YE-CHEN

Statement

       Throughout the semester, I have been constantly taking photographs of buildings in New York City and below is a seven-photo-collection of my favorites. As a fan of minimalism, I am always looking for the best angles to take my shots; however, in New York City, it often seems impossible to find a clear shot because of the traffic, billboards, etc. Thus I began to aim towards the tip of everything since the sky can provide a clean and consistent background.  Having sky as the background provides me with the best opportunity to focus on the objects I am aiming for. In addition, each one of the photographs was taken from a similar angle in order to keep the theme even more consistent. 

       After the shots were taken and selected, I began to start selecting different themes for photo editing. Both cool tones and warm tones were experimented on these photos; eventually I decided to leave what is the most suitable for each photo. 

       For the three indoor photographs, I specifically chose to go deep contrasting and light color so that the structural details can be fully presented within each photo. This also leans to the theme of minimalism. By only keeping a small part of the building in each image, I am able to maintain a really systematic theme among all the works. In the future, I am planning to continue this work and keep looking for new and creative angles to catch. 

As an art student, I mostly tend to notice beauty within objects that occupy high contrast and vivid colors. Therefore, photography and photo editing become helpful because they keep the aesthetic of my works consistent. Besides, not only I can keep my obsession with the hard lines and high contrast in my photos,  the ability to edit photos enables countless outcomes from photos that were already taken. 

If I am to paint something on a canvas, one of the most crucial things is to manage the layout of the image. With a careful layout, the audience will easily be able to distinguish the main objects from other secondary parts. Fortunately, photography provides me with the opportunity to practice the layout of the components in a very efficient way. All in all, photography helps me stay on a consistent theme in terms of color schemes and it also helps me to practice with layout management within artworks.