When is a project not a project?
When is a project not a project?
So with the new steps post MA study and pre PhD studies, the freedom of time not working to a specific project has freed up thought processes and these have lead me to looking at almost everything as if it could possibly become a project, and I mean everything, practically anything comes under the scope of could that become the next project.
At this moment in time sitting on the backburner i have a whole range of them, got one on shadows and light, one on looking up, one on discarded masks, etc. etc.
These are all at various stages of development, with single images shot and some that make up a whole, still shooting and seeing where they go, speaking of which the borders // pathways book idea is coming on really well (fingers crossed etc) and I’m looking at getting that completed by the 31st of December………how ironic.
So with that constant of actively looking for projects to shoot, combining with my de-cluttering as I have a move coming up, I have cleared out a lot of old documents from the 90’s to the 00’s. This consist of all sorts of stuff really bank statements, old invoices, briefs, passes etc. All not needed anymore and as my mistrust of secure document services is proven over and over again, I realised that they needed to be destroyed by me, properly….started that process, which took nearly a day to complete….you would think that this cathartic exercise would set itself up perfectly for a project but for some reason I held off doing it, why? Well it didn’t sit right for some unexplainable, unknown strange reason. Examining this I wonder why it didn’t excite or made it so, so it wasn’t to be. Was it because of the ease of doing it? The content it would create? Reasoning? Project overload?
Still not quite sure why it hasn’t or didn’t make it onto the list..
Reflecting on this has got me onto thinking about the process of projects and in particular of the nature of their parts…I’ve had a lot of long term ones most notably single glove and possibly the white shirt one, which have never really got to a completed stage, also I have The Mancunian Way them which I don’t feel has got to that completed stage, got it to a completed stage for the module but think that it can be expanded into a book, maybe the gaps a bit big idk.
As you think questions get raised, such as:
How do you come up with project ideas? What makes you pursue them? What are the (ranging from the established to the unstructured) thought processes in making a good project? Do you start from a good single image? or is it a piece of research? or some other point? Does the nature of how you want it look form the outset influence how you shoot it?
How do you judge whether the idea is any good? Or if the images that are being produced are any good? Who’s opinion do you trust to check if it’s a good idea that will make a good project will make good images?
Why do you decide to pursue them? Or more accurately what happens when you discover someone else has done and put out a version of what you wanted to do, (as happened to me on both the single glove and Ginga ! projects.)
This post, much likes lots of other good things, has ended up with too many questions that l can answer all in one go…
Although I feel that the asking of question is sometimes as good as getting a quick answer…..
Speaking of which, I don’t have all the answers, you have to make them work for you. Sometime a project is just a way of getting out the door, as is doing a course or contributing to a comp that you know you’ll never actually enter…..
Shoot, read, think, research, look, enjoy, grow, learn etcetera etcetera..
Thanks for reading..
As an add on here and something that has contributed to this reflection process, I’ve also been backing up my archive too, which may answer why I’ve had this weight of sickening heavy cloying nostalgia, ….errlgh…. I’ll possibly blog about that next time..