The Jump Project

In early March, I challenged myself to photograph a jump a day for thirty days. I made my challenge public to anyone who would listen and even did some brainstorming with others about possible jump locations. After a clearing up of the weather that conveniently coincided witha much needed haircut in mid-March, I was ready to begin my project. I've done two jump photographs prior to this series: one at Formosa Boulevard Station in Kaohsiung and one in front of some plum blossoms in Fengguidou. I also lookedat a few examples of other people's works - Jumping Project is the largest group on Flickr devoted to portraits of people jumping. Another source of inspiration was Natsumi Hayashi's incredible levitation blog - Yowayowa Camera Woman Diary - the influence of her photographic style may be obvious ina couple of photographs in this series.

Most of my photographs were taken on weekdays during my lunch break. Some were taken a couple blocks from where I work [and a couple at my workplace], while others were usually within a ten minute driving radius. Most of my shots were taken on shutter priority mode [1/500 s] using my camera's 20 second shutter release timer and set to take nine consecutive photographs. Unfortunately, the vast majority of the lousy shots were erased on my camera long before they ever made it to my hard drive. Looking back, those would have made a great collage. After beginning my project, it quickly became apparent that because of other priorities and the occasional thunderstorm I wouldn't be able to complete my project in thirty days.

I really like my first photograph Going Up. In my opinion, it's a well-composed photograph. Without the movement of my shirt, it would look like I was superimposed to my position. The torn advertisement gives the picture a sense of balance. The horizontal lines contrast well with my direction of movement and can be used to measure my vertical leap.