In his day job as head of development in the Language Centre of University College Cork, Brendan Ó Sé takes annual trips to Japan for student recruitment. In his free time, he shapeshifts to street photographer, exploring with his iPhone the cities to which he’s been temporarily transplanted. Using the Snapseed app, he created this multilayered image out of three trips: to Seoul (in South Korea) in 2017, to Tokyo in 2019 and last year to Kyoto, where the base image, with the yellow marking, was taken in a train station.
“I rotated the shot, then layered on top of it the silhouette of a passenger repeated in the bottom right and top left corners, to create a frame,” Ó Sé says. “I then began pulling in images from elsewhere: I had shot the guy in the mask on a subway train in Tokyo, while the red and blue lights came from a neon display reflecting on a taxi in Seoul.
“This marriage of lines and shapes isn’t what I usually do, but it reminded me that photography can be such a fun pursuit, even in the editing stages. Without sounding pretentious, I liked the mindfulness of building the image to what it became.”
While a Fuji X100V and a Nikon D7000 also accompany him on his trips, it’s his iPhone he uses most often. “I love the colours my Fuji produces, and might sometimes reach for this or my Nikon if the light is more challenging, or I want more control, but it’s my iPhone that I always have with me. When you always have a camera with you, you become more active in seeking out photography opportunities.”
