We shot a lot more locations than the ones illustrated here, but I think that a tight portfolio of images should be a distillation, a quantisation of what you saw. I suppose, since most folks have labeled me a ‘minimalist’ (although this is now how I see it myself), you could argue that the minimalism approach is worked on, not just on a per image basis, but on a collection basis. Reducing down your collection of images into a tight cohesive set is an exercise in impact through economy and strength of illustration. If the images are supportive of each other, they strengthen the set. And if the collection is cohesive, and small in number, then it stands to reason that a smaller set will convey more.
Working on portfolios is a process of discovery. Well, everything is. The assumption that I know what I’m doing during the process of creation is a wild assumption to make. I let myself go, because I’ve learned that there really isn’t any other way. The work has a tendency to tell me what it wants, and it reveals its own wishes as I work along with it. Each action I take, is like peeling back a layer of a puzzle, only to discover there is another layer lurking underneath.
I have made the point many times on this blog, that too many of us are looking for answers before we’ve begun. We wish to hit the finish line sooner than possible. Being a bit lost is not only a good thing: it’s part of the creative process. I seldom know where the work is going to end up, but I do get hunches as the work progresses. Each time I add another edited image to the collection, the collection takes on a new shape. Its mood and what it’s saying becomes either more complex or more distilled. It is in the distilled areas of the collection that I see patterns emerge, and it is up to me to choose whether to follow them.
Emergence, of things surfacing as you continue to sculpt your work is perhaps the best indication you have that the work is progressing to a natural conclusion. If the work continually feels fraught and unsure of itself, then this is an indication that things are not going well. Good work tends to surface, as if it’s got it’s own momentum. Like a good song tends to write itself, you should be acting as a conduit, letting the work flow through you, not from you.
Too many photographers stop at the individual image, and do not see the connections and themes within a collection, or perhaps all of their past work. I’d really love to start to offer my Digital Darkroom class again, as this is where this work on portfolios would be achieved, but I have had to shelve it through lack of interest since Covid.
If you think you’d like to come on my digital darkroom class - it is a mostly ‘editing / review / portfolio technique class’ with some shooting added to break up the class time, perhaps you could let me know.
Right now, I am busy working on a few more portfolios of work to add to this very website. I feel I need to complete them all, and also ensure that they sit well as a group of portfolios on a new web page.
I have been, and I think I always will be, in love with making images into a cohesive set. I think building portfolios is where it’s at, and the best form of action anyone can take up, to see if they have a ‘style’. Because ‘style’ only surfaces once you are able to join the dots, and see relationships in all of your work.