Henri Cartier-Bresson, was a French photographer known for his master class of candid photography before being named as the father of the photojournalism. His phrase the 'decisive moment' has a great influence among photographers. Then important lesson about the 'decisive moment' is that the best opportunities often flash before our eyes and we must be ready at all times to capture the moments.
Cartier-Bresson's images are sometimes shot by random but other times he had to wait for the right person to pass by to complete the scenes. He usually applied geometrical elements in his images. We can see the integration of vertical, horizontal, and diagonal lines, curves, shadows and etc. He likes to capture the subject along his travel in places such as India, Europe, China, the United States, as well as Africa. Through his work, we observe people of different cultures telling stories that sometimes we encounter in our daily life and other times we had never seen.
Eggleston, an American photographer who is largely credited with the recognition for color photography as a legitimate form to be exhibited in the art galleries. His later work usually features ordinary subject such as old tyres, machines, discarded air-conditioners, vending machines, Coca-Cola bottles, road signs and etc.
The beauty of Eggleston's approach is that he photographs democratically. He would treat every objects as equal. Street photographers usually tend to look for significant characters, interesting gestures and special moments in life as the subject. However, Eggleston is on the opposite. He would frame very ordinary situations and create powerful visual impact out of almost nothing.
DiCorcia's work usually involves intensive planned staging to take everyday occurrences contained with strong emotion into his frames. His work are categorized as documentary photography with some fictional and cinematic aspects, creating a link between reality and fantasy.
In DiCorcia's early work, he likes to use his friends and family as the subject of his photograph to depict some spontaneous scenes that we encounter in our daily life. Though these photographs look like some random shots, they were carefully staged and planned beforehand. Dicarcia later started to photograph random people on the streets, such as Calcutta, Hollywood, New York, Rome and Tokyo. He would often hide lights in the pavement to illuminate random subjects and isolate them from other people in the street.
DiCorcia's photographs favour me with the dramatic essence of random passers-by poses, insignificant facial expressions, and sometimes contented with black humor. The interpretation of these photographs are usually different depending on the viewer which offers free flow of imagination about the people being captured. This is one of reasons that I like shooting random people on the streets and DiCorcia is definitely one of the role models with great work, such as his series, Hustlers, Streetwork, Heads, and A Storybook Life.
The Hustlers series (1990-1992) has featured some male prostitutes at Los Angeles, shot against the backdrops of the AIDS pandemic in the late 1980s and early 90s. The latest awards winning movie, Dallas Buyers Club, has the similar backdrops that relate me to DiCorcia's work. The series was shot at the prearrange settings such as hotel room, vacant lot, in between cars, fast food restaurant and etc.
Eddie Anderson, 21 years old; Houston, Texas; $20
Todd M. Brooks, 22 years old; Denver, Colorado; $40
Ralph Smith, 21 years old;
Ft. Lauderdale, Florida; $25
Marilyn, 28 years old;
Las Vegas, Nevada; $30
Keith Ryan, 36 years old;
Bakersfield, California; $30
This jump has brought 2
survivors from a plane crash to land on an island. Justin woke up on the second
day after the crash when the sun started to burn his skin. Tim walked towards
him and said, ‘Hell, we are at this unknown island, we have to figure out where
are we now and how can we escape from here! My name is Tim. I was a policeman
in Bosston.’
‘Justin here. I was a zookeeper
from Nex York. I saw there is a little fire in the jungle, let’s go and see!’
They walked towards the
jungle until they see a group of people gathered in front of a fire to grill
fishes for their meal. These people did not wear anything except covering their
lower body with leaves. They were exactly what we saw from our history books,
primitive humans.
The primitive humans
started to be aware of the invasion of two outsiders. They geared up themselves
with axes and pikes, surrounded Justin and Tim. They started to make noise.
Justin and Tim tried hard to speak to them but they did not seem understand
their language.
After several minutes,
there was a leader standing out and ordered everyone to point their weapons
towards Justin and Tim. They were about to attack on these two invaders.
Suddenly, a tiger appeared from nowhere and attacked a few of the primitive
humans.
Justin has been well
trained to communicate with animals when he was working at the zoo in Nex York.
He stood closer to the tiger and patted the tiger’s head. He then held the
tiger’s legs for a few seconds. The tiger stopped the attack on the primitive
humans and eventually walked away from them.
The primitive humans
shouted for relief and they invited Justin and Tim to enjoy their meal. Since
then, Justin and Tim were being treated like a King at the island. They
provided them shelter and they went hunting for food together. Justin and Tim
were seen as God landing on Earth to rescue them.
After several days, Justin tried
to educate the primitive humans about how to deal with animals in the jungle
while Tim started to train the primitive humans to make a boat. Soon, the boat
was successfully built. They tried to sail away from the island but the boat
wrecked after several hours.
It was nearly after a year
living in the island, Tim and Justin, with the help of the primitive humans
managed to build another bigger boat which was claimed to be tougher than the
previous boat. They sailed across the ocean until they found another island
which they were familiar of, Kawaii. It is the second largest island in
Bosston, where modern population situated.
Tim and Justin managed to
bring all the primitive humans they have found from the island to the modern
city. Over years, they developed the island and name the island as Tin Island.
Have you ever thought about turning back time? There should be
some happy moments in the past that you want go back and have it all again.
It was 2099, Dr. Sushi invited me to his laboratory in Japan. He
has made a refrigerator to store human memories. These memories will be
retrieved from human brain, and transferred to some chocolate cubes, which will
then be kept in his new product, the refrigerator of human memories. I was
invited by him for a purpose, to be his 'laboratory mice'.
The chocolate cubes being used were made of edible gold which are
of high costs. These cubes can store human memories, mainly feelings. Each cube
can store human memories of about a day. When you want to go back to a
particular moment in the past, you can just eat the chocolate cubes with
memories saved. It will bring you back to the time as you desired.
I have picked 3 sets of memories to be saved and to be experienced
again.
1. The day when I was born. I want to feel the purest joy at home,
where all my family members celebrated for their newly born member. This
happiness faded over time, when the baby started to grow up, became rebellious
and finally left the family to pursue his dreams.
2. The first love that I met. It was the greatest gift that you
will never have it again in your life. Innocent, true, pure and unselfish…
3. The moment when I lost my life. It was silly to go back to a
sad moment but I want to take it as a chance to refresh myself about the place
where I fell, and I will never repeat the mistake again.
The chocolate cubes were working. I was brought back into the
memories. However, the feelings were different.
As time goes by, we learned and we grow at the same time. The
perception that we hold towards things in life changes over time. Something
that you feel extremely important in the past might not be as important right
now. There is no point to turn back time. Why don't we look forward to the
future and move on?
At the end of the experiment with Dr. Sushi, I told him that the
chocolate cubes failed to work. Hence, the launching of the refrigerator was
not successful.
There are some unsent letters from
me, my brother, my sister-in-law, and my beloved nephew. They were all written
in our hearts, time will help us to send out the letters when it is time.
Letter from me
I was in London when I got a call
from my sister-in-law. My nephew, Tommy, has been diagnosed with leukemia. He
is the first kid of my brother, 7 years old this year. I still remember that he
was born on the Valentine’s Day of 2006.
I have never talked to my brother
for years. There were some misunderstanding between us and no one has initiated
to solve them. One of the reasons I moved to London was to avoid seeing them
and I just wanted to have a little peace for myself. That was selfish which I
started to admit when years passed by.
Over the years, I realized that
how important my family has meant for me. There is hardly someone out there who
truly cares about you except your family member. However, my life has been
settled down here in London, it is hard for me to go back and living like the
old times.
Finally, I have a rational reason
to go back to my hometown. I need to visit my nephew. He is too young and too
innocent to fight with leukemia, who knows what is happening next after the
chemotherapy treatment. He has yet to seen the world. He needs to go around the
world to explore the other sides of the world.
Letter from my brother
My brother has moved to London
some years ago. I have never seen him for quite a while. When he was young, I
was almost like his second father. Dad always works at overseas. He is the
youngest kid in the house and he has to hold my hands to feeling secured before
falling to sleep.
In his seventeen, typically the
age of teenage rebellion, he started to change. He was once the top student in
school but not anymore after he got some new friends. They hung out together
after school and usually came home late. The situation and their relationship
became complicated that I do not really want to talk about it again.
Probably I have been too harsh on
him in this issue that made him feeling annoyed of me. Since then, we seldom
talk and he tried not to talk to me about anything. I was trying to help him,
to lead him not going into a wrong direction but it did not seem working. In
2007, he left home.
Letter from my sister in law
I have never expected this to
happen in my life. I would trade whatever I have to recover my kid. The
chemotherapy has been going on for nearly half a year. This was the last
treatment and we will be having a little celebration after leaving the hospital.
It has been a while, I could not
have any sound sleep since the day Tommy was diagnosed with leukemia. I
understand that it is a long journey to the road of recovery. This is a
challenge in my life that God wants me to get through and I will be strong. If
I am not strong, how is Tommy going to get through it?
Letter from my nephew
Everyone is worrying about me. I
know that something has happened to my body but I do not want to see people
around me being unhappy. Whether how bad is my situation going to be tomorrow,
I just want to live happily today.
I heard that Uncle Joe is coming
back. It has been a long time since the last time I saw him. Uncle Joe seldom
talks to dad. I am not sure about what happened to them in past. I hope that
Uncle Joe could move back from London one day so that I would ask him to teach
me painting and playing the piano.
The Greatest Love of All by Whitney Houston
I believe the children are our are
future
Teach them well and let them lead
the way
Show them all the beauty they
possess inside
Give them a sense of pride to make
it easier
Let the children's laughter remind
us how we used to be
Everybody searching for a hero
People need someone to look up to
I never found anyone who fulfill
my needs
A lonely place to be
So I learned to depend on me
I decided long ago, never to walk
in anyone's shadows
If I fail, if I succeed
At least I'll live as I believe
No matter what they take from me
They can't take away my dignity
Because the greatest love of all
Is happening to me
I found the greatest love of all
Inside of me
The greatest love of all
Is easy to achieve
Learning to love yourself
It is the greatest love of all
And if by chance, that special
place
That you've been dreaming of
Leads you to a lonely place
Find your strength in love
Tommy passed
away 1 year after the chemotherapy treatment. He had some mild infection but
his body was too weak to survive from the infection. Sometimes, human beings
are fragile, as fragile as dust.
It is 2014,
January, this is the first year I am going back my hometown to celebrate
Chinese New Year. I miss my home. Long live my family....
‘We can’t turn back time, 10
years was enough for us. We ain’t love each other anymore. I need to quit this
please.’ said Lisa. Her eyes were flooded with tears, it was hard to say this
but she has to end this relationship for being together with Johan, a famous
filmmaker whom she met during a catwalk session in Shanghai. The sparkle of
love that she used to cherish with Paul has lost in nowhere.
Though it has been nearly 3
months since Lisa left, Paul could never get over the split up. He thought that
he was working hard enough to secure their future. He has been working days and
nights with the numbers to earn better for their living. Being a typical
accountant in Hong Kong, he usually spends 6 full days in the office, except
allowing himself for 6 hours sleeping everyday. However, Lisa felt being
ignored, this was not something that she thinks could work for their future.
On the 9th of September,
2009, Lisa was married to Johan in a grand wedding. Their wedding was reported
by the media vastly. This was the night where Paul got himself drunk on the
road. He threw away the newspapers with a series of photo from Lisa’s wedding
published. He kept walking unconsciously until he came to an old abandoned
railway station.
Paul found a schedule pasted
on the wall. There will be a midnight train at 3 a.m. heading to the year 2199.
The schedule stated that this is the once and the only chance offered every 100
years by the future. It is said that ‘2199’ is an era where lost love will be
found and love will be eternal. It is basically a paradise that human beings
have been longed for.
‘Welcome to Midnight Train
2199, you are guest number 98!’
A robotic lady in metallic
silver wear welcomed Paul when he stepped in the train. He got himself a seat
next to the window. The train was driven so fast that he could not even see
anything outside from the window. He was not sure about where he would be taken
to but this could be the last hope that he has to get back the love he lost. He
met people who have lost love like him. They were all having the same purpose,
they wanted to live eternally with their loved ones.
Paul was not aware about how
long time has passed until he heard the robotic lady spoke again, ‘ Welcome to
Midnight Train 2199, you are guest number 99!’ The sudden floral smell caught
his attention. A lady passed by, and she is Lisa.
Paul asked the robotic lady,
'What's the time now and how long it will take to reach 2199?'
The robotic lady replied,
'We are now in 2011, soon we will be reaching 2199. Please be patient!' Paul
realized that he has already traveled from 2009 to 2011.
Lisa was surprised to meet
Paul in the train. They sat together and started to chat. Lisa told him that
after 2 years of marriage, Johan divorced her. She was trying to look for Paul
but he seemed to have lost since their break up.
Paul and Lisa did not mention
about the reason they took the train during the conversation along the journey
to 2199, but they both understand that they hope they could turn back time and
live together eternally.
It is common in human
beings. We usually do not know how much something is valuable to us until we
lost them. We try everything to get back things that we lost and we usually not
sure about whether we are still offered a second chance. Most of the time,
things are beyond our control. Precious things are always temporal, such as
love.
‘Attention dear passengers!
Our train has experienced some technical problem, we are now traveling
backwards all the way to 1999. We will try our best to get you to 2199 soon.’
It was the 99th day since Paul got in the
midnight train. He slowly realized that there was no paradise in 2199 and the
train will never reach 2199. However, this is a place where he leaded himself
towards a journey of self recovery and discovery. He met Lisa and relearn every
moment that they have missed when they were attached. God has offered them a
chance to recollect those sweet memories they had over the past ten years while
they learned a new lesson about love.
The train was about to stop
at 1999. This was the year when Paul and Lisa were 17 years old and they have
yet to meet each other. Paul and Lisa stared at each other for about 5 minutes,
and then they kissed for 9 minutes. They smiled at each other and boarded the
train. That was for the eternity.
Oh
love, we don’t have to look for eternity, the eternity sits in our memories,
the memories live in our heart, till we die and forever....
