PROJECT: "Once upon a time...."
OBJECTIVE:
In art, there are many solutions to achieving the same goals. The written short story genre is rich in its variety of subjects and contents which span all facets of the human experience. Similarly, photography can just be as expressive, though in different channels of perceptions. Primarily, this project combines the literary aspects of story telling with the potentials of photographic/visual communications.When learning any language, one must learn both the words and the commonly used manner of putting the words together to convey ideas (the grammatically correct and idiomatic compositions.) Fortunately for most, the "words" or elements of visual communication are already a familiar and well connoted vocabulary. Yet, the inherent ambiguities in the visual vocabulary often complicate its use. This project intends to foster a means to delineate and refine compositional techniques for this visual vocabulary.
REQUIREMENTS AND CONSIDERATIONS:
1. Create an original story "plot" that you can express in five to ten images. Title slides not required, nor are they counted. The story "plot" is not as important as the desire to have the pictures express a particular point of view. The emotions or reactions of the photographer should be evidenced in the slides. That is, how do you feel about what you are shooting? Does it make you think of happy thoughts, or does it make you feel disappointment, etc.? Therefore, the major "problem" of this project is to show these reactions of yours in the pictures.2. Even before you begin to take pictures, make concentrated observations of things, places, events, and anything else you see everyday. Look to see what types of ideas are suggested to you by what you see. What visual elements and images stimulate and initiate reactions and associations?
3. Based upon your observations and evaluations, you could make interesting photographs from most any subject. Primary to this project is the concept that there is a "visual vocabulary" with which an artist can communicate. You are to develop and refine your own sense of connecting imagery and ideas in this project.
4. Since the number of slides is limited, each slide must contain a substantial amount of information for each to be effective and coherent. To make things manageable, choose a very simple premise for the story plot. Relative to a movie, this project would be just one scene. It could be as simple as the meeting at the door on the first date.
5. To aid in translating your story to pictures, the following will outline possible methods of dealing with the project objectives. Remember, most images are based on previous knowledge and experiences. The images you use could tell much by just what "details" are in your pictures and how you used them.
6. As the photographer, one must choose what the situation is to be about. Besides the specific activities (the "plot"), consideration must be given to the overall emotional context (humor, fantasy, romance, etc.) of the chosen situation. By defining your situations and objectives as carefully and clearly as possible, it will be much easier to evaluate the questions of "how-to-do-it" and "what's-needed".
7. Knowing what is more important, what will distract, and what will enhance your ideas, makes deciding what to include and what not to show more logical and controllable.
8. As in literature, this notion of the specific suggesting the general would be called symbolic representations. Metaphors, analogies, allegories, and other suggestive methods of literature also have their counterparts in photography. Thus, the techniques you find in making a written story interesting can also be simulated in photographic terms. It should be apparent that one can make anything suggest anything else if the right conditions exist. What is desired in this project is to find these relationships and associations, and incorporate them into your visual vocabulary.
8. So, for our meeting at the door on the first date, let's consider this a metaphor for social interactions. The premise is based on experiences of expectations verses reality. The "plot" here is reflective of the photographers sensitivities of social mores. Overall concepts which could be alluded to by this meeting could be sex roles and mores, social/racial/economic class interactions, or tolerance of differing personality traits (sexual orientations, frigidity, kinkiness, whatever.)
- The first images of the series establish the characters in our story. Who are the people dating? Is it boy and girl, boy and old lady, girl and old man, man and women, man and man, woman and woman, or maybe man plus man meeting woman plus woman. At any rate, the photographer decides who and what the main characters are, and what the characters' interactions are to be in this simple situation.
- A method to introduce "side" issues into this plot might have images which depict activities by the characters in preparation to this meeting. Styles of dress, personal habits of preparation (make-up, hair-do's, exercises, etc.), special purchases (clothes, flowers, booze, condoms, etc.), reading "how-to" books and magazine articles, and numerous others. Whatever the activity, each will influence the way the viewer perceives the nature of the characters.
- After the preparations, the characters are to meet. Is it boy goes to girl, girl goes to boy, etc.? It's another point to make plot adjustments to enhance your overall concept of "first meetings". What's the time of day? What is the place they meet? Is it a house, apartment, dorm, trailer? Maybe one lives out of their car. Maybe father answers the door? Again, the situation will have great significance on the interpretation you are presenting.
- Our story could end with either the initial reactions at the door, or activity after the meeting at the door. Or maybe one character gets distracted, so there's no meeting at the door. Again, the plot is determined by the overall concept.
9. In all your images, the physical and emotional interactions of the characters will naturally be important. But also consider the photographic elements of color, light quality, camera angle, lightness/darkness, etc., as ways to influence the viewer's perception of the characters' interactions. Everything that's in an image should be considered important. Since you are not shooting snapshots, or "on-the-run" documentary photos, all that is in the images should be evaluated as to whether is helps or distracts from your concepts.
10. Remember, your images are about your perceptions. They are about what you see, what you find in what you see, and what do you think about what you saw. Observations, analysis, and conclusion.
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