For my final project I knew I wanted to shoot Coney Island. However my issue was trying to figure what about Coney Island I wanted to shoot. I have thought about lines, but also just Coney Island as a location. At the end, I selected to shoot the rides at Luna Park, which is a big part of Coney Island.
During my first shoot I had no idea that Luna Park was closed during the weekdays at this time of the year so I had to work my way around it. I ended up shooting things at a distance and through the fence a lot. While walking up and down the street from the boardwalk, I found some interesting things to shoot, such as the photo down below (1). You have the parachute jump placed inside the loop of the roller coaster.
For my next two shoots, it got a bit easier because I went during the weekend so I got to shoot close ups of the rides. The challenge with close ups was figuring out where to position myself because I always ended up having things in my photos that I wish were not there (2) such as a sound speaker. It was also hard to take photos from the positions I wanted to because there was always family members or friends waiting for the people on the rides and they were taking pictures of them too (3). Some of my photos; I had to wait a while to get a shot of because people were always passing by (4).
Overall, my experience was pretty good. If I were to redo this project, I would definitely consider using an actual camera. It would have allowed me to take better photos with the ability to zoom, but also get some shallow depth of field.
Good evaluation. You might try including the people passing by next time instead of waiting for them to pass. Luna park is so much about the people who go there. and yes, you get more control when you shoot with a camera vs a cameraphone.