Project by: Emma Diamond (11th Grade), Io Weintraub (11th Grade)
Project Advisor: Susan Now
Student(s)’s Advisor(s): Shauna Finn, Manjula Nair/Catherine Zhong

Description of the Project:

This is an honors project about Black and White Photography. Throughout our project, we narrowed down to two main topics: personal narrative and Washington Square Park. We worked with Susan to find inspiration (our main inspiration for the Washington Square Park images is Diane Arbus). These images are taken with both film and digital cameras.

Final Product (e.g., documents, images, video, audio, poster, display, etc.):

Personal narratives (our lives throughout the trimester):

Io:

Emma:

 

Friends:

Washington Square Park:

Pre Covid-19:

During Covid-19:

 

Final Reflection on Learning:

Emma: During this project I continued to work on my technical photography skills. The more rolls of film I take, the better they come out. I also learned more about what images work well together and how to compile a cohesive series of images. Susan also helped me learn how to do research to find inspiration for my images. Overall, I learned a lot during this project and I am excited to continue to my photography skills.

 

Io: This project helped me visually juxtapose the mannerisms of New Yorkers from before the pandemic and after. Our more recent images emphasized the melancholy tone of the city through black and white film. Even the different experience of finding people to photograph was drastic. Less people were willing to be photograph and there were not as many people spending their time outside. I had the opportunity to appreciate how friendly and welcoming our city was before covid 19.

Update on Progress from Weeks 1-3 (include any photos or video if relevant):

For the first three weeks of our project, we look at inspiration photos with Susan. One of the photographers that really stood out to us is Diane Arbus. Because we told Susan that we wanted to take pictures of people in Washington Square Park, Susan showed us a series that Arbus did there. Susan also helped us brainstorm other ideas. One of the things we came up with was to recreate old pictures of the city today. Susan showed us oldnyc.org, which is a website with a lot of old pictures of New York City.

Diane Arbus Washington Square Park images:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Update on Progress from Weeks 4-6 (include any photos or video if relevant):

During the second three weeks of our project, we began shooting images that are inspired by the resources that Susan showed us in the previous few weeks. We shot both independently and together. After school, we went to Washington Square Park together and photographed strangers. One of us used a digital camera and one of us used a film camera in order to capture the people differently. Because we were unable to work in the darkroom, Susan brought all the film we shot to the Color House to be developed and all the images were scanned in digitally. In our final presentation of our images, we hope to compare the film images, to the digital images, and also to pre Covid-19 images that we have from Washington Square Park.

Update on Progress from Weeks 7-9 (include any photos or video if relevant):

During the last few weeks of our project, we continued to shoot and meet with Susan. We began to think about how we want to display our images. We compiled all our favorite pictures from throughout the trimester and began to categorize them. We ended up having two categories: Washington Square Park (comparing images from pre covid to now) and images that represent what our lives have been like for the past few months. You can see both of these categories in our final images above. We also worked on our project poster during this time.