Photography Projects

In Passing (I Love You), hand-colored cyanotype, copyright 2007/2023 Douglas Stockdale –

One question that seems to come up often with regard to my photography; how do you come up with your photography projects?  This was a frequent question during the development of my published project In Passing (working title Bad Trip – Sad Trip), and then even more so after it was published in LensWork. Btw, I will use the word ‘series’ interchangeable with the word ‘projects’, as to me, these mean the same, although I have come to understand that a series could be a sub-set of a larger project.

So to help, here are my thoughts regarding how to establish and complete a photographic project. But don’t think I’m the expert on this, as the process is messy and frustrating. And even thought I have completed some projects and I have a bunch of projects in the pipeline, I still find the process challenging and at times difficult.

First, by way of personal background, for my day job and part of what I help my clients with is the essence of project management. I have been a technical project manager since the late 1970’s, and I have been teaching project management for the last twenty years. BUT that did not mean that I had translated those skill to what I do as a photographer. Sorry, but that light bulb did not start to burn bright until the last couple of years. My prior Project management experience has provided me with some tools to use once I made the artistic connection.

Until a couple of years ago, I just made ‘Singular’ images. Those one of a kind, hopefully a one-hit wonder. I had been very envenious of those who had completed a photographic project, but I just did not see how that applied to ME. I have a large photographic collection, with different groupings that I could use, but the photographs did not seem to have any connection between them, other than the common themes, such as waterfalls, winter, or a location like ‘Colorado’. I had not made that mental connection (yet) to think in terms of an artistic project/series.

In January of 2007 I read an editorial by Brooks Jensen in LensWork, titled Printing for a Purpose. Okay, that seemed simple enough, eh? Nevertheless he provided some word pictures for me that helped me make a mental connection. First Brooks talked about what it means to print without a purpose, that is to produce the random photographs that are NOT connected. Today a frozen creek. Yesterday was an abstract catus arrangement. Tomorrow may be the patterns of the sand at the beach. Just a knee jerk reaction to what ever was in front of the lens and what ever I felt like at the moment. Not bad, but not cohesive in purpose.

Yep, that was me. Now I did have some photography groupings, but no real structure or purpose to why I photographed these subjects, other that the resulting image looked nice.

The key word here is purpose. I was not photographing with a purposeful end in mind,  a specific end or product, such as a body of work, a book or portfolio. There was not a unifying or underlying structure that connected my photographs for me, other that these might be presented in black and white.

Part of what triggered the change for me, was an idea of a project or series to focus my energies. To create a unified body of work that collectively was greater than any single image to express a feeling or thought. To think about and implement the elements that unifies the body of work which results in a consistent feeling when viewed.

I then purchased the book Photo Project by (the late) Chris Dickie and from his introduction: By undertaking a project you are forcing yourself to think about your photography, what is is you are trying to achieve and how you are going to achieve it. The pictures acquire a point and a purpose beyond looking pretty, sharp and well composed. And subjecting yourself to the neccessary discipline helps you and your photography to develop. This is also great satisfaction in finding yourself with an identifiable, discret body of work that has something to say, rather than another pile of snaps to join those in the shoebox under your bed.

Dickie goes on to point out that a commitment to a project can give greater meaning and purpose (that word again, eh?) to your photography. And here is another word that seems to keep reoccuring when photographers talk about their projects: committment. Keeping their personal project alive and working on them, come thick and thin, perphaps for weeks, months or even years.

Another word that seems common to photographic projects is self-discovery. In the process of completing a project, many photographers learn something about themselves. From Dickie: Projects become a thing of exploration… to find and show what is or has been; how looking at something with different eyes can reveal afresh; reinterpretation of the thought-to-be-familiar through the photographers unique vision; revelation of the unfamiliar.

Egads, this is looking a lot a like a two part series…so let me stop here for now…

Best regards,

Doug