawn” project, I realise that there’s this certain stillness to the night, everything takes on a mystical charm which is so colourful, but also dark, and all seems magical and suspended as if time was frozen. It isn’t noisy at night, be it sound or sight, as there’s lesser people and cars, I guess that’s what makes the night so beautiful and calm.
I realise that what is prominent in my “Before Dawn” series are the lightings. The subtle light in the photographs makes up the atmosphere, even if there is nothing happening in the picture. It is quite strange that even though the scene is suppose dead, stagnant and colourless, a subtle light that creeps in brings a certain life to the stillness.
For this series, I wanted to focus on Atmospheric photos. I find it fascinating at how lights can bring an empty scene to life and different colours portray certain characteristics. The quietness and the mystery of city nights, each corner of the street that seems abandoned, tells a story. Shooting late at night is like being between a dream state and wakefulness. I feel like I’ve stepped into an alternate reality.
Our first class outing to CCA was to view an exhibition done by Indian artist and filmmaker, Amar Kanwar. His works explore politics of power, violence and justice through immersive installations by presenting harsh realities in the realm of the poetic and the metaphysical.
“The Sovereign Forest” focuses on the exhaustive struggles over the resource-rich land of Odisha, in East India, and the issues concerning its ownership. This project took about a decade(!!) to be completed as Kanwar has been filming the industrial interventions that have reshaped and permanently destoryed parts of Odisha’s landscape. The resulting conflicts between local communities, government and corporations over the use of agricultural lands, forests, rivers and minerals have led to an ongoing regime of violence that is unpredictable and often invisible.
“If a crime continues to occur regardless of the enormous evidence available then is the crime invisible or the evidence invisible or are both visible but not seen?” – Amar Kanwar
The exhibition starts off with the film – “The Scene of Crime”. In the 40 minutes film, there was a total of 10 stories which showed the before and aftermath of the battle, that serves as a stark reminder of how the forest looked like before and how the battle has greatly affected the environment and the people who lives there.
I realised that there were no dialogues in the film at all and the only audio that played along with the scenes were simply the background sounds that was recorded – the rustling of the trees, splashing waves and even the breeze. The experience felt so calm and peaceful, which brought me into a trance-like state while watching it. There’s a certain stillness to the film and the reduced sound gave a meditative rhythm to it. However, at some point of the film, there was a loud thunder which scared the shit out of me as I was so engrossed in watching the scenes. I felt that the way the artist juxtapose the quietness with a sudden loud noise was really effective as it gave a sudden shock to me which sorts of broke me out of the “trance” I was in while watching his film. It was something like… a wakening or sudden realisation on what is actually happening?
It fascinates me at how the artist managed to capture my attention and made me so engrossed into the film that even I didn’t know it myself, though I was falling asleep (oops) but surprisingly, I managed to absorb the entire film.
Even though the film does not really have those fanciful, cinematic shots, the simple, wide shots that Amar Kanwar took, paired with the reduced background noise really worked well together. It’s not a messy film that has so many things happening at once which the viewers might not have enough time to absorb entire scene, “The Scene of Crime” is clean and simple, and I really like it. It’s a quiet and slow film, paired with minimal text yet it’s impactful.
I really like how Amar Kanwar incorporated the audio in the film and I would like to try the reduced background noise for my Project 3. I felt that even though the audio is reduced to only the background noise, it’s more impactful as it really draws in the viewers and this allows the viewer to concentrate on one thing, rather than many things at once.
Less is more – that’s what I learnt after watching this film. I’m someone who always tries to do and try out as much stuff as I can for my projects which I’ll end up killing myself as I do not have enough time to complete everything, thus affecting the quality of the work. One does not have to overdo things, or take fanciful shots or try to make your work is complicated/abstract as possible, sometimes keeping things simple is better.
Moving further into the exhibition itself, what caught my attention was the third book, titled “The Constitution”. It’s a book with lots of textures and minimal text (titles), with an image projected on the right side of the book. Personally, I love anything that has to do with textures, especially threads. Moreover, each chapter has different textures to it and the textures tells a different stories.
While browsing through the book, there’s a video projected on the right side of the page shows the battle of over the land of Odisha. The textures on the book reminded me of tree roots and what I can infer is that the textures represents the aftermath of the environment after the battle, which shows how badly affected the environment became.
Overall, I felt that Amar Kanwar is really inspiration and amazing at for this exhibition, he is so passionate and has done extensive research over a decade to piece up this piece of work – The Sovereign Forest. If he have the patience work on a project which runs for about a decade, we can do it too. (well first thing first gotta complete the assignments due this week)
Adios.
