Long term photo project workflow

pesphoto

pesphoto

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Im thinking of starting a long term photo project in my neighborhood. Actually, I have begun with some shooting this week and processing some film. Ive never worked this way before, I had always gone out roaming around looking for things that interest me. Something I have enjoyed ,but now I want to do something I can really connect with and I think I have found it.

How do you manage your long term photo project workflow.
Do you just make contact sheets, do you make small working prints only to later choose your favorites and make larger prints? I'm curious as Im trying to come up with my own methods. Any advice, thoughts?
Thanks!
 
I've done a number of photo series from a minimum of six months up to several years. Maybe five years if you count one series that slowly evolved into a subset.

I always start by shooting and let the project evolve on it's own. You'll find some avenues end up to be dead ends and you make a turn. Others just seem to keep developing as they go along. Nothing ends up like you originally envisioned it going in.

I shoot negs but don't bother with contact sheets. I edit on a lightbox and make 8x10 quick proofs of those that appear to have potential merit.

I edit proofs using the concept of the "top 50" and a pile of rejects. For any new proof to go into the "top 50", I have to discard an existing one. That lets me know how much progress I am making. Plus makes the final selection from some realistic sized number of choices.

My current exhibit has 30 photos hanging. The curator selected 26 from my top 50 final prints. Then he chose 4 from my "reject" pile of about 150 proofs. That was from 2+ years of shooting that series 1 or 2 times a week, 2-4 rolls each time.

I think the key things are:

1) keep flexible where the whole thing is going
2) continuously edit so that in the end you are not trying to choose from 3,000 images.

Editing is definitely the hardest part. When you get to where you are challenged because you think too much of your work is good, just slap yourself in the face to get real and start making hard choices.
 
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I've worked this way for years. I run film regularly, and do proofsheets every two or three weeks, then begin 810 proof prints of anything that looks interesting on the proofsheets. Then after a few months I'll start making proofs of likely images to final size, usually 1620. I continue to use the 810 proofs for editing, scanning etc. I usually do sequencing with the 810's and then xeroxes of them on the classroom wall.
 
sepiareverb said:
I've worked this way for years. I run film regularly, and do proofsheets every two or three weeks, then begin 810 proof prints of anything that looks interesting on the proofsheets. Then after a few months I'll start making proofs of likely images to final size, usually 1620. I continue to use the 810 proofs for editing, scanning etc. I usually do sequencing with the 810's and then xeroxes of them on the classroom wall.
Click to expand...

That sounds pretty good, do you set time limits on your projects or just go with the flow? Im thinking of scaling down my initial working prints to 5x7 and making finals 8x10 or 11x14. I dont have an end result in mind yet, though a local show in the neighborhood would be nice. Since that is the subject of my project. Providence College is in my neighborhood and they do have art galleries on campus, but that is down the road a bit. Right now I just want to get myself fgoing and figure out my workflow.
 
I have done a number of long term projects, which you can see on the portfolio page of my website. Some of the projects are still in progress, others finished. Two of them have been in progress for more than 15 years (Grandpa and Forgotten Indiana). Some of my projects were spawned by other projects. My Waynedale and Prairie Grove Church projects were split off from the Forgotten Indiana project, and my Mary's Bar and Every Friday at Noon projects came out of my New Mexico project.

I just shoot what interests me and let it go where it goes.
 
You'll know when it's done. No longer fun, or just a feeling that you've gotta get printing. I try hard not to make the pictures anything they don't want to be themselves. Play is part of it- let the eye go walking. I do go out with some ideas in mind once a project feels like it is wrapping up- if there is a clear gap that needs filling I'll shoot to fill it, but only at the end. And if a project never gets going, or never seems to come together I just let it go.
 
Bob, wish you had a website or someplace I could see some of your work online. Was that a conscientous decision not too get your work, which is analog, too entangled with the digital world? Or am I thinking too much here. Still wish I could see some.

So it would be good to have ideas for other projects in case the one you are currently working on doesn't pan out or fizzles. Ive never worked this way but it sounds interesting. Get me outta my comfort zone. Get me outta my house!
 
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Thanks Chris, Ive seen your work and really enjoy it. New Mexico is one of my favorite places. Do you shoot with any end result in mind, like a show? Or just go and do it?

Chriscrawfordphoto said:
I have done a number of long term projects, which you can see on the portfolio page of my website. Some of the projects are still in progress, others finished. Two of them have been in progress for more than 15 years (Grandpa and Forgotten Indiana). Some of my projects were spawned by other projects. My Waynedale and Prairie Grove Church projects were split off from the Forgotten Indiana project, and my Mary's Bar and Every Friday at Noon projects came out of my New Mexico project.

I just shoot what interests me and let it go where it goes.
Click to expand...
 
pesphoto said:
Thanks Chris, Ive seen your work and really enjoy it. New Mexico is one of my favorite places. Do you shoot with any end result in mind, like a show? Or just go and do it?
Click to expand...

My website is the end result. It allows me to tell a longer, more detailed story than i can tell with an exhibit. I used to exhibit my work frequently when i was younger, but I have largely stopped doing so. The world of art exhibits is very exploitative toward artists. To get in an exhibit, artists often have to pay entry fees. These fees, which can be as high as $50 or more are often demanded just to be considered for inclusion in an exhibit and are not refunded if you're rejected. On top of that, if the work sells, the gallery takes a commission that is extremely high compared to what commissioned sales usually bring in other retail fields. Art sale commissions are typically 50%! The artist also has to pay to mat and frame the pieces out of his 50% of the income. So if you sell a photo for $300, you get $150 and out of that pay a frame shop $100 to frame it, you get $50. The entry fee for the show was $30. You lost money when you figure in your time to make the photo, print it, deal with jumping through the hoops to get in the exhibit, get the piece framed, etc.

I'm too old and too experienced to care anymore if my work is exhibited in galleries. I have been in more exhibits than I can remember and have sold so little from them that it was a complete waste of time and money.

I have sold more work off my website in the last 6 months than i have sold in exhibits in the last 14 years! My website costs me $20 a month and I pay Paypal fees on sales if the customer wants to pay that way (I accept checks and money orders and my bank cashes those free!). With my website, I keep ALL the money, and I can present as many pictures as i want in any order I want. I can tell the complete story that I want to tell. I can sell my work in any form I want too, and have sold many of my photos for stock uses where they have appeared on music album covers, advertisements, signs, websites, etc.

Many artists forget that art is a business and you, the artist, are a businessman. Believe me, the gallery owners, museum curators, etc. have NOT forgotten that art is a business and they have rigged the system to steal from us. They make large profits while we starve. F--ck that. Don't play that game, you cannot win it.

Back to your question, because I shoot for my website rather than for an exhibit or book, I can work at my pleasure and use as many photos as I need to show what I am trying to show. I let the projects progress at their own pace and go with where it takes me. As I said, it has taken me many directions from where I started, with projects fathering other projects. It has been an incredible adventure, but a hard one too since I have never made a lot of money.
 
I have pretty much converted to digital workflow. When I work on larger documentary projects, I may have several thousand images to deal with before they are over. It's easy to drown in pictures if you aren't careful.

This is my system:

1. I import each day's shooting into a folder labeled "Imported Files." Each session gets it own sub folder, "Bomber Day 1," for example

2. I do the basic quickie raw conversions to jpg there and then do an initial edit. The goal is to grab both the obvious and marginal keepers.
These are moved into a second folder, labeled "First Edit." Each day's shooting, at this point, still gets it own sub folder.

3. I like to let a little time (a week or so) pass before opening up the "First Edit" folder. Then I go through with a much (I hope) more critical eye, with the goal of picking only the best images.
Images from this editing session are moved into the "Final Edit" folder. At this point, all of the images are kept in the same folder so that I can view them as a whole.
Occasionally, I find myself going back to the previous folders if I feel like there's something missing, some important angle not represented in the final images.

In the end, my goal is to edit down to a very manageable (10 or 20) group of images. When I was in Orlando, I spent a few months with a local theater production, just documenting the behind-the-scenes stuff. I shot close to 2,000 images. but (with the help of a photo editor at my newspaper) I settled on 18 of them to tell the story. (They are on my website, under West Side Story.)
 
For film and digital both (i mix the 2) I make 2 5x7 work prints of each and label each one with the date and exposure number/frame number along with the roll#/folder to keep track of it all (really there are sooo many ways to do this...this one just works for me)
1 set of work prints stays with me in a box at all times so that I can flip through them
1 set of work prints stays on my walls so that I can live with my prints(this helps alot, having to stare at your pictures all the time you really get sick of them fast and the ones that stay up have that something extra that keeps you looking)

for film prints I just batch print the buggers all at the same enlarger settings and can punch out a few hundred prints in a morning this way...and while i'm doing that I just let my printer punch out all the digital ones.
 
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