Human Landscape by Natalie Chan

Having grown up in Taiwan, contender Natalie Chan views her new-found home in New York as an inspiring playground in which to make images. Currently a student at the School of Visual Arts, Chan describes her experience of creating images in the city as a way of simultaneously looking both inward and outward. She writes of her series Waterland,

I photograph people that catch my immediate attention--often those absorbed in their own world. In contrast, my photography of objects leads to a process of self-reflection. Many of my images are of single isolated objects; in a way they are portraits. However, they involve a different kind of perception. No one looks back at me or communicates with me, so rather than interpret someone else, I am forced to look more and more into myself.

The majority of images in this series, more of which you can view on her website, are taken by bodies of water in and around New York: the beaches of Long Island and Coney, Liberty, and Governor's Island. While swimmers, sunbathers, and sand—obvious indicators of waterside activity—are present, Chan also finds a plethora of coastal anomalies: the boy on crutches who can't go in the water, a woman dressed entirely in gold awkwardly draped across a chain-link fence, and a beach full of massive multi-colored balloons that seem to swallow up all the people running around below.

Head over to Natalie's website to see more from the Waterland series and other projects.