Connecting Essay - Ronya Galka

Here is one of my images from one of my street photography shoots. I used a tripod in this shoot, as I wanted to capture motion blur. This image used a shutter speed of 1 second, and the result is that all of the people in the foreground are blurred to a large degree. I decided on capturing motion blur as I felt that it would link well to the theme of urban lifestyle, particularly the idea that those that live in urban environments are busy almost constantly, which results in towns being crowded. The image has been edited to increase the saturation of the colours, as well as increasing the contrast of the picture as a whole. The saturated colours help create a more positive mood than the image originally did, as the colour pallet was muted due to the rainy weather on the day I shot this. It creates connotations of the urban town being a happy environment in which people can go and spend the money they've earned on leisure activities and products. However, the higher contrast widens the tonal range, creating some darker tones in the paving slabs on the floor and the black borders around shops. These dark tones can represent the dark side of urban consumer lifestyles, such as the effects of the actions of transnational corporation, such as Starbucks, which is present in this image, on the populations of less economically developed countries.

This is a Photo by German Documentary/Street Photographer Ronya Galka. The image has been taken from a profile perspective and depicts a woman in business attire walking along a London street  while smoking a cigarette. In the Background behind her, there is a large billboard that reads "BAD GIRLS" and displays a disco ball chained to a collar next to the text. The image has been taken in black and white, and the result is a wide tonal range, with some light tones shown on the walls of the street and dark tones shown in the shadows cast by the window bays and on the dark clothing she's wearing. The presence of the words "BAD GIRLS" could be a purposeful link captured by the photographer to the woman smoking, suggesting that she is "bad" as smoking is a harmful habit. It could also be a reference to the stylisation of smoking in some media, particularly in Photography and film, as the term "bad girls" referring to smoking almost fetishises it.

My image took some inspiration from Galka's images, particularly the image above. I wanted to capture people on the move in an urban environment, as well as capture large advertisements that could be linked to the lifestyles of those living in an urban environment. Galka's photo did it by creating links between the "BAD GIRLS" text and the woman in the photo smoking, while my image created links between the presence of consumer advertising and the fast movements of people in urban environments, suggesting that people are driven to be busy around town due to availability of consumer goods and services.