Projects: do you do them in a systematic fashion?

[NancyP]

Re: Alain Briot's latest article - how many people are consciously doing personal photography projects? Percent of personal photography time spent on projects, versus being on the hunt for photos as opportunity arises?

[Ben Rubinstein]

My mentor, teacher and sometime boss always told me to shoot projects. It took about 6 years until I started to listen to him and only then did I start to gain recognition, exhibit, etc. I've posted that article up for my students.

[Telecaster]

I typically have a few "projects"—or concepts as I think of them—going at a time. But I rarely pick up a camera looking for photos to fit a well-defined concept. That strikes me as too much like work.     I prefer a more general approach...then in reviewing photos later on I'll sort them by already-existing concept, or maybe I'll discover a new concept suggested by a group of unintentionally related photos.

The attached pic, along with two others taken the same day, sparked off an on-going series featuring various outdoor tech devices enclosed in boxes with identifying embossed or raised text. But my thought at the time was nothing more specific than "suburban landscape."

-Dave-

[david loble]

Nancy,
Count me as a project shooter. Currently probably  75% of my photography is devoted to a specific project I began last September. That % will decrease as time goes on and I decide that I want to start something else. But even when I'm walking with no specific objective in mind many of the pictures I make will fit well with others from years past and those might make a "minor" project.

That said, though, I don't find it particularly easy to come up with new projects. It takes a lot of shooting.
David

[amolitor]

100% of my project work is systematic project work!

I do a lot of my kids, my wife, my friends, cute things I just can't not shoot, etc. I can't really give gross percentages. I do know that when I'm shooting project, it's different. It feels different, it looks different, and it's much better.

[NancyP]

I am not a project shooter. I may have "to-do" lists in mind, eg, with my new-old view camera I want to go work a few big grain elevators in St. Louis and Alton. Rework a few shots I scouted down in Pickle Springs (don't laugh too much, the poor guy who owned the land in the 1800s was named Pickle). And so on. But I don't consider those to be projects, just "to-do" photo sets of particular landscapes or subjects. "Projects" sound more extensive, more theoretical, more art-school=y.

[Hans Kruse]

I organize landscape photo workshops so these are my projects. Also scouting for new spots and locations is part of these projects. So the photographing is very specific to what fits into these projects. It's the photos that sells these workshops so therefore the photography becomes very goal oriented and I think this improves it a lot over not having such a goal. I think similar goals can be made no matter whether you photograph commercially or just for fun. For me this would fall under project oriented. One could also call it goal oriented and I think this is the key. However I also find it important sometimes to clear the schedule and just go out shooting with no agenda in mind and follow the heart and light.

[amolitor]

I finally read Alan's piece.

While I mostly agree with what he's saying, I think more needs to be said, and I think he's wrong on some minor points.

You certainly can shoot anything that catches your eye and construct projects or portfolios later. This may become the default mode in the era of digital, now that exposures are free. Winogrand's body of work is arguably as much a work of curation as of shooting.

The second remark worth making is that portfolio construction is not trivial. Way too many people make portfolios consisting of the same damn photo over and over. If you select only the best pictures the portfolio can lack interest and balance.

I wrote a little book on composition in which, among the many brilliant insights, I remark that the process of portfolio construction looks a lot like composition. You seek interest, balance, and cohesiveness in both an individual picture and a portfolio. Or you seek the opposite. But in both cases, for essentially the same respond.

[alainbriot]

There are certainly numerous ways of conceiving projects.  However your work has to be about 'something.'  It can't be about everything if you have any claim of being anything more than a snapshooter.  Winnogrand may have photographed extensively, to the point of madness according to some and certainly to the dismay of those who now have to curate his body of work, but he did so in a very specific context.  It is his definiteness of purpose that makes his work worthy of attention on the part of the audience and worthy of the time necessary to sort it out on the part of the those upon whom the task of curating his work rests.

[amolitor]

I agree completely.

Perhaps I misread the original piece to some degree? In any case, while I agree that the work has to be about something, and that it's easier for most people to get some notion of what that thing it's about earlier, I don't think that it's absolutely necessary to have any idea what it's about at any particular point before publishing.

It's tedious to just shoot everything and then try to edit coherent portfolios out of that mess, but I think it works.

Most of us fall somewhere between that and the other end, which is something like pick a theme, refine it fully, plan the portfolio, and then start shooting.

[alainbriot]

I'm not sure that you misread it.  It is definitely not intended to be a comprehensive tutorial on doing projects. This is why I included a link to my detailed tutorial, the Personal Style Master Class Workshop on DVD, at the end of the essay for those who want to go beyond what I cover in the essay.

Those who do photography for fun often put up a strong argumentative defense in favor of their desire to photograph 'everything that catches their eye' (ETCTE). I know, I did the same.  This desire is powerful and long lived.  I was fortunate that I had mentors who 'surgically' removed this misleading desire from my mind.  However, be it known that I don't have a problem with ETCTE. If photographing everything that catches your eye is the key to enjoying your photography, so be it.  My goal is not to spoil the enjoyment you derive from doing photography the way you see fit. My goal is simply to point out the limitations this decision places upon the work.   My goal is also to point out that the work that inspires ETCTC practitioners is the result of careful reflection and the outcome of specific decisions.

[dreed]

I'd never thought about how or what I photograph as a "project" until I read Alain's story and after I had, various things I had been trying all of a sudden made sense. What's more, having read about how it benefits the photos that I take, it is highly likely that I'll be more project orientated in the future rather than just "random" as I didn't understand the benefits of being project driver beforehand. It was a well put together article that points out what you can do to improve without being prescriptive.

A project can be anything but most importantly, it is putting order in your own thinking.

[W.T. Jones]

I have one ongoing project, which is not something I actively seek out, but one I shoot specifically for when I encounter a place that fits the parameters of said project. I might go a year or more without adding to it, or if chance intervenes I might add one or two images a month. It is a personal endeavor for me and one I enjoy.

I do have one specific one in mind that I might actually make a concerted effort to do in a time frame. But It can wait.

[amolitor]

Perhaps it's worth sketching out how I approach projects.

While I don't shoot everything that catches my eye, I do quite a bit of random shooting, to no particular purpose. I view this stuff as raw material.

Sometimes a subject will catch my attention. Sometimes a visual effect in some photo editor will catch my attention. Almost anything at any point can "feel like" the germ of an idea that might spread across multiple pictures, but usually it's either a subject or a visual effect.

Then I feel my way forward, is there a good subject for this visual effect? Is there a good visual effect to work with this subject? Sometimes, but by no means all the time, a coherent look coalesces around an idea or a subject. Now I have a set of things to shoot, and an approach to handling them visually, that might ultimately produce a portfolio.

I press on, pursuing this coalesced notion of some pictures I want to make. The idea probably will evolve -- "I love this idea, but it's all so dark and muddy, is there a high-key analog to these theme that would play well?" -- or whatever. A lot of ideas die here, too.

Finally, I get a bunch of pictures, if all has gone well and the idea has survived. Maybe I get 20 pictures, maybe I get 100. Maybe someday I'll get 500. These pictures are first-pass "keepers", they embody the ideas and the look I had in mind, they're on theme, and they're all basically pretty good.

Now I sift through those, and throw a bunch of them out. By now I usually have an idea for a final format, and how many pictures I want, and I want at this point to have a surfeit of those "first pass keepers" so I can cull heavily. I might have to go out and shoot some more. I might have to develop another variation on the concept, to flesh things out and bring balance and interest to the portfolio.

Finally, I have, in a very very small number of cases, a nicely built portfolio of the very best exemplars of some idea, tied together with a set of visual ideas.

This sounds very step-by-step, as if I have a detailed process which I simply follow, perhaps? It's not, though. It's very ad hoc and it's mostly me just following my nose, trying stuff out, backtracking, and throwing out a tremendous number of pictures.

[alainbriot]

This sounds like a very reasonable approach most likely to result in a successful project.  The challenging part for all projects is the final selection.  Culling 12 or 20 images from hundreds or thousands is not an easy task!

[NancyP]

I always tell myself "Shoot less. Think more." at the end of an edit session.

[alainbriot]

Certainly thinking more during a shoot is important.  Fine Art Photography is in part an intellectual exercise.  In fact reflecting on the outcome of previous shoots, or thinking about goals before a shoot is just as important.

However a project is rarely, if ever, completed in a single shoot.  Therefore the problem of editing is about pulling out a small number of images (often 10 to 20 or so) from multiple shoots.  The longer a project takes to shoot, and the more shoots you did, the higher the likeness that a large number of strong images will be produced, making the editing process proportionally more challenging.

[jrsforums]

I always tell myself "Shoot less. Think more." at the end of an edit session.

I always think "more is more"....both shooting and thinking. :-)

[NancyP]

Sometimes I do keep and use the "snapshot" grade photos of a location to assist in planning for the next one. Unfortunately, for many of my existing "return here when light is right" shots, I didn't also record the compass direction, which would assist tremendously in the planning. Satellite photo maps aren't too helpful for IDing specific small landmarks in a hilly forest.

The good thing about exploring for landscape photography is that even if you didn't get the best possible shots, you got some exercise, fresh air, and planning information.

[dreed]

However your work has to be about 'something.'

Someone in the many essays that Michael has written on this website he mentions that it is important to understand what each photograph is about (I think he says to ask yourself what the photograph is about?) and to zoom appropriately. In post it can be necessary to crop because we cannot always arrange a scene to match up with the physical frame of the camera. I can't help but wonder if his comment and Alain's are talking about the very same thing.

The good thing about exploring for landscape photography is that even if you didn't get the best possible shots, you got some exercise, fresh air, and planning information.

What I often find is that something made me take the photo but that I don't necessarily capture or represent that well without some editing.

I always tell myself "Shoot less. Think more." at the end of an edit session.

In the digital age where film is a never ending series of cards, maybe the right way to approach this and discipline shooting is to find a digital card with enough memory for 50-60 exposures and take only that card on a shoot. Or even half that if it is just for a day. If there isn't enough card space to shoot anything and everything, maybe that will force more thought into the what and how? I know that seems counter intuitive because why should we restrict ourselves when it is not necessary but maybe with digital there is missing discipline in subject selection?