What Tools Do I Want to Use?
In my first post about The Photo Journal, I talked a little bit about making series’ of images to tell a story. Today, I want to dig into that concept a little more.
Over all the years that I’ve taken photos I’ve always focused on making single images that I thought could stand on their own. I think I’ve done that pretty effectively in some circumstances but I have always kind of felt like 1 image doesn’t really cut it in most cases.
I have 3 types of image sets I like to make:
A single image with accompanying text
A group of images from a single event that tell a complete story (usually with accompanying text)
A body of images, across time, that tell an ongoing story or are tied together with a coherent theme (either graphically or stylistically)
I think I’ve gotten pretty proficient at making a single image that is strong and associating it with narrative. But moving forward I really want to get better at telling a complete story through images.
This is a set from Dyngus Day in Cleveland in 2023. (Don’t know what Dyngus Day is? Click the link). I think this is a pretty decent set of photos for a Photo Journal project. The images are a mix of environment, detail, portrait and a selfie (this is my Photo Journal after all, selfies contextualize my experience in the moment). This is probably my most complete set of images to date for a single event but makes me ask myself some questions.
How do I make more sets of these images? Especially when during a mundane day or time, not at an event
How do I continue to improve the cohesiveness of the set. What could I do to help the images feel more narrative?
What media do I want to focus on? Color? Black and White? All vertical? A mix? Digital? Film?
To answer the questions in reverse order: “What media do I want to focus on” - this one is tough but I think I’ve come to a, mostly practical, decision. I am going to do a mix of vertical and horizontal and focus on color on my digital camera. I want the images to have a continuity in their appearance and format. I’ve done small projects in the past that blended color, black and white, film and digital all in the same project and I just didn’t think they were that successful. I had been hoping to leverage the different media types to enhance the feel of the shot - polaroid for really casual, intimate moments, film for quieter more contemplative scenes and digital as pure record of events. It didn’t work.
Some neat photos in there that I’m happy with but they don’t have a coherent feeling. Ok. Maybe that’s not 100% accurate. The Black and White are the least cohesive. The film and digital are pretty much interchangeable but are different enough that I think it causes a disharmony. The Polaroids would be a nice contrast to the other images because they are so imperfect. So maybe there’s something there.
My gut says stick to a single format but there’s this nagging sensation that I can make them all fit together in a mixed media project for a more dynamic project. I’ll keep playing with it and we’ll see how it goes.
So, for the time being, there’s a path forward. I’m going to focus on color photography using digital. My preferred way of shooting is with my a7c, a 24mm 2.8, 40mm 2.5 and 90mm 2.8. I love the feeling and handling of this combination and think it is the least invasive and is easy to have on me all of the time. In addition to being unobtrusive, this setup has fast autofocus, I know it inside and out and the results are consistent - no missed focus, poor exposure, no poor development or scanning.
Even with this focus, I’ll play with other cameras and formats on the side and see if there’s something to including them into this Photo Journal.
Next time I’ll talk about creating cohesion in groups of photos.
