Body of work....?

mark · Nov 6, 2004

I have heard this term quite often and I am not sure I understand it. What does a photographer mean when he says "I have created a nody of work"?

jovo · Nov 6, 2004

Don't know about a nody, but a body of work is a group of related images that explore a subject in some depth...a theme. Weston's vegatables, or Adams Yosemite photographs are bodies of work. Sometimes all the images are of a single subject seen from several viewpoints in different light, and sometimes it's a group of images that relate to each other in other ways. I don't know how many images one needs to include to have them qualify as a body, but I suppose it would be a minimum of ten or so...in other words the number that would be included in a gallery show.

bmac · Nov 7, 2004

A body of work, if you ask me, is all the photographs a photographer makes in his lifetime.

rbarker · Nov 7, 2004

bmac said:
A body of work, if you ask me, is all the photographs a photographer makes in his lifetime.

Excluding the bad ones, of course.

Dave Miller · Nov 7, 2004

rbarker said:
Excluding the bad ones, of course.

Dam! In my case that dosn't leave many.

rakuhito · Nov 7, 2004

a body of work?

better a leg, an arm,
a tongue or an eye

imagining too
when an organ could
be useful - a lung, a liver
a heart or a gall bladder

veins, nerves, breath
a cortex, a synapse
why not a backbone of work

better yet, how about
a corpse at play

jim kirk jr. · Nov 7, 2004

Body of work-Isn't that the medical term for what you have by the time you retire. your body is falling apart but you're supposed to spend the time doing the things you couldn't when you were working with a body that no longer works for you?

Helen B · Nov 7, 2004

My dearest friend P---- has a body of work. She's certainly quite an artist. I think that she still charges two bits*, but she claims that it's more like five bucks now.

Best,
Helen

* 50 cents

rusty_tripod · Nov 7, 2004

A body of work would be the complete collection of work by a photographer, good or bad, silly, flippant or indifferent, purposeful or simply works done for practice.

Often people are afraid to show their bad side as artists, meaning works they consider unsuccessful. However, I have found that I learn from the weak as well as the strong and correct.The deciding factor would be the reason that I use to examine that body of work. Am I doing it to learn about the photographer or how he worked? His subject matter? The number of shots he made before he got a winner? Etc.

I tend to throw out negatives that displease me. Nevertheless, much is conveyed in the review of the things I do keep, both good and bad. They will be my body of work and my legacy.

Rusty

jim kirk jr. · Nov 7, 2004

Helen B said:
My dearest friend P---- has a body of work. She's certainly quite an artist. I think that she still charges two bits*, but she claims that it's more like five bucks now.

Best,
Helen

* 50 cents

I think Iron Maiden made two songs about her in the 80's and changed the name.Wasn't the price 15 quid(how much exactly is a quid?)

Art Vandalay · Nov 7, 2004

I've heard 'body of work' used to describe a period of an artist's life and 'bodies of work' to describe a lifetime.

Dave Miller · Nov 7, 2004

jim kirk jr. said:
I think Iron Maiden made two songs about her in the 80's and changed the name.Wasn't the price 15 quid(how much exactly is a quid?)

Quid = One pound sterling.

jim kirk jr. · Nov 7, 2004

Dave Miller said:
Quid = One pound sterling.

Thanks...I've been wondering for about two decades but never thought to ask.

jd callow · Nov 7, 2004

I have always thought that a body of work equalled a body of work -- meaning a series of a type or an artist's/photographer's entire portfolio.

David A. Goldfarb · Nov 7, 2004

I generally think of the full output of an artist as their "body of work." Sometimes individual works by a particular artist may not be that interesting, but in the context of their full body of work, they may have meaning that they don't have on their own, because they may contrast with other works, or show the artist's progression over time, or they may reveal a theme that can only be recognized when comparing several works.

Usually one wouldn't say "I have created a body of work...," unless that person were reflecting on a long period of creation. A body of work is something that happens or emerges, but isn't really like a "project" that is created over a short, well defined time period.

Sometimes you might say that a group of artists produces a body of work over time.

It's not that obscure a concept, and it doesn't imply any sort of value judgment--just a quantity of sustained output over time that has some coherence.

bjorke · Nov 7, 2004

"Body of work" is just high-falutin' jargon for "some pictures"

livemoa · Nov 7, 2004

I have always associated the expression with either all the work produced over a life time "their body of work" or alternatively a series or collection around a concise theme.

Hard to explain, but then again as some one once said, "language is such an imprecise way to communicate"

Body of work....?

mark

jovo

Membership Council

bmac

rbarker

Dave Miller

rakuhito

jim kirk jr.

Helen B

rusty_tripod

jim kirk jr.

Art Vandalay

Dave Miller

jim kirk jr.

jd callow

Moderator

David A. Goldfarb

Moderator

bjorke

livemoa

Body of work....?

Membership Council

Moderator

Moderator

Privacy & Transparency

Privacy & Transparency