Author: Kaydin

“The Empty Seat”

The title is so literal and explanatory if whats going on in the image again there is nothing happening outside the window you can only pull that it is daytime and even the ad on top of the seat is out of frame so you can only focus on the empty seat. When taking photos I tend to try and force a deeper meaning within the photo and it takes away from the genuineness and candid nature of the photo. I decided that I wanted a series of photos that portrayed something as simple as my morning commute. So taking that into context no one is literally in the seat there is nothing more to the photo making a statement on the simplicity of a routine morning commute.

“The Not So Yellow School Bus”

This was yet another photo centering my commute to school a bit more to analyze. I named it not so yellow school bus because a yellow school bus had just passed and it made me realize how getting older meant leaving behind that bus and taking the MTA which was adorned with yellow poles and lines throughout the bus. Although the viewer could not have known a school bus had just passed, that’s why I believe the name of the photo can be just as important as the photo itself as it provides context in its analysis. So the color in this photo provides nostalgia and again the empty and quietness of the scene demonstrates a departure of chaotic and hectic themes that are so normalized in a commute to school. 

“Across the Platform”

The train is definitely the busiest part of my morning routine, and arguably the same for most New Yorkers. I love photography’s ability to capture a moment in complete stillness and silence. So while the platform was bustling and packed, the viewer wouldn’t know that because I intentionally left them out of frame. There is little to inspect besides the obvious silver bars and train. There is an element of framing as the most look through the gaps in the car to make out the train in the background. This was definitely an art style photo because rather than gain a newfound philosophical understanding of the transit system I just wanted to relate to the viewer in feeling peace.

In Teju Coles’ essay “Perfect and Unrehearsed”, my favorite photo was Suzhou Creek by Henri Cartier-Bresson. I definitely considered this photo to be an art style photo. However with more historical context on Suzhou Creek one could argue that it was a documentary photo on the working culture of the area. Cartier-Bresson was originally inspired to publish his The Decisive Moment, by Martin Munkacsi’s Three Boys in Liberia because it showed him “photography could reach eternity through the moment”. This was particularly interesting to me as I interpreted the quote to highlight Cartier-Bresson’s epiphanic appreciation for photography’s ability to eternalize a moment in time. This directly translates into Suzhou Creek as it appears to be a ‘day-in-the-life’ for these men, even the compositional techniques are ‘unrehearsed’. The poles create leading lines and as Coles puts it “a kaleidoscopic coherence” with working men in the middle and an older man relaxing in the foreground. Following the lines as they cross and weave through each other we can see the clutter of the workplace materials and varying expressions of the workers. It makes me wonder what are they doing? What are the poles for? The anchor is atop the boat so are they moving or stationary? All of these questions posed from one photo, this snapshot of one tiny moment of these men’s lives can help viewers peer into what their lifetime might’ve looked like. I continue to emphasize the phrase “to me”, because as Teju Cole stated “There is no single right answer, just as there’s no photographic formula”, this is what made Cartier-Bresson’s The Decisive Moment one of the most influential photography books ever. It is because it is understood that to some Suzhou Creek isn’t ‘perfect’ and the commotion of the photo can be perceived as an overwhelming disaster, but photography as an art form is so innately subjective that it can only be analyzed with fluid and undefined terms like perfect.