I once had a student at Bard College, where I teach, who was taking portraits. The results kept disappointing him, so each week he took more and more pictures. Still he was disappointed. Finally, I assigned him to make only one exposure the next week. The picture was excellent. His problem was that he was replacing really coming to terms with what he wanted in his pictures with quantity. If an artist doesn’t work with conscious intentionality, sometimes no amount of editing helps. There are other times (and this was one of the points of my previous answer) when the lack of self-censorship that digital can engender allows for intuitive energy being communicated.-Stephen Shore, interview by Jörg Colberg.
________________
Missing the challenge of taking photographs with “intent”? Perhaps digital is flooding your mind to act too fast missing the time to think about the purpose of the image?
File Magazine, Flak Photo and Coudal Partners, have joined to create a very interesting challenge: “The 36 Exposure Challenge“.
We are asking you to use a film camera to explore Shore’s concept of “conscious intentionality.” Broadly speaking, we are challenging you to do two things: articulate a concept, project, or theme and then use a film camera to photograph the images to accompany it. There are, then, two parts: creating the idea and then acting on it. Sound interesting? read the rules of the “The 36 Exposure Challenge“.
Give it a try, think about a mini-project, and take the challenge to think and plan the images to communicate the purpose and the intent you like to achieve.
It will make you think, it will make you plan, it will make you be very focused and selective, and it will make you a better photographer.
What a great idea.
In these times of digital 4GB flash memory, people are taking thousands of pictures a day. A friend returned from two weeks in Japan with 5000 images!
My collection of slides, taken between 1965-2000, numbers about 8000. Imagine taking that many in a week or two!
What do you DO with 5000 images?
It’s all about focus.
Using a film camera in this day and digital age? I am not sure if I want to take the challenge. Limiting oneself to 36 shots to articulate a theme/concept/project, though, sounds reasonable. Certainly an idea worth a try. I might.
To rchrd above: From the sixties till now, I haven’t even made a million. Mr. Bill Gates, what do you do with 65 billion dollars?