After a months long hiatus from personal work, I returned to taking photos for my own enjoyment. I was dealing with burnout from work yet again and needed a break. Just like with Flushing, I decided to explore West Williamsburg. All I had in terms of gear was my personal camera and a 25mm f1.7 prime lens. Though the weather was cloudy and grey, I decided to work on my compositional skills, although the screen was hard to see, leading to instances where a stray object was in the frame or I wasn't in the centre, especially with the portrait shots, which I haven't done until then. I was really leaning into the painting-like tone with Williamsburg especially after my disaster in Flushing a few months back.
This was also my first time vlogging myself taking photos, as I had bought an action cam a few months back and decided to use it to film myself for an Instagram Reel. I filmed that Reel just to keep myself accountable to use the gear that I bought instead of letting it rot.
Literally a day later, I went out to Flushing to practice street photography. It went...horrible. My anxiety shot straight up as soon as I pulled my camera out of its bag. I tried my best to look inconspicuous but all it did was prevent me from taking photos of some interesting scenes. The few pictures I did take suffered from horrible composition, underexposing/overexposing, or my white balance being whack. The worst thing is that after I came home, one of my SD cards were corrupted, leading to me losing a few photos that I thought were pretty good.
After my midterm exams were over, I took a trip to Northwestern Brooklyn (starting at Northern Sunset Park and going to Red Hook). I started out at MicroCenter, went to visit Japan Village, and then headed towards Ikea. I followed the highway and crossed over the canals. It was very dirty and I probably could've gotten robbed on the way but I trucked on. There weren't many people on the streets probably due to it heavily snowing the day before. My favorite image is the one of the harbor with the purple sky, I love how surreal the scene looks, and that I shot this by pressing my lens against the window in an Ikea.
So during winter break, I was at one of my lowest points. I decided to go to Flushing, a place I visted countless times prior, but this time by myself with an intention to fully explore it. All I brought with me was my work camera and a vintage Pentax nifty fifty and some vintage zoom lens. I learned how to effectively manual focus. Other than Flushing, I visited the nearby suburbs and parks. It was cold as hell and I found myself getting lost often. But I felt free and unburdened. Most of my pictures had horrible compositions and/or overexposed (it was my first time with night photography as well) but I found myself enjoying photography again, rather than treating it as work. As I was returning home after spending 8 hours shooting in Flushing, I was inspired to make a website to document any experiences I had like this with other people. I spent basically the rest of my winter break, day and night, to create this website.
