Yesterday, we stopped at the suggestion of a photo assignment for which you may consider making use of mirrors to convey the theme.
Let me take for example an on-going photo assignment about urban renewal I am working on for hobby. Like any big city in the world, Hong Kong is facing a tremendous pressure to renew old areas. The balance is, however, so skewed towards the commercial value of renewal projects that almost anything old has been bulldozed. The genius loci of old areas are fast disappearing. There is an outcry for heritage preservation in its totality, not haphazard retention of some fabric of the areas to be renewed. In parallel, people call for a better pedestrian environment in the old areas. So, I came up with some photos including the two below, in which mirrors are used to convey my messages.
(A Jigsaw of Urban Renewal)
I took the photo “Jigsaw of Urban Renewal” outside a new sky-high commercial tower in a neighbourhood undergoing renewal. The jigsaw-like Reflections in the mirrors of the commercial tower are images of the surrounding old domestic buildings. Apart from creating traffic problems, the renewal projects give rise to discontentment of the residents nearby on the resettlement arrangement and social debates on preserving the local character. The jigsaw of urban renewal is how to put what where to make the picture right. I try to use the mirrored images and the word play to convey this message. (Some may wish to know that a “jigsaw” also means a complicated situation)
(One Way or Another)
The other day I was on the same photo assignment. This time I hoped to take some photos depicting the croweded pedestrian environment in the shopping districts located in older urban areas, which is another issue to be dealt with in urban renewal. I picked Mongkok (literally, Bustling Corner) in Kowloon. There I went to a shoppers’ mecca. The main roads flanked by shops in old buildings were parked with vehicles on both sides. As the sidewalks were really crowded, some passers-by just walked on the roads instead.
The most thought-provoking photo I took for the theme is the one above, “One Way of Another”. After walking the scene, I stopped by a truck and pointed my GX200 to its mirrors. The shop signs and ice-cream van on the far side of the photo give viewers an idea that it is a shopping area. The glimpses of the passers-by walking past the cars say how they steer forwards one way or another. Once again, the reflections in the mirrors add a visually interesting dimension to bring out the message.
Hopefully, these two examples illustrate some aspects of how mirrors can be used to better convey a photographic theme.
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