Series photography and series photography-start your own photography project

Editor's Note: Teachers who are currently engaged in photography training and education in Shenzhen have their own unique methods to train students' photographic visual vision. She always insists that the most important thing in photography learning is to broaden her horizons and enhance her cognition. Her phrase "no one can take photos beyond their own cognition" is also printed in the minds of friends and students who are familiar with her. Besides emphasizing the thinking organization process of photography on the basis of screen design, composition and light consumption, she also emphasized the concepts of serial photography and serial photography. The resulting works also gave students a sense of accomplishment and exercised their observation and thinking ability in daily life.

When you are confused about what to shoot and how to shoot in your daily life, talking about the teacher's photography concept and students' works may open a window and make people suddenly enlightened.

Sequence photography and series photography, two words that are relatively unfamiliar in China photography, have been popularized in photography education abroad for decades. Somehow, few people mention and publicize them in our country. As a photographer and educator, I have been exploring for more than ten years on the road of continuous study and practice. I have been lucky enough to get in touch with the photography textbooks of universities in Germany, the United States and Britain, and I have studied the postgraduate courses of contemporary photography at the University of Hong Kong. Combined with my personal experience and practical teaching for many years, I found that only serial photography is the right way of photography art, which frees us photographers from decades of traditional documentary context and lets us know that besides special topics and group photos, there are serial photography and series photography, which opens up a broader extension for our photography creation and provides a more accurate direction for our own photography projects.

Sequence photography? ▌

-Photo sequence-

Sequential photography, as its name implies, is a sequence in which objects are arranged in sequence. These photos are arranged in chronological order. In informatics, sequences represent discrete-time signals. Grasping time is a topic that photographers will always discuss, including photography itself represents time and taking pictures is the past. When you press the shutter, that moment will never pass and never come back. What you are waiting for is always the next picture. Continuous photography shows a strong sense of time. In the sequence, each element has its own position. The order between elements should not be disordered, that is, the importance of order should be emphasized.

Sequence photography can have written descriptions, unlike documentary photography and reportage photography, which must have written descriptions, and sequence photography must have a clear theme. It can express time and space through several or more photos.

In sequence photography, the photographer is an observer, recording the whole process of a thing. In sequence photography, continuous pictures must appear in the same state, and the viewpoint, framing method, exposure time or other technical parameters cannot be changed. Two photos are the shortest sequence in sequence photography, which clearly shows the passage of time with the least number. The second photo is the future of the first photo. Continuous photography can be short-term or long-term. The first condition of long-time series photography is that the photographer must shoot for a long time within the planned time. The process of recording an action in sequence photography requires three or more photos.

▌ series photography? ▌

-Photo series-

The meaning of series in series photography generally refers to a group and a group of things or phenomena that are interrelated. When a photographer is interested in an object and takes a few photos, a photography series is formed. Series photography can be a single subject or multiple subjects. Each photo in a series of photos needs to have a unique quality. In order to present the unity of the series of photos, different photos need to have * * * similarity, that is, all photos in the series should be set in a "frame". The quality of a series depends on the quality and quantity of each photo in the series. There is no upper limit on the number of photos in a series, but to become a series, a subject must have at least 5-6 photos. Compared with series photos, series photos are more flexible and free.

In our daily shooting, we should not take pictures aimlessly, but focus on a specific theme and subject matter, whether it is shape, color or object. By adopting series photography, you will soon find that your attention and photographic vision have been constantly trained, and the quality of your photo collection will be continuously improved by constantly adding new photos. The depth and breadth of the series of photography are great, whether it is concreteness, abstraction, image, emotion, loneliness, birth, illness and death, etc. , can be divided into series, as long as you want, you can classify, almost no theme can not form a theme series. The more you accumulate, the deeper your theme will be. When the depth and breadth reach a certain level, an album emerges as the times require, and a photography project really lands.

There are generally two ways to complete a photography project: one way is to shoot without a theme, that is, shoot a lot every day for a long time, accumulate over a long period of time, and choose a theme from many works after shooting; The other is to have a theme to shoot, a single theme can form a series, and multiple themes can also form a series. Therefore, there are no fixed requirements and boundaries for series photography, and the pursuit is depth classification. You can finish it if you want. Photographers can first classify the elements and principles of composition, and also classify the themes and philosophies they want to express. The ways and types of classification can be explored infinitely, which is endless fun.

When the photographer establishes the concepts of sequence photography and series photography, he will naturally shoot and sort out a series of photographs with depth and breadth with the diversity, richness and diversity of theme ideas, without seeking speed, but seeking to follow the natural course.

Serial photography and serial photography are a broad road for our photographers. If those famous "representative works" represent the highest achievements in the photographer's artistic career, then sequence works or series works are a set of substitutes, regardless of their level. Everyone uses photography as a tool to get through the precious wealth accumulated in his life, such as his perception of life, life experience, work experience, learning background, growth environment and so on. And eventually form their own unique series of works or series of works-photography projects, and happily write their own colorful chapters on the road of photography.

Brief introduction of the author

Xu Li and rap

Vice Chairman of China Folk Photography Association

Academic Director of Beijing Photography Correspondence College (Shenzhen) of China Photographers Association

Graduate student of contemporary photography, School of Professional and Continuing Education, University of Hong Kong

Xiang Ying. Com art consultant