The Nature of a Working Process and Practice

Introduction

© Elliot Erwitt, Contact Sheet 2000-1-51, 2000

Unique to each photographer’s approach, the contact is a record of how an image was constructed. Was it a set-up, or a serendipitous encounter? Did the photographer notice a scene with potential and diligently work it through to arrive at a successful image, or was the fabled ‘decisive moment’ at play?

The contact sheet, now rendered obsolete by digital photography, embodies much of the appeal of photography itself: the sense of time unfolding, a durable trace of movement through space, an apparent authentication of photography’s claims to transparent representation of reality.

© Elliot Erwitt, New York City, 2000

As we've discussed this idea of photography as a means to reveal our curiosities and interests with a sense of intention and purpose that will be visually engaging, intellectually stimulating and emotionally responsive, it may now be helpful to consider the nature of a working process.

How do we get started from an idea in our mind to visualizing this idea towards a working process and practice that may continuously guide us.

Read the following discussion and consider the nature of a working process and practice as you begin working on the upcoming Image-Making Assignments.

Connection

To accomplish this module's learning objectives, we will complete the following activities:

Complete Weekly Photographic Work in preparation to submit for In Sight: Developing a Photographic Portfolio (Graded Image-Making Assignment)

The Nature of a Working Process and Practice

The contact sheet, whether created in the darkroom from strips of film or on a computer with digital files, functions as the photographer’s sketchbook. Everything is revealed. Quite literally, a step-by-step catalog that documents the photographer’s working process – the photographer’s relationship to their subject matter, how they’ve worked with the camera and their materials, the successes and failures – it’s all there in the contact sheet.

And over the course of a photographer’s life, the contact sheets accumulate and become the summation, a private diary, of a photographer’s experience. No wonder there’s the hesitation to show one’s contacts. The fear of criticism that the photographer is not as accomplished as one might think upon viewing individual, successful pictures can be overwhelming – the anxiety that the contact sheet will reveal more failures than successes. What photographer would want that?

© Estate of Diane Arbus, Contact Sheet for Child with toy hand grenade in Central Park, New York City, 1962

Maybe every photographer who is striving for clarity in their work and insight into what otherwise may be missed possibilities for an image on a contact to become a photograph. While it’s completely understandable to not want to reveal to anyone one’s failures and potential short-comings as a photographer, there exists the opportunity for another set of eyes to mull over what may not have been considered on first glance.

Once the photographer has moved past the initial shock of anxiety when presenting one’s contacts for review, a moment of critical analysis and dialog can take place of which the benefits may not only be realized in the determination of what images may become photographs, but also and maybe just as importantly, the discussion of considerations to utilize when making future images.

© Estate of Diane Arbus, Child with toy hand grenade in Central Park, New York City, 1962

The nature of developing such a working process requires not only a thoughtful and critical eye in terms of editing, but also a willingness to move beyond fear and inhibitions as the process is about making images into photographs.