My photo project for 2021
As a photographer, I find photo projects to be a wonderful way of exploring both the world around us and the photography itself. I completed several photo projects I had assigned to myself but last two years I didn’t have any and I missed it. I need something to push and pull me forward, something palpable and particular, which is exactly what such a project can offer.
I wasn’t quite sure what the new project should focus on and the solution eventually came as a surprise. Do you believe that if you seek something, new doors open and new paths are unveiled? Only after setting off, possibilities present themselves.
At the end of the last year, I was performing some improvements on this blog to make it more attractive and better arranged. Part of the improvements was adding a portfolio in the menu. I used to have galleries there with photos posted on the blog but the galleries were too many with too many photos of various quality and I didn’t like the arrangement any more. I deleted all the galleries and after thinking it over and discussing the ideas with my husband, I started to create a portfolio with photos placed into albums according to their styles. It’s still work in progress and I’m not sure how many albums I’m going to create but I’ve made a firm decision to have 16 photos in each album as a maximum. When I have a new and better photo than any presented in the portfolio, I’ll remove some older and less perfect one from the respective album and replace it with that new one. In such a way the portfolio will be improving all the time and won’t stay static either.
But why am I talking about the portfolio instead about the project, you must ask yourself. The reason is that the portfolio paved the way for the project…
When I was discussing the idea of the portfolio albums with my husband, he told me I could make it my project for this year to complete all the albums and take the additional photos I’d need for the albums. And I thought that was not enough, such project would be too general and unconditioned. I needed rules and deadlines…
And then I started to put together the first albums and photos and discovered that for the album “Technical”, which happens to be my favourite topic, I didn’t have as many photos as I’d have liked. And because “technical things” is something I love to photograph, I rethought my husband’s advice, narrowed the range of options and specified the conditions.
So let me introduce the project finally. I call it simply TECHNICAL. What does that mean?
Dictionary definition of technical comprises many entries with varied usage of the word in several fields. I’d confine the range to matters and things relating to knowledge and practical usage of techniques, mechanics, machines, electricity and industry. When hearing the word “technical”, I imagine something especially metal, a factory or agriculture equipment, machinery, vehicles such as tractors and diggers, electricity distribution or communication towers. If you have a look at my portfolio album Technical you might have a better idea of what I mean.
I need my projects to have those rules and deadlines so the rules for this one are to come up with at least six different locations during this year offering an opportunity to shoot this kind of photos, such as a factory, mill, mining equipment, technical museum of any kind, etc. I took these two photos of an old mill house by lucky chance during one of our end-of-year outings and I don’t want to rely just on lucky chances. This will need search and planning and I’m looking forward to discovering new interesting places. Because of the corona restrictions the possibilities are limited at the moment but firstly, I hope it gets better and secondly, there are possibilities even so.
Further, I’m supposed to write a post presenting the best technical photo(s) from each of the location.
Of course, additional “lucky” technical photos are allowed, the more the better.
The deadline is the end of the year and I decided to complete the project by putting together a calendar for the next year featuring the best photos I will have managed to take by then. The calendar has to be printed to provide that palpable result.
That’s it. Get inspired and wish me luck, the adventure begins.
