World of One: The Paradox of Choice

The Paradox of Choice (from the series World of One)

Earlier this year, my brother introduced me to Sergio Leone's classic gangster film Once Upon a Time in America, which tells the story of a New York City street gang during the Great Depression. When I arrived in Brooklyn, my brother sent me on a mission to find this area, and specifically this shot, which was used for the movie poster. This is probably one of the most photographed areas of Brooklyn; in fact, if you look at it on Google street view, you can see a whole gallery of images from people who submitted their own shots of the intersection at Washington and Water Street. It was extraordinarily difficult to get a clean shot of the background, as there was a constant stream of tourists walking into my frame. There even was an Asian couple that was literally in 3/4 of my shots, who I've magically erased with Photoshop.

I recently watched the Matrix trilogy again because my girlfriend had never seen it (forgive her, she's a bit of a FOB). This time, I paid extra attention to all the scenes featuring multiple Agent Smiths. Usually one of the first things people say when they see my World of One collection is, "oh, it's like the Matrix!" So I thought it was appropriate to study up on my doppelganger imagery. The composition and placement of the figures in The Paradox of Choice was inspired by the last shot in the playground scene from the Matrix Reloaded. In this scene, Neo flies off after fighting with the small platoon of Agent Smiths, and the camera cuts to the crowd of Smiths staring at the flying Neo before slowly walking off in disappointment. I originally tried to replicate that shot by placing a central white figure close to the camera and looking up, with a central dark figure looking at him. They didn't work too well with the rest of the figures in the photo, so, in the end, I decided to take them out.

For me, this image illustrates my search for success. I keep trying to walk forward, but I can't help but look back. It doesn't matter which side path I choose, they all seem to head towards the same final destination. While there are rays of hope here and there, for the most part I still have to walk through the darkness to get to where I'm going.

Special thanks to honorable pusher of buttons Jenn Boudreau for assisting me with this image!

I'm Alive!

Diligentia (from the series World of One)

Girlfriend says: "Looks like Darwin!!!"

I'm alive! Apologies to my regular readers for the lack of recent updates. In my move to Brooklyn this past June, I did something I have never done since the conception of this blog: I went over a month without any updates whatsoever. When I first arrived in New York, there was a period of about a month when I wasn't shooting anything, and was instead trying to find my bearings/frantically looking for work. When I finally emerged from the chaos that had become my life, I shot this picture. It is titled Diligentia, which is the Latin word for persistence. Though I'm slowly beginning to feel more settled in my new surroundings and things are starting to get better, back at the end of July, when I shot this picture, I still felt like it was me against the world. Everything in this city is loud, confusing, and crowded, and I was feeling somewhat lost and fatalistic. In order to force myself to take action and be productive, I kept telling myself that I had to get out and forge my own opportunities.

My goal for this picture is to illustrate those feeling -- of trying to find the motivation to push forward, past my fears and into the unknown. That being said, I actually don't think this picture is very successful. Instead, it occupies this grey area in which I don't think it's awful but I wouldn't necessarily want to look at it all day. I feel like it's lacking all elements that make the other images in the World of One interesting. It's hard to tell that they are all the same guy walking in the street, and there's no sense of depth or distance in the picture. Though I think the idea is good, the execution is not. I felt very indecisive during the shooting of this photo, in a large part due to not having had a very clear vision of the final product in my mind. The idea was to have a group of the guys in black tapering off into the sunlight (thus creating a gradient of values), and to have the white figure in the middle of the darkest part of the group. But during the shoot I couldn't decide where I wanted to place everything, so instead of a crowd of black suits I ended up with something looking more like a line.

Shit.

In any event, after failing at my first photoshoot in my new city, I felt fantastically motivated to get out and redeem myself. "I was bound to fail at some point," I kept saying to myself, "it might as well have been sooner than later." So the week after I shot this photo, I went back out and shot two more pieces for the World of One. Just from looking at the contact sheets, I can tell that they will be much better. I will be posting them up in the next few days so you can all judge for yourselves.

I might look like I know what I'm doing, but if you look closely, you can see the fear in my eyes. (photo courtesy of Yen the Lo)

Popping Monsters

Popping Monster: Millions Guns

My buddy Dave (who regularly assists me as "Honorable Pusher of Buttons" on my World of One shoots), asked me recently if I’d be interested in turning him into a Popping Monster. While I am much less familiar with the intricacies of Popping than I am with Breaking, I was up for the challenge and excited to venture into new territory. Dave also insisted on making a behind the scenes video of the entire operation, which I’ve included here as well. Hope you guys enjoy!

Popping Monster: Ghost in the Machine Spiderweb

Popping Monster: Nick the Fury

Popping Monster: Popping Octo

video courtesy of Dave Shi