Photo Story Feuilleton #2: Time Flies, so Try to Catch It

Some photos take your breath away. Even more than single photographs, a photo series can blow your mind. It can change the way you see things and it challenges photographers to create powerful stories that they want to share with the world. But how to create interesting photo series? As with art in general, there is no specific recipe or approach. However, when you overlook the photography field you’ll discover some basic angles that might inspire you to go beyond creating single photographs and come up with a true photo story. Starting point is to work with a concept. A second ingredient is to make sure that things happen on more than one layer.

In this feuilleton EAGER  – platform for inspiring photo series, approaches the subject photo series from different angles inspiring you to make your very best photo series!  

This is the second angle of a series of six. Read the first angle, The Power of Repetition, here. The third angle, Connect Content and Form, is available through this link, the fourth angle Make The Surreal Look Real is to be read here, the fifth angle The Abstract Way is available here, and the last angle Catch Reality in Documentaries here.

Angle 2: Time Flies, so Try to Catch It
Time is a rather intangible concept and therefore rather difficult to catch in your photographs. It will be even more challenging to catch the passing of time in a photo series. There are photographic techniques that add a time sense to your photographs, like for example the use of motion blur. Using those kind of techniques to capture time can be fun to play with. However, when trying to make an interesting photo series you have to make sure to make the photographic technique you use is subordinate to the actual story you want to tell. And there are more ways to tell a story about time without using photographic techniques like motion blur. So, let’s view some examples where the photographers have tried to freeze time in a certain (short or long) period.

In this portrait series of Petra Oldengarm time has been captured over many years (4 generations) on a single day. It tells the story of growing old and how family genes affect your looks. The weird glasses form a connection between the persons and make you start to compare the persons. You will quickly see who inherits who’s nose, mouth, eyes, etc. By using the same kind of light and posing the photos seem to automatically connect.

   

This Day to Night™ photo series from Stephen Wilkes captures time on a totally different level. Each photo in the series shows how time passes by on one day in New York. You see early morning until late in the evening in one picture. By putting those photos together in a series the element location becomes important too. At the same time period you’ll be able to see what happens in different places. It is a well thought concept that is technically challenging too. And takes a lot of patience to create.

Source: didyousayeager.com