Woops
I forgot to post as I was working, so this will mostly be a recap of what I was doing Spring quarter / beginning of summer. I probably put this off too long. I am new to photography and decided to do this Arts Grant project because I have always wanted to give photography a try. I had worked with painting, drawing, design, video, ceramic, and sculpture before, but never tried photography seriously.
Project Description
I propose creating a photo essay that documents and explores the intimate moments of empathy, suffering, and care where traveling physician and patients briefly connect and change each other forever. This project is inspired by my experience in the International Humanitarianism in Surgery class, in which guest lecturers recounted moments of intense human connection with their under served patients. These physicians would travel to the far reaches of the world to deliver care to hundreds of patients in dire need. Even with modern training, many times these physicians were pitted against logistical, cultural, or time constraints preventing them from alleviating suffering of patients and their families.
I intend to create a photo essay to capture these humanizing moments of suffering, empathy, and care caused by the juxtaposition of wealthy modern medicine and impoverished patients. Through focusing on the experience of the traveling physician, I will capture these poignant moments that demonstrate the brief but intimate connections between the traveling physician and their patients. Conceptually I am interested in how these moments ablate cultural and socioeconomic divides between a physician and their patient, creating purely human experiences where patients and their physicians intimately connect and change each other forever through alleviation, appreciation, empathy or any other number of exchanged emotions facilitated through these moments.
I plan to approach this concept through a photo essay heavily influenced by “Country Doctor” of W. Eugene Smith. Using digital photography I will capture moments focused on the physician and the patient, family, and community entrusting him. Contrast, lighting, and depth of field will be key to highlight emotions of physician and patient captured with focus on the subjects’ faces and body language. I aim to capture these expressions in compositions endogenous of the poverty perpetuating this medical need but preventing its proper alleviation.
If this project is approved, I will be following Dr. Kao and Dr. Murphy on their trip to Meline Bay Papua New Guinea to educate community health workers of neighboring villages and run clinics at the request and under accommodations of Ambassador Paki. I will attempt to “fade into the wallpaper” as Smith says, to capture the moments mentioned above.
Information on W. Eugene Smith
The two essays that most influenced me to attempt this project
Equipment
For the project, I am borrowing a friend's Nikon D70S to take to Papua New Guinea with 18-55mm and 70-300mm lenses. Using a 16GB card and backing up all photos onto my computer and external hard drive. Also bringing along three extra batteries.
Location
We will be visiting the hospital and rural health outposts of Milne Bay Province, Papua New Guinea. We will be staying in Alotau.
Farmer's Market Practice - How to use a Nikon D70 with giant lens?
After playing around with the camera in the Cactus Garden, I tried to think of ideas of where to try out photographing people interacting with each other in a crowded environment, similar to what I might experience in clinic on the trip. So, I tried out the farmer's market on California st.
For my first try with the camera, I left it on Auto mode. My main goal was to just get comfortable photographing strangers going about their lives, which is a pretty odd thing to do if you have never tried. I took hundreds of pictures, then played around with cropping and straightening the photos for practice with composition. A few of my trials are below. I did not do editing with values, hues, or anything else, just tried to notice and capture interesting contrasts of values and hues as I found them. I will learn photoshop skills later.
Farmer's Market Round Two - Aperature Mode
The big 300mm lens is great at creating a depth of field when I'm shooting about 25 or more feet away. The manual scroll lets me adjust what is most in focus as I'm shooting so I can edit how much of a composition remains sharp, letting me layer planes to create depth, or flatten them. A small focus allows for sharp edges that contrast the rest of the frame and draw the viewer's attention to it. It is a pretty interesting feature to play around with.
After meeting up with an advisor he suggested that I put the camera to Aperture mode, allowing me to set the F-stop manually with the camera automatically adjusting shutter speed. Shooting with a small F-stop allows me to bring in a lot of light, after playing with a low F-stop I found that the pictures appeared softer and I was able to shoot multiples of the same subject to different values and shadow fills in situ rather than post with editing. Editing the F-stop as I'm shooting lets me reflect on the best setting to use in that situation and I don't have to use flash as much, which I found creates harsh shadows and a sharp white / blue color.
He also gave me a pointer to turn the grid on in the viewfinder so that I can better straighten and arrange the composition as I am taking the picture rather than post shooting. It helps me pay more attention to lines and movement in the composition as well. This is great because the camera only has so many megabits, so excessive cropping and enlargement makes the pictures not as sharp. Additionally, I have found that the grid and Aperture mode setting have made me much more aware of what I am trying to capture as I take the photographs so I am more able to reflect on what exactly I am trying to do as I am taking the photographs.
Thanks for checking out this post, I will put an update on what happened on the trip soon.
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