What "Project" will define your contribution to photography

[Rob Skeoch]

I've been part of this community for a long time now. I come and go depending on how busy I am. My first posting was April 27, 2005 and I started my first thread in July of 2005. I'm not sure when the site started but I can say I've been involved since the early years.
I've shot for years with formats from 8x10 to 35mm and made my living completely through photography. I worked for years in black and white photography at a bunch of papers and now I'm one of the managers for the Digital Imaging division of Sony of Canada. I've been published by National Geographic, Vogue and Sports Illustrated and have had a number of solo gallery shows over the years. So I'm not starting this thread without giving it a bit of thought.
But I do turn sixty this week and am starting a new project, one that I've thought through for years and am very excited about. I think I'm a "Project" photographer and my best work is when I narrow down my viewpoint and concentrate on a series of work for a year or so. You can see some of my projects from the past on my website.
I'm most excited about my new project. It's a broad enough series to take me through the next few years and possibly keep me interested until I can't shoot any more.
It's a series of portraits, but I'll talk about the actual Project another day.
My question is, and the the theme of this thread is, what is your project and how will it define your contribution to photography? If you're just starting out in photography or just a casual photographer, maybe you don't feel your work will be considered making a contribution to photography but I know there are a lot of series photographers on this site, shooters who have spent a lifetime moving the needle forward. This question is to those photographers.
What "Project" or series of work will define you?
If you can't think of one, when will you start thinking about it. You don't want to wait too long or you might not have time to finish!
Let's call this a conversation starter.
-Rob

 

[Berkeley Mike]

Redirecting a moribund photo department.

 

[AgX]

So far: Satisfying and enjoying photographers all over the world with photographic materials. Creating respective jobs.

 

[removed account4]

Hi Rob
I am one of those people who has thought about that and unfortunately I better start before it's too late ! Unfortunately I am spread thin across a few different interests and a few different life events have made it hard for me to "focus" on one imporant project. Hopefully the storms have passed and I can start. I have always enjoyed your work and the series of videos you did and I look forward to your "reveal"

John

 

[BMbikerider]

One that I am involved with now is in relation to the Industrial and Mining heritage in the North East of England. So few photographic records have been kept in the time since the invention of photography and what there are available cannot be called a good quality record. Many of the artefacts are still visible and intact, but no one has made a detailed record of the places and persons who worked there. The part about the people will be hard to reproduce because a lot of them will have passed away.. However the 15.25 mile route where the sites of several coal mines can be identified and a large (approx 25 acre) almost fully functioning workshops this just has to be recorded for posterity.

Committing the record to digital is not a guarantee that the record will be readable in the future, so I will be using B&W and colour film which I should think will outlast any of the advances made in the digital world, for at least the next 30+ years.

There is so much to record that I estimate it wall take me at least another 5 years to get it all. Then of course there will always be something I have not seen before and this will have to be done.

 

[MattKing]

I struggle with my desire to be more project oriented. I don't want to approach projects with a "define my contribution" mindset because I think that would just paralyze my attitude towards any project I might attempt.
I expect my contribution will never be easy to define, unless it comes from the enjoyment I have helping and encouraging others interested in photography.
I do take a lot of tree photographs though.

 

[Andrew O'Neill]

I've been working on three main projects for several years. Coal mines in Omuta, Japan. First Nation's churches in British Columbia. Ukrainian churches, and small town churches in Saskatchewan. I have no clue how this will define my art, nor do I care. I just want to take it an make it. Let others do the defining.

 

[benjiboy]

None I'm afraid.

 

[Kino]

Professionally: Timing/grading 600+ classic, B&W, 35mm U.S. motion picture films for analog cinema projection to preserve the traditional movie going experience. (I hope to hit a full 1K before I retire.)

Personally: Enjoying the process of photography.

 

[Vaughn]

Bodies of work rather than projects...projects usually have end point, and I suppose when I die or can no longer can create the big 'project' will be over.

A few students that I may have influenced over the years, perhaps, will be a contribution...especially if they also teach.

 

[Jim Blomfield]

I will leave the defining up to others. Which project? Perhaps the next one. Keeping my mind open and inquisitive is what drives my passion to keep photographing. The possibility of a yet to be discovered project excites and stimulates me. If circumstances dictate that I might not be able to finish it, so be it. I will go out realizing that I have followed my passion to the end.

 

[markbau]

My contribution will be that I helped keep B&H and countless other photo stores solvent. I've never done drugs, who could afford drugs when you have a photography habit? On a serious note, I have a large body of work depicting the dying days of a railway in Australia (1977-1985) and a few people have said I should leave those negs to the state library.

 

[eddie]

Bodies of work rather than projects...projects usually have end point, and I suppose when I die or can no longer can create the big 'project' will be over.

I view it the same way as Vaughn. It's rare that I think any project is finished, though they may take a hiatus. My projects also seem to evolve as I do them. What I originally envisioned often ends up quite different as it moves along. I enjoy that part of the pursuit, as I think one can be hampered by tunnel vision.

 

[Vaughn]

I view it the same way as Vaughn. It's rare that I think any project is finished, though they may take a hiatus....

Some series end themselves -- for example, kids grow up or leave us. The last one...at least with all three.

 

[Rob Skeoch]

Hi Rob
I am one of those people who has thought about that and unfortunately I better start before it's too late ! Unfortunately I am spread thin across a few different interests and a few different life events have made it hard for me to "focus" on one imporant project. Hopefully the storms have passed and I can start. I have always enjoyed your work and the series of videos you did and I look forward to your "reveal"

John

Maybe your schedule will open up and you'll get a chance to get at er! Hopefully anyway.

 

[MartinCrabtree]

That's never been on my list of to do. I participate simply for my own self-indulgence.

 

[jvo]

retirement was to be dedicated to photography - full -time; and it was for about 6 months!

my greatest project will be adopting and bringing up my stepdaughters kids. they are a present subject and the generators travel events that expand my subject matter.

 

[Skeeterfx20]

None and none was ever planed or considered. However I guess I will have an extremly great and lasting legacy project that will be second to none. My talents were taught to and improved upon by my daughter. What better project could there ever be. No my name will not stand out on some great planned project. However my contribution if you want to call it that has the potential to live to infinity. Pass it on.

 

[Rob Skeoch]

One that I am involved with now is in relation to the Industrial and Mining heritage in the North East of England. So few photographic records have been kept in the time since the invention of photography and what there are available cannot be called a good quality record. Many of the artefacts are still visible and intact, but no one has made a detailed record of the places and persons who worked there. The part about the people will be hard to reproduce because a lot of them will have passed away.. However the 15.25 mile route where the sites of several coal mines can be identified and a large (approx 25 acre) almost fully functioning workshops this just has to be recorded for posterity.

Committing the record to digital is not a guarantee that the record will be readable in the future, so I will be using B&W and colour film which I should think will outlast any of the advances made in the digital world, for at least the next 30+ years.

There is so much to record that I estimate it wall take me at least another 5 years to get it all. Then of course there will always be something I have not seen before and this will have to be done.

Sounds like a great project,I hope you get the images you're after!

 

[jtk]

[QUOTE="Rob Skeoch, post: 2185803, member: 6442"

What "Project" or series of work will define you?
If you can't think of one, when will you start thinking about it. You don't want to wait too long or you might not have time to finish!
Let's call this a conversation starter.
-Rob[/QUOTE]

If I'm struck by lightning before I post this, will be confident in that last instant that my lifelong work in photography (since 1953 or so) will define itself adequately for somebody.

The two dozen prints on my wall and in portfolio say enough about who I am right now. I don't hang work that goes back more than a year, apart from a few ancient family photos.

 

[TheFlyingCamera]

Most probably my "Sinister Idyll: Historical Slavery in the Modern Landscape" project. I've been working on it for probably five years now, maybe a bit longer. It consists of 2 1/4 x 4 1/4 inch palladium prints of places as they appear now that have some connection to the practice of slavery in the middle Atlantic region, more specifically in and around Washington DC. I've photographed monuments, burial grounds, university campuses, churches, parkland, grand country estates, and industrial sites. I wanted to do this to raise awareness of how utterly integrated slavery was into the fabric of American society, and how even today, the landscape we walk through, both urban and rural, is shaped by that legacy. Places, people, buildings, streets, institutions - they all were marked in some way by that insidious history. I'm working on making it into a book, and looking for additional venues to show the body of work in. I currently have about 75 prints in the series, and I can see it ending up at around 100 by the time it's all done. I had a big show of 27 of the prints earlier this year here in DC.

 

[Rob Skeoch]

Hey TheFlyingCamera, that sounds interesting. Prints of that size are real jewels, you have to lean in to look at them which is nice at a gallery. Are they posted on your site?

 

[TheFlyingCamera]

Hey TheFlyingCamera, that sounds interesting. Prints of that size are real jewels, you have to lean in to look at them which is nice at a gallery. Are they posted on your site?

A portion of the project is posted to my blog, http://dcphotoartist.com . I need to dedicate some time to posting more of them and getting the stories of each image up as well.

I kept them very small to force the viewers in a gallery to become very intimate with them in order to see them, perhaps uncomfortably so, to drive home the nature of the issue they are trying to address - that you, in 21st century America, are still far more intimately connected to slavery than you might care to admit.