Talking About Your Photos
Let’s talk about talking about our photos. I can only hope you have more experience than I do with this tricky aspect of photography. I am at the beginning of this journey. The first step for me was persuading myself that I needed to learn to talk about my photos.
As I understand it, to have credibility in the photography community, and here I am mostly referring to the professional photography community, you have to demonstrate to them that you can talk about your work. If you can’t talk about your work, they are not likely to publish or support it. You have to do some self-advocating and explaining if you are in a gallery showing, at a portfolio review or entering a competition.
The question is how exactly do you talk about your work? These are the suggestions that I have found.
You can observe elements of art like line, texture, color or contrast.
You can observe principles of design like balance, patterns, movements or proportion.
You can observe what your work communicates, like moods or themes.
You can tell a story about the making of the photo.
Where you were? Was it serendipity or planned?
Time of day.
Your frame of mind
Shooting technique.
Social interaction.
Post processing.
Equipment you used.
What your intent was.
What you learned.
Is the picture one off or part of a project?
I belong to a private photo salon group run by James Maher, who is a NYC street photographer. The goal of the group is to develop the photography skills of the members. I have decided that when I post in the group, at least in the near future, I will talk about the photo. It is a difficult assignment for myself. I can see that it might result in posting less often. I recently posted and talked about this picture.
I have been making a weekly trip into the Nashville entertainment district to take street photography for almost one year now. It is a relatively small area that is crowded with revelers, even during high pandemic times. On the day this picture was taken, a rodeo had come to town. There was music. There was a mechanical bull contest. It was full on fun. I spotted this dear little boy with his dad and another man who appeared to be his uncle. The two adults had their hands on their hips. I thought it was probably a familial gesture. That little boy absolutely copied the gesture. The country song, Watching You by Rodney Atkins, popped into my head. I got very determined to get the picture. Time, of course, was of the essence. The problem was that the three were facing each other. I was going to get a picture with a lot of backs where there was very little separation of my three subjects. The group broke up, but the boy and dad stayed together. I had one more chance. This time I got the picture. As the song goes, “I wanna do everything you do, so I have been watching you.” The hands on the hips are a noticeable repetition, but there is also blue and red color repetition. The boy is framed by two people walking behind him. It is good fortune that they are in step with each other.
I have also encouraged other members to talk about their posts. I knew the value of the exercise when Monica Lord posted these two pictures with a story.
“So I come across this guy using a shovel to dig a deep hole in Central Park. The temperature is in the 90s and the humidity is terrible. Smart aleck that I am, I ask him “Are you searching for a jar of coins?” as I take his picture. Turns out he has to dig by hand—in this day and age!— about 50 more of these for a fence to close off the demolition site of Trump’s ice skating rink.”
Photos by Monica Lord. Used with permission. You can see Monica’s Instagram gallery at @almostgreennyc.
When I commented to Monica that the story significantly increased my interest, she asked me, as she usually does, “Why?” My response was, “Head shots and closeups like both of these pictures do not very often keep my attention for long. I enjoy them and then move on. The little story amused me. I felt more connected to your hero. I searched a bit for evidence of his hard work and how he related to it. That is how I found the droplet of sweat. His shirt choice produced compositional contrast considering that I knew what he was doing. I do think he was digging the first hole. I expect you would have gotten an entirely different picture later in the project.”
I am going to pursue, at least for a while, talking about both my work and the work of others. I found a good model for this in an Instagram post by Gulnara Samoilova at @womenstreetphotographers. My hope is that talking about work, either mine or someone else’s, is like flexing a creative muscle that will then be stronger when I am out shooting.