Tuesday, February 1, 2011

How to select photographs


Helsinki, originally uploaded by jiihaa.

Ship, originally uploaded by jiihaa.

Step, originally uploaded by jiihaa.

Sven W once again provided something to think about, when he suggested that I should think about how to present the photographs: "I'd like to see them organised in some fashion."

Should one use the paradigm of a visual journey, or a selected theme, or something else, that is worth thinking about.

I must say that often there isn't much selection process at all happening, I just pick a random set of photographs and put them up on the blog. Sometimes there is a self-evident theme, such as when going for a longer walk to some special place. Or then something happened that day which provides a key to the selection process.

But usually when I get to the point of making a posting I'm a little bit too tired to think deeply about the selection or presentation. Also, I guess I'm also expecting the viewers to do a little bit of work, by commenting on the photographs or something like that. Sometimes I see some of the photographs having dozens of views on Flickr, and that may be a reason to put it up here also.

In any case, any feedback is welcome, criticism especially.

As to Sven W's question "Do you [mentally] organise your images or do you think of them as stand-alone?", the answer is: either of these, or both. Usually I'm shooting whatever moves me, but there are also occasional interest in a specific theme.

But as this blog is mainly a tool for myself to develop as a photographer, anything goes, as long as it seems to work - or at least provides some learning.

2 comments:

Sven W said...

One potential (and reasonably original theme): photos taken from inside the car.

Occasionally I see a good image while driving (stopped at the traffic lights) but don't have a camera. Mark Hobson (or perhaps a reader) suggested images from inside the car during a car wash!

Juha Haataja said...

@Sven W: Once again a topic for a new posting.