What was your initial belief when you were first assigned the project?
- I didn’t think I could build a viable city to photograph, but I pulled through when I started gluing the staples down.
What was your inspiration behind the city?
- My inspiration was the game Cyberpunk: 2077 and DC Comics’ Gotham City, specifically the version seen in the Batman: Beyond show, which is where I derived the name from.
How did your city differ from Peter Root’s City of Staples?
- While Peter Root’s City of Staples was broad and monotone, mine was condensed with a red overlay of color.
How can one tell a difference in aperture settings? What did you notice about the different apertures within your own work?
- When trying to capture a wider image, you want everything in focus, but when capturing a single component, you want only the selected component in focus. I use f/18, a smaller aperture, to capture my wide angle, covering my whole city, to have it all in focus. For my other angles, I used bigger apertures like f/5 to focus on one specific part of my city.
What do you think is most successful about your work? What could you have done better, or how can you grow as a photographer?
- I think the most successful part of my work is the lighting and how it correlates with the culture of the city. I feel as if I could have made the city itself more unique and complex.
Are you overall proud of your end result?
- I’m very proud of how it turned out, and I believe this is one of my better projects.
Come visit Beyond City if you want to experience the delightful world of crime, beautiful scarlet storms, and the smell of radioactivity in the air!