Project 52, Week 26, Your Perspective

This week marks the halfway point for our Project 52 so let's do something a little different.  This week's project is two-fold.

1) THINK ABOUT YOUR PERSPECTIVE ON PHOTOGRAPHY

Answer the following questions.  There are no right or wrong answers.  It's all about how you view photography.

• What does photography mean to me? 
• Where do I want it to take me?   (physically, financially, emotionally)
• How do I get there? 

If you're so inclined, jot down the answers, write an essay, blog about your photography perspective, discuss your feelings on the topic with your family or with fellow photographers, or whatever lights your shots.

Suggested Readings/Examples:

1. Photography: My Perspective by Kenny Webster
2. Shutter Happens Photography by Mark David Zahn
3. Life After Graduation the Entrepreneurial Artist by Emmanual A. Garnor at The H.O.P.E. Scholarship
4. Philosophy of Photography by Vince Wallace at Learn and Master Photography; longer article 
5. Creating Promotional Material at New York Folklore Society; pdf file on creating different types of promotional material for professional artists

What we see depends mainly on what we look for.

... John Lubbock

 

2) COMPOSE ONE OR MORE PHOTOGRAPHS FROM YOUR PERSPECTIVE 

You might title part 2 of the project "Beauty is in the eye of the beholder."  Or perhaps "My eyes see what my heart feels" or "My eyes see what my mind believes".   I once met an old man who was looking at a brick smokestack on the Ball State University campus in Muncie, Indiana.  He said "Most people think that thing is ugly, but I see the beauty in it."  And from then on, so did I.  See if you can compose a photo that conveys your perspective to the viewer.


Here are just a few suggestions for this project:

Find a frequently photographed object in your neighborhood, town, or state and compose several photos of it from your perspective.   Try to tell the story of how you feel when you look at that object.  Do you find it boring, ugly, beautiful, interesting?  Take several photos from different points of view.  Do any of the different views change how you usually see that subject?

Take photographs from someone else's perspective.  Remember how you viewed things as a child or a teenager.  Or consider how an older person might perceive an object or a view or a situation.  Or a person of the opposite sex.  Or from another country.  

Take a trip to your backyard, neighborhood, downtown, a local festival, a state park, anywhere your heart leads you, and take pictures based on your perspective of life and your surroundings.  Don't try to copy another photographer's style.  Don't try to please other people.  This is all about YOU.  (So treat yourself to some ice cream or a nice dinner while you're out.) 

Suggested Photographic Examples and Readings:

1. Project 365 from My Perspective by Heather Sharpe; photographs
2. Perspective Is Everything by Jean-Marie Le Pen at Duck Cove Photography; article
3. Challenge My Perspective at Inspire Believe Embrace; article and photographs
4. The World from My Perspective; photographs
5. Grass by Jennifer Eden at View from Eden; photographs
6. My Perspective by Dan Eidsmore and My Perspective Along the Way by Jassman-Foster Photography at Blurb.com; self published photobooks
7. ADAY Project by Katherine Gray at Tecca; article about a project involving people from all over the world taking pictures from their unique perspectives on one day of the year, May 15th.  See 100 of the photographs at ADAY.org

Too often in life we pass by important things.

Let's pause, change perspective and see things more clearly

Sergio da Silva, from the book "Water, Mirror of the World"