Exercise 17: The user's viewpoint

For this exercise, I am supposed to choose two or three buildings or spaces designed for a particular activity that is undertaken from a specific, distinctive, position.
For each location, the aim is to take one or more photographs that attempt to capture the user’s point of view considering height, orientation and lens focal length (which controls the angle of view).

Image 1 is taken from the swimming pool of my hotel in the Island of Mauritius.
The user's point of view is easily identifiable at the level of the water.
However, such a swimming pool is definitely not conceived for swimming, but more to relax and refresh.
Therefore, with my photo I wanted to convey a feeling of relax, focusing the image on the decorative path of stones at the edge of the swimming pool which lazily leads to a blurred paradise in the background made of palms and of a colonial style cosy patio.
The perspective of the photo is supposed to suggest that, despite I am in a swimming pool, I am not using it for sports purposes, but just with the desire of evasion.
With this aim, in the post production I enhanced the post-crop vignetting, decreased the clarity in order to soften the image, increased slightly the temperature and of course cropped it properly.

Image 1.

f 8, 1/250 sec, ISO 100, 26 mm 

Image 2 was shot at the market place of Port Louis, the Island of Mauritius's capital city.
The look and posture of this trader looks to me extremely interesting, above all compared with the empty shelf in front of him.
He has got almost nothing more left to sell and he looks at me with a sort of regret.
The point of view of the photo is the one of his customers and I appreciate the perspective enhanced by the shelf with its lonely price tag.

Image 2.

f 2.8, 1/30 sec, ISO 400, 24 mm 

Image 3 was taken in a hotel room.

The user's point of view is obviously the sleeper's. 

I like very much the light that the perspective manages to make appreciate.

I opened the "shadows" and the "highlights" in the post production and I got a clearer photo that, in my opinion, is able to well underline a sort of oneiric atmosphere.

The lady sleeping deeply is almost caressed by the soft light coming from the window and reflecting on the different shades of white of the room.

This perspective makes also possible to see better the light on the hair and on the face and back's profile.

I really like this shot.

Image 3.

f 8, 0.8 sec, ISO 100, 26 mm