The visual concept of the behind the series is to demonstrate how our everyday lives consists of small moments whose momentary experience belie their profound significance. I travel to places where I can capture moments of people casually living their life and capture any special moment (be it walking with children, playing with toys, kissing a love one, etc.) without them noticing they are having their picture taken. The photos I wish to share are special and hopefully capture rich narratives within the image. These photographs would show how important is it to never let go of the little moments we have with friends and family. My inspiration comes from photographers like Markus Hartel and his collection, “Angles”, in which he walks around and takes photos of the public and funny situations in life. Ying Tang’s collection “San Francisco Street” helped inspire me to try and work with the surroundings and people in a way so that they work well with each other within the final image. I have traveled to places like San Francisco, Santa Cruz, and New York City in order to take full advantage of the busy street life. The work will consist of photographs taken by a Holga camera which aided in my pursuit of taking photos of the public because many simply passed off the Holga as a novelty item rather than a functioning camera.

I first started the series with my visit to San Francisco and walking down Market Street. I was nervous of taking photographs of the public, fearing an altercation with the few who might have a problem with me taking their photograph and ending up with a broken camera. One good thing about the Holga camera is that external appearance of the camera, which leads many to believe it to be just a simple toy and not a real camera. With my camera prepared, I started walking down the sidewalk holding the camera to my face, looking through the viewer’s eye and waiting for the right moment to happen. I did not look for any particular moment in mind, but strove for anything that seemed to be special or made me smile. Since I did not have much experience working with a Holga, finding the right time of day and focus was difficult.

Taking a few trips to San Francisco I notice that only images taken on a particularly sunny day would come out. Throughout a few weeks I tested out the Holga to decided the right moment of day to take photographs as well as hours when there would be a large enough crowd for me to safely take pictures of the public. The first set was taken in the morning and the second collection in the twilight hour. The twilight hour took a few practice runs in order for me to fully understand the exposure time for a good photograph. After realizing the limits of the exposure time of a Holga I moved on to test out the camera in taking photographs at night, using only the street lights as my light source. Experimenting with the Holga allowed me to fully understand how to time myself for the right moment. Walking down the boardwalk in Santa Cruz was good practice for dealing with exceptionally large crowds and taking photos in a manner that would be sensitive to families.