Photography and Text by Janelle Tong, Copyright 2017
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BUILDING BRIDGES
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For my individual project, I aimed to find a way to connect my work and learnings in photography to something related to my concentrations in Wharton: marketing and management. While many spectators would wonder how it would possible to translate these abstract concepts into visual representations, I found the most appropriate analogy in the form of bridges around Philadelphia.
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For context, after graduation, I will be working in the tech sector, specifically in a product marketing role. This position can most commonly be found at the intersection between product development usually done by highly specialized engineering teams and user and everyday consumer interactions. In other words, I like to analogize this role as the bridge that connects the people who build “stuff” to those who use said “stuff.” Thus, with this comparison in mind, I set out to capture various bridges and different perspectives of those architectural structures with my camera.
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In pursuing this project, it actually felt like I was not only able to capture images that I believe adequately represented my bridge analogy, but I was also able to further refine my own editing style and aesthetic. Back when I was working on my previous still life assignment, I noticed that my photographs tended to be more on the minimalist side with a preference for black and white images that employ high contrasts between the highlights and shadows. This particular style of editing is something I found to be aesthetically appealing, and it continued to play an influencing factor as I began putting together my collection of images for this individual project. Ultimately, through this individual project, I learned more about what I find appealing in terms of digital composition, and I hope that I can continue to refine my own editing style—or trademark, as some would say—in preparation for my final portfolio project.
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About The Author: Janelle Tong is a Senior enrolled in the Wharton School of Business, University of Pennsylvania, Class of 2017. To read additional articles by Janelle Tong, go here: https://tonywardstudio.com/blog/janelle-tong-essence-balance/