Visual Culture: Chinatown

One of my current projects at university is a visual exploration of culture within Birmingham's Chinese quarter, which I will achieve by creating a photo essay focusing upon different aspects of the culture including; food, people, signage and wealth. My main aim is to create imagery with strong narratives, that evoke emotion within the audience and that depict life in a true and honest way. Below are a few images I have taken so far:

Night Photography

For my location assignment I was required to explore the techniques used and effects created with night and low-light photography. I enjoyed this shoot as scenes look very different at night and there are many ways to experiment. I created light trails by using long shutter speeds and a tripod, I also worked with the artificial light that was available from street lamps, in buildings and other sources. I then edited the photographs in PhotoShop CS6 and Camera Raw; after tweaking the exposure and colour temperature slightly in C.R. I either converted to black and white and created a Levels layer or reduced the saturation of the image. I didn't really like the orange cast produced by the tungsten street lights so felt they were stronger images after being edited. Overall I am happy with the outcome of these images and would like to experiment with this type of photography further. 

Portfolio

 We have been creating portfolios of our work using the digital softwares iMovie and Lightroom 4. Below is a Street Photography portfolio that I made using iMovie: