We all have been through a lot this year and there’s more to come. We need to get back to our living our lives with some sense of normalcy. So, what can we do photographically? Well, there’s a lot actually, but what might be best as a start is to think about, plan and execute a new project!  Or, how about this … if you have one that has been gathering some dust and remains to be finished, start working to get it done! Now how about setting some real goals for yourself? What will you do with the project? Try to get it exhibited, maybe produce a self-published book? Or perhaps putting up a website with your work so it can be seen by the whole world! It doesn’t really matter. What matters is getting out there and doing the work that means something to you!

I’ve spent the last two and a half years working on a project for Monalog called Visions of America. The focus is on images made between 2016 and the end of 2024, a time of real turbulence in our country. The project involves previously completed work if appropriate and new work we would complete beginning towards the end of 2022.   During the next two years each Collective member had to put forward four groups of ten self-curated images with a specific schedule that had to be maintained. Each delivery came with a presentation to the group.  In short, you were forced to produce! It was a great idea, and in my own case it really helped focus me on putting together a coherent body of work based on a specific theme.

This weekend, I printed what is probably my last picture and will file my final group of ten as promised in December. The project truly motivated me and it helped me to focus on completing a substantial body of work. And even if the group project doesn’t result in an acquisition and show like we hope, I have created something of value to me and perhaps other that could find its way into a self-published book for example.

Thinking about this while agitating prints made me remember previous postings on projects. One included a great quote from an old Fred Picker newsletter, one of the most instructive pieces I’ve seen on the subject. Here it is again from Newsletter #17, April 1978:

“At workshops we stress the importance of working towards a goal at all times… Design a project for yourself. You might assume that you have a show coming up. Choose a theme. Set a definite date. Decide that the show requires a specific number of prints (all to be new work) that you can realistically expect to complete in that period of time. Ten to twenty-five, I’d say but pick an achievable number and write and the date of the show on your darkroom wall.

Go to work. If, on the projected date, you have the prints well made, toned, spotted, mounted, and sequenced, you will have accomplished and learned a great deal.

Edit ruthlessly. If a picture is weak, pull it. If a print can be improved in the slightest degree, remake it.

Now you have a representative portfolio.  Put it in a solon case with slip sheets between the prints, make an appointment, and visit a gallery. You just might get a date for a real show. If not, you at least have a nice portfolio and that’s a lot better than a Polycontrast box stuffed with wrinkled prints and surrounded by explanations. More importantly, you have created a coordinated body of work against the background of a deadline. You will have learned much in the process.

Don’t be upset by rejection. Considering some of the stuff accepted today, rejection could be a compliment. And it doesn’t matter; doing it is what matters.  Alexander Calder said, ‘I have developed an attitude of indifference to the reception of my work which allows me to go about my business.’

Follow through anyway. Hang the show in your living room, at the local High School, the ‘Y’, anywhere. My first one-man show was in a movie lobby and that was not a bad thing. Thousands of people saw it and I learned a lot and felt good about it.  Seeing a body of your work together is a very worthwhile learning experience. Patterns can appear with embarrassing clarity or with indications of direction to explore. Single photographs can be turning points; three or four I’ve made have influenced all the work that followed. Your pictures, if made with direction and seriousness of purpose, can teach you if you will assemble them and spend time with them.”

Just reading Fred’s thoughts again is revving me up to get back to work on my other projects, and starting a few new ones!

I’m starting to feel a little better already!

Stay well,

Michael