Category Archives: Assignment Three – Environmental Portrait

Essay:

Approaching this project, I wanted to shoot my friend, Shin Lin. As he works on motorcycles and scooters in his spare time, he takes his work seriously. When I initially started shooting, I thought the pictures would reflect more on his actual taking apart and working on the machines. But being in the atmosphere and trying to shoot, brought out a different side of the work, particularly his working environment and the limitations he faces.

As his workspace is shared with his father, the different tasks he can do within the confines are limited. This pushed me to fine different angles and perspectives while shooting so that each frame was not too similar. I aimed to show his level of concentration to his work as he deals with limitations he can not control.

On a typical day Kennedy Ng gets up and goes to work as a board member of the city commission for Union city , New Jersey building development. At four o’clock he leaves walks two blocks down to his music school, where he teaches for another five hours. But for the last few months he has began to jungle a whole new set of responsibilities, he is the composer and musical producer for a Tribute to Merengue sensations in Dominican Republic. Being his daughter I was lucky enough to see a first hand look to such an extremely busy man’s lifestyle.

Friday, being a day of leisure for most people, ends up being the busiest of Kennedy Ng. As the head of the board of Commissioner he is the right hand man to the mayor and the go to man for Union CIty residents. Apart from this he also takes few days of the month to play at retirement homes which brings him back to his roots of music therapy. After leaving Dominican Republic conservatory, he attended Jersey City University and graduated with a bachelors degree in Music and Psychology. This lead to his work in a Psychiatric Home for thirteen years, helping bring patients back to moments in their lives that were peaceful or maybe those that brought back pain so that psychologists would be able to help. Also after graduating from University he began teaching on the side latin percussion instruments until he opened his own school which has been opened for about twenty-five years. This has become the joy of his day after a long day at work.

His latest project is producing a Tribute to Merengue Sensations in Dominican Republic. So, for the last few months he has been traveling back in forth to Dominican Republic in order to work with musicians in person. On the little spare time he rehearses his own original score which plans to unveil at the Gala. Not to mention he is a father of four, so every sunday he takes a break for few hours and spends some much needed quality time with his family.

Done on our fellow classmate, Mehdi, this set served as a portraiture that evolved around another side of him that most, if not all, of us do not know about.

Mehdi has been bartending for five years by now. He loves his job as he said “It’s more than just a job. It is a place where you’re in-charged and every night, you will hear some fascinating stories, see some new faces, and make some new friends.”

Hence, I do this set as a way to live the experience of what he told me… A Night of a Bartender!

Alex and three year old little Alex.

So I decided to do a theme about “Shopaholic” for my environment assignment. Her name is Djenane. She is a close friend of mine and she love to go shopping. I tried to show that she did shopping from head to toe which mean she bought earrings, clothes and shoes. One of the thing about a shopaholic that grasp my attention is that if they see something that they like they have to buy it or they will regret it later.