Help with a Photography Concept

[mike_c17]

I am a senior Photo student at college and I have been struggling at developing a good concept for my senior show. My show will be at the end

of this year and I basically have nothing so far. I have been shooting but I'm just coming up empty in the area of concepts. My department is really

big on the whole 'Post modern' thing and if you don't have a huge concept behind your photos, they tear them apart. I'm really sick of it. I understand

that pretty pictures just don't cut it anymore but I intend on going into a commercial/fashion/portrait type of field whereas the majority of the department

wants to be in fine art photo galleries. I'm pretty sure that photos in the commercial field need to look good. Nobody is going to hire me after school

based on whether or not I had a good 'concept' behind my photos. I feel that I am most successful at studio-lit portraits. I also enjoy photographing

spaces; primarily spaces that people don't normally photograph or in between spaces. (similar to Uta Barth's work) I would like to combine these

two ideas or portraits and spaces but I have no clue how to form a connection between the two. Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

 

Thanks!

[mharris]

If I give you my good idea and it turns out to be so good that you do a book and make money will you give me 10%? I have a very good idea.

[machts gut]

Mike, this is a question you should discuss with your teachers. They get paid for the job.

[felixg]

It's difficult to be sure without knowing exactly what you mean by "spaces", but the obvious route seems to be setting up sets of "environmental portraits" which depict the same model in meaningful relation to one of your rarely photographed spaces.

 

I'd try to find some less photographed people, too. Perhaps pairs of people with a connection. For example, how about the young man shown on your member page with his grandmother, in a quarry or deserted subway tunnel? Or on stools in a busy street?

 

The concept would be interaction of dissimilar individuals, thrown into relief by their sharing of unaccustomed space.

 

It would depend on your own genuine feeling for both the portrait and the space ... the line between a "concept" and a "pseud gimmick" is a fine one!

 

Any use?

[felixg]

Alternatively ... rather than the same people in different settings, perhaps set up one of your spaces as a studio and do a set of widely divergent portraits of different people relating to it?

 

Stefan is right - your lecturers should be helping with this. But, I know (as both past student and present lecturer) that this doesn't always work - for a number of reasons. I also know that they and you both need something to work with. If you make a start, you can then take the initial results and write up to them and discuss it as a way to shift things onto a new basis.

[chris_waller]

Put the camera down, wander around a little and think - what do you want to photograph? Why? What do you want to say about it? How will you say it? When all these answers are clearly answered, then pick up up the camera.

[pjmeade]

Shoot what moves you and matters to you and how you see the world.

 

I'm not surprised that you don't come up with something if you are being asked to replicate someone else's vision rather than produce your own. However, do look at what they want (or lean towards) and see whether you can interpret it in your style.

 

If you want to work in commercial photography, you will be expected to work to someone else's vision.

[lex_jenkins]

The idea of rigidly applying a conceptual approach to post-modernism is in itself so hilarious one could have a lot of fun satirizing the entire notion.

 

I once had a blast satirizing Hemmingway in an essay for a professor who revered Hemmingway. The title was "Big Two-Fisted Writer." The professor thought it was a tribute piece. Hell, maybe it was. But I thought it was funny as hell.

 

Post-modernism is passe. Conceptual art is too precious in this era when the vacuous is worshipped and even catastrophes seem a bit too convenient, as if some dark force was pulling the strings.

[tholte]

Your'e worrying too much! Think of something really dumb, put a ridiculous (but academic) title on it and your teachers will probably love it. Example: Have some of your friends sit at tables with an emply plate in front of them, title the series "The Unbearable Lightness of Being", How the Coming Food Shortage Will Alienate Us From Our Subconcious Desires". Hope this helps!

[DickArnold]

Go to a retirement home. Set up your lights. Find the pain. Narrow you subject. That's only a suggestion. Stop thinking so broadly. I work the best after my subject has been narrowed and I can focus on somehting. If you do something like that get creative with your lighting. Give some more flattering pictures to your subjects.

[DickArnold]

Or a hospital. Or skid row(be careful). Or a home for the homeless. Or kids football. I could go on but there is plenty out there if you make a choice. Or a night with the cops. Or go to a fire. How about the spaces between a homeless person's teeth. How about single, struggling mothers. How about latchkey kids (with permission). How about following a garbage truck around all day. .My favorite, which I once wrote a piece on with pictures, the terrible pressure on nine year olds to perform in sports, namely baseball or football.

[samn]

Bodies of related work add depth to your portfolio. They also add to expertise as theoretically you must work harder to produce increasingly better images in a given theme. Prospective employeers/gallerys/knowledgable public look for this depth. This is what your professors are trying to teach you. Some artists fall easily into a style of work, others never attain it. Try to do as others in this thread have mentioned and confine yourself. I try and do it by confining myself to a specific geographical area and returning to it when new photographic ideas come (if ever).

[randmcnatt]

That's an interesting concept. I've done some paintings like that, where a "portrait" is defined by the negative space, what's NOT there instead of what is -- but they've were all in one piece. Perhaps you could do a series of studio pieces where a portrait or still-life echoes the emptiness of a juxtaposed cityscape. I can imagine an empty set of staircases, say, along side a high-fashion shot of a lady in an impossibly high collar which mirrors the wedge made by the sky in the other shot. If you do each pair in mirror-image, you can simply display them side-by-side.

[rjjackson]

i have an idea. set up an exhibition of blank white images (processed fiber paper, of course), and walk around making portraits on polaroid of the critics revealing their disgust and paste the polaroid in front of the blank white image during the critique. they get their pomo fix and you get to make portraits :).

 

i'll send you an invoice for the consultancy fee.

[mike_c17]

Thanks for the advice on this. What was your idea Michael? I am only using this for a senior show at school. I'm not making a book

so you have nothing to worry about. .....and Felix, the young man in the photo is a self portrait of me.

[sarah_fox]

Mike,

 

It's very simple:

 

1. If you could only tell the world a single thing, what would it be?

 

2. How can you express that message photographically?

[andy mcleod]

If you have no use for pomobabble, don't cheapen yourself by passing- you'll get bitter and cynical about the

degree that you're working hard for and throwing ducats at. It'll Take years to realise it's value, and yours.

Happened to me (engineering).

 

Check out rick stolk and his almost daily squares at www.rickstolk.com, artist's statement at:

http://www.rickstolk.com/about.htm . He doesn't break out the shovel to explain empty pics, why should you?

 

A bit of shovel here:

 

From: http://photo-muse.blogspot.com/2007/03/uta-barth.html

 

>>From Uta Barth: In Between Places: "Deceptively simple, Uta Barth's photographic works question the traditional

functions of pictures and our expectations of them. By photographing in ordinary anonymous places - in simple

rooms, city streets, airports and fields - Barth uses what is natural and unstudied to shift attention away from

the subject matter, and redirect focus to a consciousness of the processes of perception and the visceral and

intellectual pleasures of seeing....

 

...Uta Barth provides a compelling look at the nature of our own experience.Her beautifully composed photographs,

most often created in places that seem somehow familiar, prompt our consciousness of visual sensations and a

deeper consideration of what looking really means.

 

...Barth has used photography exclusively in her aesthetic projects, experimenting with depth of field, focus and

framing to create photographs that are suggestive rather than descriptive, alluding to places rather than

describing them explicitly. Her interiors and landscapes engage the viewer in an almost subliminal way, testing

memory, intellect and habitual responses..."

 

If you feel that you must resort to pomobabble, go multimedia. Generate miles of pomobabble using the pomobabble

generator: http://www.elsewhere.org/pomo/ . Make an installation project scrolling pomobabble over a series of

your prints in a dim room. Next room same setup scrolling P.B. on a dusty mirror with a pin spot set to light the

viewers face at viewing distance. The viewer will see their face behind P.B. in the dust.

 

Oh. Nice pic. You shoot well.

[catherinevankempen]

Hi Mike, am i to understand that you deleted my comment or did it simply not post as I intended. If it was a simple glitch in the photonet system than disregard the rest of this message.

 

If indeed you did delete this message simply because you didn't like what I had to say than that seems rather immature to me. I put time and effort into my answer and if you would have taken the time and got off your high horse for a minute or two you may have found there was 'in my eyes' helpful comments in there. If you post on site like photonet you can't expect everyone to agree with you. I've got to tell you, if you were so offended by my post, how on earth do you make it through a crit at school. I'm expecting you get upset quite often.

 

Anyhow, I'm sorry you didn't find my advice to your liking, I just wish you would have had the gumption to answer rather than take the rude way out and just delete.

 

Catherine

[david_henderson]

Catherine. If you knew a little more you'd understand that no-one but a moderator can delete posts here; that

therefore your speculation is unfounded, and you are ascribing to the OP a desire that he has no means to carry

out. Indeed with only a few posts behind you an error in posting might well be the cause of your contribution

disappearing. If a moderator has deleted your post, then its likely that you'd have been told, and it would have been

because the moderator considers the post offensive or in breach of Photo.net's T&C. Was it?

[david_henderson]

I guess if I'm to criticise another contributor then maybe I should also provide a view on the original question so here

goes.

 

If your course in photography has taught you one thing, then I hope that one thing is that photography is about

imagination. It is not simply about understanding how a piece of equipment works to replicate something on a flat

piece of celluloid or sensor, or understanding light and lighting enough to render things as they look to the eye.

Every decision in photography , whether its what to photograph, where to photograph it, how it looks, who you want

to impress, how you want your chosen audience to feel about the work, is potentially a decision driven by your

imagination. A failure to have a subject and a way of treating it , imaginatively, towards the end of your college

course is not a good sign. Even though you feel you are destined for the "practical/commercial" branches of

photography this does not mean that there's no room for an imaginative approach- indeed have you wondered at all

about what separates the journeyman from the most successful and talented practicioners? I promise you its not

about how well they use a camera, and you will need to compete with talented people on the basis of your -and

their -imagination. The commercial/fashion/portrait photographers who get the most work and the biggest budgets

are those who bring something imaginative to their projects.

 

Whilst I remember, you should keep in mind that none of us here know anything about the people who will assess

your project, what they like or dislike, and indeed what parameters may have been given to you to work within, and

the extent to which they must approve the avenue you select. Wherever your "idea" comes from you'll need to

check that out with them if this final show is important to your result

 

What you need to do is develop some sort of structured way to develop and assess ideas. As you seem to have a

(for the moment vague) idea of linking portraits and environments (I'm never too sure what this "space" thing means

exactly- I thought it was a place you hang pictures) then you might start by working in a disciplined fashion to write

down as many ways as you can think of that you can combine a portrait and a relevent environment together in one

photograph or together across a portfolio. A series of environmental portraits is indeed an obvious thought, but you

could explore routes where you visually place the environment within the person rather than the other way around, or

ways in which you can juxtapose environments and portraits in different but adjacent images, or placing people in an

environment that might shock or offend or frighten them. It could be, should be, quite a long list, which you can hone

according to which interests you most, which has the most "legs", and what thoughts each approach suggests to

you and can be communicated to others. The fact of writing a "long list" will lead you to develop variant and different

ideas and and to discard others.

 

Sometimes people get lucky. Ideas just float into their head and stick there. Sometimes a strong commitment to

a "cause", whether artistic or otherwise, can lead almost directly to a concept for a series of photographs. For other

people, or on other occasions, a pretty disciplined and systematic approach is necessary to generate ideas and to

develop and sift them. Believe me, in a commercial environment ( I have a background in running marketing

agencies and consultancies) you can't just hand over a task to a creative resource and expect the answers to pop

out of their head kind of instantly because, well, they're "creative". Its surprising just how much intense thought is

necessary to come up with something that the Agency will push, the client will buy and will work on his customers

or prospects too. And guess what, that thinking process is not a precursor to your photography- its part of it.

[catherinevankempen]

David, I am sorry but since I am new to photonet I did not realize that only a moderator could delete posts in the forums. For this I do apologize. I did not receive a notice that my post had been deleted do I am assuming there was glitch, which I did mention in my previous response. Oh, and no, I do not consider my post offensive. I will rewrite what I mentioned in my original post and you can be the judge of it.

 

Mike, since you did not get my answer I will post it again. Oh, and I do apologize for going off on you, apparently I was blaming you for something you can not do.

 

I find it hard to believe that after I assume 4 years in a photo program you have nothing to work with. I recommended going through all the contact sheets of everything you ever shot while in school and trying to find the thread that runs throughout.

 

I find it strange that you would ask others for a concept. To begin with I think the word concept can be interpreted in a very broad sense. What I found during my 5 years in art school is that what the professors are really looking for is for you to think about what you're doing and not just going about things willy nilly. Everyone has a reason to shoot what they do and it is up to you to figure out what that reason is.

 

It is important for you senior show that there is some consistency in your work. A show where a tree is hung next to a body scape, next to an abstract next to a self portrait does not flow and does not give the viewer a chance to really see what your work is all about.

 

Taking someone else's idea and running with it seems a little bit like cheating to me. Finding your type of photography is half the work. The other half is perfecting it. I remember in photo I we would get a new assignment every week: motion, architectural, nature, abstracts, ... Once we get past the photo I phase it is important that you spend more than a week practicing and reshooting "your" style or subject.

 

Even a commercial photographer needs to develop a style so that when one sees a photograph by you they will immediately say ... that must be by Mike. In your initial post I can already see what your concept is, it just needs to be executed. Why not just trust your own instincts, rather than depend on others to tell you what to shoot.

 

I remember getting very frustrated while I was in school having to constantly explain why I was shooting what I was working on. But after a while I realized that if nothing else it made me think more about what I was doing rather than just going around pointing my camera at whatever I saw.

 

Again, please go with your own ideas, taking anyone of these responses and shooting their ideas, to me, seems very close to plagiarism. Your years in school are meant to let you develop as a photographer. Shoot what you want to shoot, do it in your own way and I'm sure you'll be just fine.

 

Though most of the students in my program where going the art gallery route, some, like you were obviously more drawn to commercial photography. This does not they weren't creating art and they still had a "concept" which I prefer to call "personal style" that they developed over the years. I have posted a link to one of the girls in my class that was more of a commercial photographer and I still think her work is very artistic.

 

http://www.randallscottgallery.com/caitlin_phillips.html

 

Good luck,

Catherine

[sarah_fox]

Catherine wrote: "Taking someone else's idea and running with it seems a little bit like cheating to me. "

 

As a former professor, I'd have to agree -- strongly. However, I think the person who is most cheated is the student who takes this approach. The purpose of schooling is to develop and refine one's own knowledge, skills, and talent. Completing a course of instruction is only a short term goal. Becoming a skilled and insightful photographer SHOULD be the longer term goal, and it should be priority one.

 

Mike, forget impressing your professors! Instead, focus on doing your best work. It shouldn't matter if they don't grade you well. Learn from them, and do your best to grow. Feel comfortable disagreeing with them and engaging them in honest discussion. Professors actually value honesty.

 

And again, I must reiterate my advice to you for this project:

 

1. If you could only tell the world a single thing, what would it be?

 

2. How can you express that message photographically?

[mike_c17]

Sarah and Catherine, thank you for your input. I would like to point out though that I did not post this in hopes of having someone

tell me what to do for a final show. It was simply to get a conversation going and hopefully get my mind going in other directions.

If I don't have any new ideas coming into my head, then my current thoughts will most likely just circulate and never develop

further.

As for the statement about it being "cheating" if you take someone else's idea and use it as your own; Sarah, as a professor of

photography, you of all people should know that statement is far from the truth.

 

First of all, everything has been done before....in all forms of art. Is it cheating to take a portrait of someone? How about to

photograph my mother sitting on a bed? Is it plagiarizing if I photograph a still life? All of these ideas popped into someone else's

head way before any of us were even born. Sure they might not have been typed out for someone to read like this before they

made the so called "copy" of an existing photograph but it was an 'outside-idea' nonetheless.

Today in more contemporary works you not only find people still using and expanding on previous ideas but there is also a vast

majority of appropriation and artists are using other peoples negatives and actual photos.....and their works are selling for top

dollar.

All I'm saying is that there is nothing wrong with gathering ideas from various sources when you hit a dry spot.

[catherinevankempen]

Mike,

 

"First of all, everything has been done before...."

 

I agree with you on that one. I actually just responded to a post with those exact words. This does not mean that it is not up to the photographer to decide how he or she is going to develop their work.

 

"I would like to point out though that I did not post this in hopes of having someone tell me what to do for a final show. It was simply to get a conversation going and hopefully get my mind going in other directions. If I don't have any new ideas coming into my head, then my current thoughts will most likely just circulate and never develop further."

 

Why would you want your mind to go in other directions. You do what you do, you shoot what you shoot. Maybe if you have nothing else coming into your head it means your not ready to move on?

 

I think a better to pose this question is to show us your work, show us those images that you are proudest of and then see what comes from that. Having someone outside of your program critique your work may be a better way of letting your work grow than just asking others for ideas/concepts. I'm sure that plenty of people here would be more than willing to help you out in that way.

 

Oh and one more to thing in response to your statement that taking an other's concept and using is not cheating ... it really is. Like I said, I agree that everything has been done before, however, research, looking at other photographers, learning from your colleagues, ... is part of it. Finding what you want to do and adapting it and making it your own is the hard part and I guess this is where the omnipresent "concept" comes in.

 

Good luck

Catherine

[sarah_fox]

Mike, I'm not a former professor of photography. My field was neurobiology. I was also not a well loved professor, as my students felt I demanded too much of them. ;-)

 

More importantly, though, not everything has been done before! Good lord, new things are done everyday! New techniques are invented. New approaches are conceived. New issues and social phenomena arise in wait of being addressed by artists. I don't buy for a New York second that there is nothing new to do -- only lack of vision to recognize it. I do admit that coming up with something completely new is a very high bar indeed, but if you can straddle that bar, you've achieved something of importance.

 

In considering this issue, do remember that the very *essence* of a photo can still be unique even if the subject has previously seen the front end of a camera lens. You might choose to photograph a mother on a bed, but what is the message behind the image? The message may only make sense in the context of a photo essay, but it is the overall message that is important. What does your photo of the woman on the bed say? What do YOU have to say? If you are merely parroting the words of someone else, then your work is of little importance. If your message is unique and/or is addressed in a unique way, then I think you're on to something.

 

That said, very little I have in my own portfolio is *that* original, but I think I say a few unique things here and there. My work thus far has had the lofty purpose of being purchased and hung on other people's walls. However, I am currently designing a new project that does have a larger message, and I think it's unique. That's something hard to do. It takes a lot of thought and a lot of work, and it comes from deep inside me. It's the culmination of a lifetime of pain. I am not likely to come up with many of these unique larger messages (at least messages about which I'm passionate) to address during my lifetime. (I only had a few larger, unique ideas as a scientist.) However, there are always new ideas to be tackled -- even smaller ones, which I get very often.

 

Your frustration with coming up with something unique reminds me very much of a fellow graduate student's frustration coming up with a project for his dissertation. However, in the sciences, we DO NOT simply repeat other people's work. We DO NOT do the scientific equivalent of photographing the same view of the Grand Canyon at sunset from the same well-trampled overlook spot where millions of feet have trampled before. We either contribute something new, or we go away. (Often we contribute something very new and are forced away for lack of research funding, which would be my own case.) Anyway, the graduate student moaned and groaned and suffered and lost many nights' sleep, worring whether his creativity block would spell the end of his very short career, until he finally came up with a project he liked that expanded on some work done elsewhere in the department. But it WAS new, and he went on to complete his PhD. He then lived happily ever after doing very noncreative research testing adverse drug reactions for a small pharmaceutical company (boring work, but at least he's employed, eh?).

 

So this is what you have to ask yourself: Do you want to run a portrait studio and do the same well-tested, very likeable portraits with predictable lighting and tried-and-true gray mottled backgrounds, or do you want to have a more creative sort of career that probably pays you nothing? There is a need in this world for both, and frankly not everyone has interesting things to say. If you want to build your career on something other than portraits and brides throwing bouquets and sunsets and macros of flowers, then you need to ask yourself the following:

 

1. If you could only tell the world a single thing, what would it be?

 

2. How can you express that message photographically?

 

If you can't answer #1 (and there's no guarantee you can -- and that certainly wouldn't make you a bad or unworthy student), then borrow ideas from others, get your degree, and do portraits and weddings and such. On down the road, if/when/after life has beaten you up for a while, you may very well come up with a great answer to #1. (I know *I* have!) If your training serves you well, you should immediately come up with some good answers to #2, and then you can move forward as an artist with a unique message to share. Personally, I envy people who have a hard time answering question #1. Those are the people upon whom the Universe smiles.

 

Like Catherine, I wish you luck. I would also wish you wisdom and maturity, but those are both two-edged swords, much like the Chinese curse, "May you always live in interesting times."