a photo study: developing your personal style – sequence

Ted Forbes brings his Master Class Live series to a close by identifying a number of important reminders for amateur and professional photographers:  

photographs come from your mind, your talent, your skill level, your experience, your sense of creativity…. 

…what you are as a photographer is a sum of all your experiences and everything you have done up to this point comprises your skill level.

…the camera doesn’t make images you do

Developing your style as a photographer is:

…an ongoing process…this is something that you get better and better and better and better at, and I think, hopefully, one day you get really good at but it never stops….

Exercise 1:  tell a story without words

• identify a story or how-to-series you would like to create
• use your camera to create a series of photographs 
• use as many perspectives as possible
• keep it simple
• think about composition, that is how could various elements assist in telling your story
• create a lot of images…15-30+
• edit the series of images 
  • • identify those that specifically show what you are trying to communicate
    • removing those that are not essential in the story’s key points
    • edit again to pare the number down to as few as possible.  Can you remove all but one and still tell the story?

The absolute goal of this exercise is to tell a story with one image that interacts with a viewer and evokes an emotional response, a reaction, or a change in perspective, thought, or understanding.

A number of various genres that may inspire you are: 

Photographers:  

Duane Michals @

http://www.dcmooregallery.com/exhibitions/duane-michals-sequences-and-talking-pictures?view=slider#8

Eadweard Muybridg @

https://www.tate.org.uk/whats-on/tate-britain/exhibition/eadweard-muybridge

Movies and short videos: 

Ted Forbes’s Photo Assignment #6

https://youtu.be/iFk20ZS_K9Y

A photo study 

a photo study:  story photography

Looking forward to your images and thoughts.  Let’s tag with #aphotostory.

https://youtu.be/JzYOIRiD7UQ