This image was taken by R. Jay GaBany. I chose this image as it shows us that there is more to life than we might think about within our day to day lives. It makes us think about how, in reality, we are just a small spec of life within a much larger galaxy and we have no real idea what else is out there that we don’t know about. When I see this image I can’t help but think about everything in a different perspective and how there is almost definitely life outside of our planet and our solar system. It makes me question how advanced this life is and what life would be like on our planet had we not developed our technologies the way we have done. Overall, this image (and any image of outer-space) makes me think deeply about the endless possibilities of life outside of our knowledge and I find this fascinating.
This image represents a way of seeing that makes the audience consider the broader life outside of our own planet. I think it also makes us more appreciative, in a way, of the luxuries that we have and how advanced our lives have become in comparison to how early and primitive life would have been. It makes me, personally, more aware of the little random things in our lives that perhaps go un-noticed to most people. This can be applied within photography by documenting these things in a way that presents them as luxuries and foreign objects like when we see an image taken in a location we are unfamiliar with.
This image was taken by Eric Van Nynatten. I found this image to be extremely intriguing as not only is the location and subject matter within the image unfamiliar, but the angle in which the image was taken is also unusual which presents us with an image that does not relate to me at all. It is obvious that we can see a street in Japan due to the typography on the road and side of the building, however I can’t read this so I don’t actually know the full context behind the subject that I am looking at. The subject within the image also makes us reflect upon how much of the world we have seen and what the area we live in looks like as this location might look totally different to what we are used to looking at. The high angle also locates us in a somewhat ‘stalkerish’ position where the person in the frame doesn’t know that they are being photographed. This could be eye-opening for some members of the audience as it presents the subject in a way that they might not have seen photographed before.
Overall, this image has made me reconsider the way I could present mundane subjects to make them feel new and actually engaging. This image represents an unusual way of seeing where the subject is unaware of the photographer’s presence which could be somewhat unsettling for some members of the audience and also makes us question the ethics behind street photography. Some people may look at this image considering the fact that ‘what they don’t know can’t hurt them’ so the subjects will not have an issue with their photographs being taken as they will be completely unaware of it.
