GAP Vietnam

This year for GAP (a week long trip to another Asian country for activities and community service), I went to Da Lat, Vietnam. It wasn't quite the exotic trip that I had hop ed to go on, but it was a fantastic and beautiful experience nonetheless. Here are a few prints that was from my trip to Vietnam. 

This was taken at the base of Lang Biang Mountain, where they offered car rides and hiking guides to escort you to the hiking trail. There were also a significant amount of poor salesmen and women, targeting the area due to the huge flow of tourists who visit the mountain each year. This old woman is selling traditional Vietnamese patterned handbags and wallets. You can tell from her face and hands that years of hard work to support herself and her family has not been very beneficial to her. She constantly experienced the depressions of poverty and tried to make a living through selling. It is also kind of interesting to know that she most likely lived in Vietnam during the Vietnam War, and she and her siblings were probably involved in weaponry production or fighting directly in the war. The whole Vietnam War fascinates and interests me, and if I had more time, I would have asked her more about it (I do recall talking to another old Vietnamese man - when he found out I was American he had a complete change of facial expression and stopped being entirely respectful to me. This is probably due to the American involvement in the Vietnam War). 

This photo was taken at the front of a hiking trail on Lang Biang Mountain. This hiking trial led to a cliff where we were to abseil. It was quite a spectacular trail to hike on; we were surrounded with beautiful greenery. Trees, grass, flowers, and all the nature were so overwhelmingly stunning. I took this picture because I thought the house and the trees were a nice contrast to the scenery. The little house stored electrical circuits and boxes to help power the base of the mountain. This modern piece of technology contrasts with the isolated mother nature. It also shows that some countries could still push through hard times. 

This photo is of the road that led to the beginning of the trail. As you can see, it is quite a bumpy and underdeveloped road, with some imperfections in the pavement. I also think it represents the effects of the modern world on mother nature and the natural world, as wildlife and modern roads are combined together in this image. It also looks like a pathway to nowhere, like a road to a depressing isolation. Although it looks sort of sad, it also could be a heaven for nature photographers who prefer being alone and connecting with wildlife (like me). 

This image was taken on the trail heading towards the abseil cliff. It was a spectacular hike; we were surrounded by trees and wildlife and no other forms of modern technology. There were occasions where we would reach a cliff, and we would be able to look out into the distance at the landscape. Unfortunately, it was a cloudy day so it was quite difficult to see. I even tried to take some photos of the scenery, but the overcast day prevented it from being a nice photo. 

As you can see in this photo, the path was narrow and rough. There are two paths in this image, just because it went around the trees. It joined up again later on. It was not quite as rough as the biking trail (see next photo), making it was easier especially since we were on foot rather than on a bike. 

This image is scenery photo of our biking trail. It was quite a difficult bike ride - we started out in poor neighborhood, where the pavement was very rocky and underdeveloped. We spent about 15 minutes bumping up and down on the trail, only to face another steep, rocky uphill trail. A simple way to explain the bike ride would be 'rocky uphill, until the last 5 minutes of the bike ride'. The whole ride involved rocky uphill, with about 2-5 minutes of steep rocky downhill every hour or so (we cycled for about 4 hours). It was very tough, but the last 5 minutes were a wonderful, properly paved downhill where we could enjoy the breeze in our hair. This photo was taken on one of our breaks, after a steep uphill where are legs and thighs were burning. Although it was a difficult ride, it was very enjoyable with the beautiful scenery and cool weather. I really enjoyed it and would like to go back to the beginning of the cycle.


As mentioned before, although Da Lat was not as exotic, with beautiful temples and churches, as other GAP locations would've had, it was still a spectacular trip in its own way. Other trips could have stunning photos of Buddhist temples and Christian churches, but Da Lat has stunning photos of its scenery and wildlife. It may get kind of boring to others to see so many photos of trees, but I just loved the wildlife and nature in Da Lat too much to not take photos. It was a really fun GAP trip, and I can't believe it ended so fast. It's sad to know that this was my last GAP trip (I won't be able to go in senior year), but I'm happy that my last GAP trip was really fun.

Portrait Photography

Our very first assignment of the year was portrait photography. I'll admit, I was slightly intimidated by this first assignment, since portrait photography isn't my strong suit. However, despite my fear for this assignment, I was also excited to get started. I've never formally shot portrait photographs before, so this was my very first time. To get started, I did some quick research on the world famous photographer Vivian Maier, whose work was just discovered quite recently. Using her as my inspiration, I confidently went out to KLCC to shoot my portraits. 

1. "The Diva"

I was wandering around the fountain at KLCC looking for people to shoot, when I saw this woman walking casually in 3-inch heels. She was texting someone on her phone, falling behind her small group of friends (you can see a person with a purse in the background. This was one of her friends waiting for me to finish with my photo). As soon as I saw her I immediately knew that she would be a great subject for my photo. I asked her if I could take her picture, and she said yes in an embarrassed way. She made no adjustments to her appearance, but posed with her body not totally facing the camera. If you can tell from her facial expression in this photo, she was kind of embarrassed to have her picture taken, as most would be. I named this photo "The Diva" because of her glamorous appearance. I think the sunglasses on her head are an excellent addition to this photo, because they are reflecting the clouds and a portion of the KL Petronas Towers. I didn't notice this at the time that I was taking my picture, but if I did, I could have positioned myself so that the towers were in full view in the sunglasses. I also liked how I captured the texture of her hair - it is in clear view nearing the bottom. 

2. "2 Generations"

As soon as you exit the KLCC mall and enter the park, you are greeted by a huge crowd (mostly of families and friends on a Sunday afternoon) watching the fountains or playing games of tag. I went up to one of the families and asked if I could take this baby's picture. The baby was originally positioned so that his head was resting on the mother's shoulder from her behind, and I thought if I shot the two in that position it would create a nice effect. However the mother misunderstood me, and turned around towards the camera with her baby. I didn't mind, though. I still took the picture. We had small conversation, and I learned that the baby was nearing his 4th month. The baby in this photo looks so confused with what's going on, as if the world's addition to his new life was confusing and overwhelming. I was also surprised that the baby looked directly at the lens, because in my mind, babies are like little pets who are camera-shy and active. I thought that the baby would just keep moving around and it would be difficult for me to get a good shot. However this image turned out nicely with the mother and child both looking right at the lens. 

3. "Killing Time"

If anyone looks at this photo, no one would know why it was called "Killing Time". However if they read this short paragraph, they would know why. This is like a little strategy that most people use; if you confuse them with something at first, they will be more drawn to the image and have a stronger desire to know why exactly they got confused, and what your intent is. 

I named this photo "Killing Time" because when I was walking around the island of the fountain, I found this lady sitting on a towel on the grass, reading her book, waiting for someone. Obviously she was killing time while waiting for her mother or her boyfriend to return from somewhere. My dad and I went up to her and asked if I could take her picture. She, just like the others I photographed, were very nervous to be photographed. She looked up from her book, and after we asked her she had a very nervous face (even though it didn't really show in this photo). 

4. "Casual Laughter"

This photo was taken near the end of my shoot. I was starting to get desperate for photos because I still had 10 more pictures I needed to shoot. That was when I saw my mom casually gazing out towards the fountain. I tried to take a sneak attack photo, but unfortunately she caught me. She wouldn't let me take a picture of her because "I don't have any make up on!!" I put the camera down and started to think it was hopeless to even try to get her picture. Then she looked towards my dad, who was making crazy faces at us (typical behavior from my dad) and started laughing. That was my chance, and I quickly took a sneak attack picture while she was laughing. I must say, it did turn out pretty nice. This was taken a few days before she and my dad were diagnosed with dengue fever. She and my dad were feeling pretty bad, lazing around at home in pain. I originally wasn't going to print this to put on my blog, but decided to print it for my mom and dad as a little "get well soon" gift. After I printed it I realized that this was in fact a pretty nice image, and decided to put it on my blog.


5. "Clashing Cultures"

I think this image is interesting. At first sight, you'd look at this woman's scarf and think about how religious and cultural it is. It has beautiful Islamic patterns around the ends of the scarf. But then, you look at what she's wearing underneath. It's a bright, busy checkered pattern, with some Louis Vuitton logos. That's why I named this picture "Clashing Cultures", as her traditional Islamic scarf clashes with her modern-day branded fashion top. It doesn't look bad, I think it looks interesting and represents how our modern day world functions, especially with religion.

6. "Public Emotions"

I named this photo "Public Emotions" just be looking at her scarf. It has the words "happy," "welcome," "happy life," "happy for days," and several other nice phrases. I think this shows both the importance of education to her and the world, and the importance of happiness in life. I think there's some symbolism to this photo. The words on the scarf surround her and most of the photo, representing the happiness and education in her world.


7. "Uncomfortable"

Towards the end of the shoot, this man spotted me taking photos of other people and told me to get a picture with him, his daughter and his granddaughter. I took a group shot of all of them, but also took one of him alone. I wanted him alone because old people in photos give the viewer a sense of wisdom and success, as they had so many years to live life to its fullest. Older people of a generation (or tribe) are usually deemed more wise than the younger ones. I find old people in photos interesting because of this reason. The man also looks nervous to have his picture taken alone, whereas he was quite excited for me to take a picture of his whole family. That is why I've named this photo "Uncomfortable".

Overall, I think this was a pretty successful shoot. Being my first time shooting portraits, I think I did a pretty good job of it. One thing I should do more is starting taking multiple photos of a subject, to ensure that at least one of them is successful. For example, there was one photo of a Uyghur man with an amazing story (he participated in the Uyghur-Chinese protests), but it wasn't that great a portrait. I was originally going to print it for this blog, but didn't think it had the potential. Had I shot an extra photo of him, I might have been able to include that image in this blog.


Shooting portrait photography was definitely a new, but wonderful experience for me. I quite enjoyed walking around the KLCC park photographing anyone who looked interesting. I think my shoot alone shows the diversity of cultures that you can find in KLCC.

Vivian Maier

Vivian Maier is arguably one of the best photographers in history. She was born in New York City in 1926 and spent most of her childhood living in France. She moved to Chicago and worked as a nanny for nearly 40 years. During those years she took over 100,000 photographs of street photography and portraits. However, she kept her passion for photography a total secret, and forbade anyone from entering her room (which contained hundreds of film rolls, left unprocessed). Nobody knew of her photography career until around 2007, where her storage contents were auction in Chicago.

One of Maier's masterpieces. 

John Maloof acquired a bunch of her photographs during the auction and spent over a year trying to determine who the photographer was. It was difficult for him, because Vivian Maier never gave her true name on any records or receipts, she always used an alias. However John Maloof was able to work with the many self portraits she took, in which she is never looking at the camera.

John Maloof now owns nearly 90% of Maier's work and is receiving donations to continue unraveling her work, though he claims that this money is not going to the benefit of himself. There are still hundred of unprocessed film waiting to be discovered, and among those include short movie clips Maier made as well. As a young nanny in the 50s, she would take the kids out to show them the world around their little neighborhood. They would walk and walk in undeveloped parts of town, and take pictures of nearly everything she saw. She found great joy in her photography, and on days off she could be spotted wandering around town with her camera. She even took photos in color; about 700 film rolls consist of colored images. The reason that Vivian has so many undeveloped rolls of film is because she had to put everything in storage at the times of financial crisis in the 1990s. 

The first camera she used was a Kodak Brownie Box Camera, which had no focus control, no aperture dial, and only one shutterspeed, so she didn't have much freedom with managing the lighting in her photographs. This was a great obstacle for Vivian's photographic intentions, so later she bought a Rolleiflex (double lens) camera. This gave her more freedom with lighting, but was still difficult to use, because it's hard to get your photo angle right.

I chose to write about Vivian Maier because I think her work is fantastic. Just the click of a button and her photos turn out beautiful. Most of her life was kept secret, and she chose not to share too much private information with anybody. Her photos are beyond amazing and it's hard to believe why she didn't share such a skill with anyone else. The project that I'm working on now is portrait photography, and I think Vivian Maier's work would be a great inspiration, especially since I have some struggles in both portrait and street photography. I also don't really find portrait photography all that enjoyable - I like photographing portraits but just don't find the pictures very appealing. There are only a small amount of photos that I've seen that I think are wonderful. However as soon as I saw Vivian Maier's photos, I wonder how any photographer could photograph such beautiful images. As I said before, I hope to gain some inspiration from her portrait photography, so I can photograph just like her. I know that I will never be able to reach up to her standards, but I may learn a little something from her. Whenever I go out to shoot portrait photos, I'm always so shy and scared to go up to someone and ask if I can take their photo. I'm afraid of rejection, most of all. I'm also afraid of taking candids, where the photographed person is unaware of my presence. As long as they don't see me, I'm fine, but if they do catch me I always wonder if they'll sue me or force me to delete the picture (which I can't, since I use film cameras). Last year, in photography class as a beginner student I would shoot portrait photos, but I would always fail miserably. I just don't have the "touch" for portrait photography, whereas I do for micro images.

As I was out shooting portraits the other day, I had a lens that zoomed really close to the subject. Now, this was advantageous in some aspects, but in other aspects it was difficult to use. For example, I found a middle eastern family and decided to take their picture, but since I was at KLCC park right next to the fountain, I had to back up really far to get them all in the picture, almost to the point where I was literally stepping into the fountain. I don't know how the image turned out, but hopefully it turned out okay because I think middle eastern people are interesting photograph subjects (they have an Arab look with European eyes, and I find that interesting). 

Watch the video below to learn more about Vivian. 

Panorama and Assembled Images

Assembled Images

This assignment was one of my favorite as it was really fun to shoot! It was simple : all we had to do was take a tripod around with our camera and snap a bunch of things in different places with the same backdrop. We then use photoshop to merge all these pictures together, so in the end you get a picture with multiple things you shot with! In this case, I got multiple images of my friend Jocelyn being crazy. The photoshop part was difficult, because I had to get the lighting right in all parts of the image. She had to stay the same lighting throughout, and the stairs had to be exposed the same amount. Adjusting the lighting was the difficult part. However shooting and adding her into one image was fairly easy.

This image was fun to shoot. What I did was, I told my friend Jocelyn to pretend to dribble a basketball. I then told her to go to a different spot and pretend that she was receiving the ball from herself. Afterwards, I told her to go to the bleachers and cheer for the game. Basically, this image portrays Jocelyn watching herself play a basketball fame with herself. It was fun to shoot and edit.

Panorama

Shooting panorama shots were actually really fun. We needed a tripod for this too. We had to move the camera vertically or horizontally (horizontally is easier) and keep snapping pictures. However you need to make sure that the pictures are aligned and in a row perfectly. You then use photoshop and click automate, and merge all the photos together. It takes a couple minutes, but once it is finished then the ending product turns out looking quite nice. This photo is made up of 5 pictures, merged into 1. I had originally snapped about 10 images, in an attempt to create a full-circle panorama. However, after I clicked merge photos they all bundled together in a clump, so I decided to reduce the photo amount. I moved it down to 5 and it turned up much better. 

This image was shot at the school climbing wall. I think it is an interesting image, because it shows a nice hut on the left, some of the pond and climbing wall. I had very little difficulty with this image, except for the fact that I had to adjust the lightning on each component image that made up the product. However, the finished image is lit nicely, through editing and adjusting the camera settings. 

Portaits

I went to the market to shoot my environmental portrait photos. I really like this photo because the old man is sitting on his bike, looking like he's waiting for something. He is really laid-back and relaxed, not caring about what others think of him. It's environmental because you can see that he is sitting in his bike carriage, in his market. 

This photo was shot at the front of the market. The man was very cheerful, and about to sell potatoes to one of his customers. I asked him if I could photograph him, and he willfully agreed. He was laughing, because I wanted to a snap a photo of him, and I took it at just the right moment. This is an envionrmental portait, as you can see all of his potatoes and selling materials around him at his stall. 

When we got into the market, we approached the (smelly) seafood section, and into the sweet, fragrant fruit area. This man was selling mangos (I'll admit, they were delicious!) and agreed for me to take a portrait shot of him. In my opinion, portrait shots do not really take my interest, but this photo is interesting because the blur in the back really brings out the man's face. 

This photo was not taken at the market. I was strolling around in KLCC Park with my friend, looking for a place to chill out. I asked her if I could take a portrait shot of her for my assignment, and here she is smiling for the camera. I tried to dodge her eyes as they were a bit dark, but the result was her eyes looking extremely foggy and veiled, so I decided to leave the photo without any dodging. 

Composition

For this assignment, we were required to shoot pictures containing texture (a photo with no central focus, which usually consists of micro images), balance (having more than one subject in the photo), leading lines (lines in the photo that leads to the subject), and natural frame (when your subject is framed by natural objects).

1) Texture

This image is a picture of a big leaf planted at school. I really enjoyed shooting texture photos, because there were several opportunities for getting the perfect shot (there are so many places to shoot texture on campus). Plus, no matter how your photo was shot, the end result is always beautiful.



2) Balance

This picture is of my friend and I right before after school sports. This image actually didn't require much editing or cause me any trouble. It was easy for me to develop, as the lighting was nearly perfect, and I only needed two test strips until I decided that it was nice. This was the only photo in our composition assignment that was easy to produce, as all of my other pictures had lighting that was difficult to work with.

3) Leading Lines

This is an image of my friend, who is casually relaxing at school on her phone. She is leaning on a bar, which is leading up to her, thus creating a leading lines image. While exposing this image in the developing process, I had to burn the subject and the field, so the hallway can remain exposed (making it darker). I encountered many problems in this image, for example, the lighting was different in different places, so it was difficult for me to keep the lighting consistent. However, I managed to fix everything and pull it all together.



4) Natural Frame

This image is of my friend fooling around, posing for the camera from the inside of a children's playground tunnel. She is framed by the circle from the tunnel that she is in. This image was very difficult to work with, as the top left and bottom left corners were too bright. I had tried to increase the time, and dodge everything except for the corners so that the corners could get darker, without affecting the rest of the image. It still turned out extremely bright, so I resulted to burning the corners on photoshop. My original test strips are shown below. 

Overall, this assignment was fun to shoot because I got to experience and play with new elements of photography. 

My Favorite Prints

The following images are some of my favorite photos that I took and developed.

1) My cat

I added a bit of contrast to the final print, to create a cooler effect. 

This picture is of my cat, taken at my house. I absolutely love this picture, because A., she's my cat, B., she's cute, and C., I think it is a very nice picture, as her whiskers, nose and eye are all very sharp. I took another one of her, which was a bit better because she was facing the camera more. However, this one was much more focused than the other one, so I decided to develop this image instead. Three of the edges of this image are black, because I was shooting with a black wall behind her. I realized this as soon as I developed it, so I should focus on where I'm shooting next time around. Other than that, I think this is a good photo. In fact, the original copy of this is framed inside my room. Shows how good of a pet owner I am, huh?












2) Hibiscus Flower

I think this hibiscus flower is my favorite print. It is a beautiful flower, and the detail is captured perfectly. It is a sharp image, which is absolutely essential when taking micro photos. I'm not giving myself a pat on the back (well I am, sort of...); if any other photographer took a photo of this quality I would also fall in love in an instant.