P20: anticipating a moving figure

For this project I have taken advantage of my two trips to Singapore this year.  Each provided an opportunity to spend a little time walking around enjoying the city and being a tourist, camera in hand looking for stuff that interested me.  The point of the exercise, to use a figure within the frame to add scale and context is not new, indeed this is the third time I have done this same exercise as part of my OCA studies, but hey, I am somewhat beyond caring right now, just want to get the bloody antique of a course out of the way.

Placing a figure into a frame or finding a locale and waiting for someone to enter is a standard part of what I do as a photographer.  Many shots need people to generate a sense of scale or to add movement in a static composition.  I also do the opposite, particularly when shooting weddings, looking for a location to add context to the people.  Ultimately this is about the bringing together of landscape and people.

The first photo is a simple one, I am using the people to add  little interest into an otherwise rather dull flight of steps.  What I do like about the image is the way the bottom figure broadcasts  his weariness, walking up those steps in 30+ degrees of tropical sunshine was no fun, we followed them.

This shot does not work quite as well as I would have liked.  I used the two runners to add a sense of presence within the overlapping jungle of modernity.

I feel that the following worked far better, a family wearing traditional Indian dress contrasts with the steel and concrete of Singapore's financial district.

Here I am doing something a little different.  I wanted a shot of the Bay Area skyline and tried a couple from the waterfront, they were nice but kind of so what.  I stepped back and waited for the lady with a dog to come by.  Somehow this made the place real, normal people, people who walk dogs live in the exotica of Singapore.

This is an alternate approach.  I liked the scene, the row of people and the row of shops, but it was very static, so I waited.  It only adds a little, but in the act of taking the photo she adds some movement to the image and asks a question about who the group is, I had assumed locals.  The man in the woolly tanktop also puzzles me, number 1, why a tanktop, number 2 in Singapore.

There are times when this approach to photography falls flat on its face.  This is an example.  I liked the bar and it's interior but needed something more, a figure walking by. Well, not quite.  The IS in the camera did a fine job of keeping the bar sharp, but the shutter speed was far too low for the walking person to resolve.

My other problem was that if waiting for someone to cross your frame, you might get more than one.  This was a photo of the lady in the background, but made into something more by the lady in red crossing my field of view.  Pure luck.

I finish with 3 photographs taking in the Singapore cloud forest, one of the most impressive spaces I have ever encountered.  The environment is huge, but not easy to convey in a photograph.   In each of the following I have used people to add a sense of scale to the environment  although in the final one I was also interested in the cultural dimension of a traditional Arab costume walking through the mist.