London Summer 2017

{ click to enlarge } Parisian Café  Henry at Lacock Abbey Henry at Lacock Abbey Brianna at Lacock Abbey Brianna at Lacock Abbey Brianna in the streets of Bath

{ click to enlarge } Hyde Park Hyde Park Hyde Park Hyde Park   Hyde Park Brianna at Sky Garden

PLACES WE WENT: Thames river walk/mudlarking, the Hokusai exhibit, tea at the British Museum, The Ladykillers , East End London graffiti tour &  The Tempest Note: After many days of sleep deprivation, I am finally able to have a moment to sit down and write out the first week’s review. Here it goes. THE VENUES: In the first week of London, we visited a vast variety of venues. The riverfront was a wide open space, continuously stretching on and on, lined with food trucks, store fronts, and small groups of people, perfect for people watching and street photography. Our mudlarking excursion provided a great view of the city, and led us to a few grungy, algae covered walls and dilapidated architecture.  These places greatly differed from the aura of the British Museum – a looming stone and marble structure, the museum contained collection after collection of invaluable artifacts from history since the beginning of art itself. Though the museum a...

Set of The Tempest at the Barbican Theatre in London. The Tempest  was, by far, the most engaging theatrical experience I have had in my short 21 years of life. Taken place at the Barbican Theatre, the venue was, to my surprise, much bigger than I had anticipated, especially after my experience at Gatehouse, a very small amateur theatre, the night before. The theatre was swarming with people, which wasn't necessarily a bad thing, until the theatre intercom called for people to find their seats within three minutes, which was about fifteen minutes earlier than my friend/classmate Brianna and I had expected. Rushing to check our bags before the play began, we luckily made it just in time to snap a quick photo of the set before the lights dimmed and the play began. The stage was vast, with two massive wrecked ship pieces on either side of the stage (pictured above), which proved to be quite versatile in their rendition of the story. The acoustics actually surprised me -- I was...

We made homemade camera obscuras out of cardboard and compact mirrors!

This is Anna! She is from Woodstock, Georgia, and attends Auburn University for speech therapy. Anna is taking a photography class and is having a great time in London; fun fact, she loves running and eating hamburgers.

Here are my top five images from the past week! • • • • • •  { click to enlarge } London Downtown Bus: Photograph of Daleigh, a classmate. Grave at Highgate Cemetery, North London Graves at Highgate Cemetery, North London: Photograph of friend & classmate Brianna. Photograph of park goer near British Museum. Victorian couple leaving from a private, themed garden party, near British Museum.

Henri Cartier-Bresson Henri Cartier-Bresson was a French street photographer in the 1930s, and was known for his "decisive moments"; oftentimes, his most successful photographs were due to his waiting in one spot in order to capture the perfect photograph. This photo of his in particular, to me, stands out because of the other photographic elements working together in this image. Firstly, his print has a high range of contrast without losing any detail of his scene. The crispness of the photo really highlights the blur of the biker; this tells his audience the biker was moving (of course) and that Bresson had fully prepared the composition of his photograph, and waited for precisely the right moment to capture his image. The spiral of the staircase also provide a pleasing leading line right to his subject, who is just above the top right "third" section of his composition. The direction of the path that intersects with the rails of the stairs, in conjunctio...