Developing a photographic project.
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Today I have received an email from the guys at Fecalface.com saying they just showcased one of my my projects, ‘Exhale’ (link, link). Thanks guys, I needed that. If you can’t be bothered to follow the links, don’t worry, I’ll put the some of the images in the body of the post as well.
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However, soon I started to feel that my images had certain similarities, that they obviously tried to arrange themselves in groups. I thought to myself, well, ok, since I can feel a connection between them, even if the themes are different (say a candid street shot and some urban fragment), let’s try to create groups, why not. So here is one way of creating a project. You have shot some images over a period of time, and you can feel some undercurrents flowing through them, your mental journey of sorts. Is that a ‘project’ ? I don’t know to be honest, but I still do it, and still publish sets in which I can see a common thread.
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Sometimes however, I found myself coming back to certain topics, feeling one image wasn’t enough to fully explore what I was after. Such was the case with ‘exhale’. I felt there is lots of possibilities here, different situations had different looks, and highlighted very different aspects of my topic. So I decided to explore deeper. For about two, three months I would chase those particular situations. In a way, it became easier, as I now knew what I was after, but also harder as well, as things became repetitive and it was more difficult to create a fresh image.
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Lastly, let’s face it, projects are in a way easier for you audience to engage with, easier to showcase (‘here’s a body of work, it has a defined topic, its explores something’ as oppose to ‘here’s an image that I feel is really strong’), and are more likely to get people interested enough to have a look at all the other images you shot.
