Ideas & Personal Projects
Pictures are considered art because of its subjectivity. Any person can look at a photo and take something different away from its meaning or message. That’s why it’s important for photographers to establish an idea around what they captured to display to their audience. Chapnick reiterates throughout the chapter the significance of ideas for photographers, as it is essentially what keeps their drive and creativity going following each shoot. New ideas are crucial not just to photography, but society progression as well. “To dismiss new ideas is to preclude progress” (Chapnick, 213). We should not be discouraged from thinking “too big”, as thinking leads creators to their next idea, and not limiting oneself has the potential for larger projects coming to life. Chapnick proclaims his worries of education systems focusing too much on the technical side of photography, without emphasizing the importance of organically growing ideas, researching them, and presenting them to editors. Whereas the skillset is a foundation that every photographer should possess, he believes that without a strong sense of developing ideas, their product can become stale and not eye-catching. Influence for ideas come from the world around us. Our personal interests slim it down to something specific for our audience. The influence/ideas do not have to be complex either; quite often the simpler, the better. I agree with this from Chapnick because of my own experiences taking college graduation photos. As preparation, I list down different places on campus to take pictures, with different poses, perhaps even a prop and a coinciding action (ex. popping a bottle of champagne). What I have found though, is that sometimes a simple headshot portrait tells the best story. In this case, such as the picture below of recent college grad Ivy Park, it’s one of accomplishment and relief a student feels from earning their degree, with those emotions radiating from their joyous smile.
Picture 1: Ivy Park smiles as she reaches the conclusion to her undergraduate journey.
Chapter 15’s topic piggybacks well off the idea importance. Personal projects are the epitome of one’s individual interests and influences coming to life. Personal projects and passion projects go hand in hand, so it is not uncommon for photographers to go out of their way to visually please both themselves and their audience with their photos for a personal project. Getting a chance to work on one of these projects can feel really rewarding to simply see the final product. It can be even more rewarding to make profit, or perhaps even make a career, out of personal projects. Chapnick details a select group of photographers, such as Peter Turnley and Lynn Johnson, as examples of people who were able to achieve such a feat. Something that stuck out to me was the emotional attachment the photographers began to feel towards the subjects and content of their projects. With Johnson and the disabled Kenny or Turnley and the African refugees, each began to learn more about what their photos represented and how they essentially had the power to share their stories with the world, something they took very seriously.
Picture 2: L: Kyrie 6 “Oreo”; R: Jordan 4 “White Oreo”. Both sneakers placed alongside scattered Oreos and their respective shoeboxes.
Like ideas, personal projects can be very simple and still contain a significance. Quarantine left all of us inside our homes and forced us to find things to do with our newfound free time. With no places to go or take pictures of, I figured I photograph some of my clothing to continue using my camera and have a cool way to show my clothing/sneakers other than directly wearing it. In the picture above, I use two sneakers both having a design and name based off of Oreos, and using the actual cookie to create a mini-shoot in my room. Streetwear fashion is a community I am heavily invested into, so capturing some shots of what could be seen as just regular things, turned into a small but very fun and meaningful personal project.
