Sequencing and pairing

Learning goal

You will notice the new meaning that emerges when you put two photos side by side, and be able to build this meaning deliberately. You will pair frames through their shapes echoing each other, falling in contrast to each other or giving birth to an idea together, and explain how a third meaning forms that the two frames don't say on their own. You will see in what order the frames of a sequence are read, and how a line, a color or a gaze at the end of one frame connects to the next, and choose an arrangement by testing with small prints on a table. You will try how a frame's meaning changes when another frame is placed next to it. While pairing a person with an object or another image, you will watch out for belittling or mocking meanings that may arise, and especially avoid pairing a person's skin color with an object's color.

The question

Two small prints lie side by side on the table. On the left, the craftsperson's hands: blackened with soot, the fingertips scratched, silver dust at the base of the nails. On the right, the finished ring standing alone on a glass shelf, catching the light. When your friend shot these two frames separately, they hadn't given either any special meaning. Standing together, something new appears between them: the labor behind a ring's sparkle, the hands invisible in a shop window.

Then they take the hands away from beside the ring and put the empty workbench in their place. This time the same ring seems to tell of a farewell, a finished job. When they put the customer's smiling face in place of the empty workbench, the ring turns into a gift. Why does the order of photos matter? How does the same frame say something else depending on the frame next to it?

Context

In the story structure lesson you saw how to give the frames of a sequence tasks and build a structure from opening to closing (Lesson 23.2). In the symmetry, pattern and rhythm lesson, too, we discussed how repeating shapes within a frame guide the eye (Lesson 14.3). This lesson carries those two ideas between frames: shapes echo not only within a frame but also between two frames, and meaning is born not only in a frame but also where frames meet.

When the viewer sees two photos side by side, they don't read them separately; they look for a bond between them. This search happens by itself, and the photographer can either manage it or surrender to it. Sequencing and pairing are the way of not leaving this bond to chance.

Simple explanation

How do two frames pair?

Pairing is putting two photos side by side because of a similarity, contrast or relationship of meaning between them. Two frames standing opposite each other on a page, on an exhibition wall or on a screen look to the viewer like a whole. There are three basic ways of pairing, and most good pairings carry more than one of them.

A visual rhyme is two frames resembling each other in shape, line, color or light, and the eye carrying this resemblance from one frame to the other. The round shape of the ring the craftsperson hammered can rhyme with the round of a well's mouth in the neighboring frame; the orange of the fire, with the orange of the evening sun in the next frame. A visual rhyme connects two frames visually; the viewer first sees the resemblance, then looks for a meaning between them.

A contrast pairing is two frames deliberately carrying qualities that fall opposite each other, and this opposition giving birth to a thought. Sooty hands and a gleaming ring, a full workshop and an empty workbench, a young apprentice's face and an old craftsperson's face. Contrast forces the viewer to go back and forth between the two frames; in that back and forth, something appears that the frames don't say on their own.

The third way is pairing by meaning: two frames may not resemble each other in shape, nor fall in opposition, but what they tell completes each other. The frame of the craftsperson showing their apprentice the file and the frame, years later, of another hand holding the same file tell of knowledge passing from generation to generation. The moment the ring's new owner wears it on their finger for the first time and the moment the craftsperson first held that ring up to the light connect an object's two owners. Pairing by meaning is often the subtlest; it asks the viewer to think a little more, but the bond it builds also stays in the mind longer.

Where does the third meaning come from?

The third meaning is the meaning that, when two photos are placed side by side, neither carries on its own and that emerges only when they are read together. The craftsperson's hands alone show a labor, and the ring alone shows an object. Together, they tell of the invisible labor behind value. This meaning isn't written in any of the frames; it is built in the viewer's mind, in the gap between the two frames.

The third meaning is powerful because it makes the viewer a partner in the narrative. But the same power is dangerous too. The photographer who puts two frames side by side should know that a bond will be built in the viewer's mind; that bond can also go in an unwanted direction. Putting a person's face next to an animal, a heap of garbage or a ridiculous object can give birth to a mocking or belittling meaning, even if the photographer has no such intention. Especially a visual rhyme that pairs a person's skin color with the color of a food or an object can evoke a degrading comparison in the viewer. Pairing the dark-skinned craftsperson's hands with a frame of a heap of coal reduces them to an object, even if the photographer only wants to echo the color. The question to ask when pairing a person is how this person themselves would feel seeing these two frames side by side.

How are order and transition built?

A sequence is read in an order. As the pages turn in a book, as you walk along the wall in an exhibition, as you scroll on a screen, the frames come one after another, and each frame is read in the shadow of the one before. The same seven frames lined up in two different orders can tell two different stories; first the ring then the hands reads like a return to the source of a value; first the hands then the ring, like a labor reaching its result.

A visual transition is the line, color, direction of gaze or movement at the end of one frame connecting to the start of the next, and the eye flowing from one frame to the other. A craftsperson looking right in one frame can be connected with a ring turning toward light coming from the right in the next frame. A line leaving the right edge of one frame can continue at the left edge of the next frame. Transitions soften the flow of the sequence; they let the eye move from one frame to the other by sliding, not jumping. But not every transition has to be soft; a deliberately hard transition can emphasize a change or a break.

The medium in which a sequence will be read also affects the order. In a book, two facing pages build a pair, and when the page turns a new pair begins; on an exhibition wall, frames are seen both side by side and as a whole from a distance; on a phone screen, on the other hand, frames are usually read one by one, scrolled in succession, and pairings can only be built through succession. The same sequence may need a different arrangement in these three media.

The best way of sequencing is to try the frames out physically. Getting small prints, lining them up on the table, swapping places, taking one out and adding another is much faster and more intuitive than doing the same job on screen. Leaving the frames on the wall for a few days and looking each time you pass shows which pairing is lasting and which is superficial.

Visual evidence

You line up twelve small prints of the workshop on the table. When you put the sooty hands next to the ring in the shop window, the bond of labor and value appears; you place this pair in the middle of the sequence, on two facing pages. When you pair the round of the ring the craftsperson hammered with the mouth of the old well in the courtyard, a visual rhyme connects the two frames and a bridge is built between the workshop and the neighborhood.

At one point you put the frame of the heap of coal in the stove next to the craftsperson's blackened hands; the two frames rhyme in color. But after looking for a few seconds you realize that this pairing likens the craftsperson to a heap of fuel, and you separate the frame at once. Instead, you put the frame of the craftsperson showing the apprentice the file next to the hands: this time the same hands are passing on knowledge. Then, to test the sequence's order, you pin the prints to the wall; for three days, every morning you swap one or two frames.

Common mistakes

Summary

When two photos are placed side by side, the viewer looks for a bond between them: a visual rhyme connects two frames through a resemblance of shape, line or color, a contrast pairing through opposition, and the third meaning, which neither frame carries alone, is born in the gap between them. In a sequence, order changes the story; visual transitions make the eye flow from one frame to the other, and the best arrangement is found by testing physically with small prints. Belittling meanings that may arise when pairing a person are watched for; a person's skin color isn't paired with an object's color.

Mini assignment

In this assignment you will build pairings and a sequence from the frames you have.

1. Get small prints of at least twelve photos, or line them up side by side as small cards on screen.
2. Build a pair with a visual rhyme, a contrast pairing and a pair that gives birth to a third meaning; write in one sentence why each pair works.
3. Put three different frames next to the same frame and note how its meaning changes.
4. Build two different orders of a six-frame sequence and mark the visual transitions between them. If there is a person in the sequence, look at each pairing through their eyes, and separate any pair that may give birth to a belittling meaning.

Check yourself

• Can you name the way each pair you built is connected, as shape, contrast or meaning?
• Can you show how the same frame changes depending on the frame next to it?
• In pairings that include a person, did you think about how the person would feel seeing that pair?

Glossary

Mini quiz

1. The round of the ring the craftsperson hammered and the round of a well's mouth are placed side by side. Which pairing is this?

• A) Contrast pairing
• B) Visual rhyme
• C) Visual transition
• D) Establishing shot

2. What is the bond of labor and value that emerges when sooty hands and the finished ring on a glass shelf are placed side by side?

• A) Visual rhyme
• B) Scale rhythm
• C) Third meaning
• D) Visual consistency

3. What happens when the same seven frames are lined up in two different orders?

• A) They can tell two different stories
• B) Nothing changes
• C) The frames lose their sharpness
• D) Only the colors change

4. A dark-skinned craftsperson's hands are paired with a frame of a heap of coal for a resemblance of color. Which is the most correct decision?

• A) Keeping it because the color rhyme is strong
• B) Turning the frames into black and white and keeping it
• C) Moving the pairing to the end of the sequence
• D) Separating this pair, which reduces the person to an object

Answers

1. B — The two frames carry the same round shape; the eye carries the resemblance from one frame to the other.
2. C — The bond of labor and value isn't in either frame alone; it is born when the two are read together.
3. A — Each frame is read in the shadow of the one before; when the order changes, so does the story.
4. D — Pairing skin color with an object likens the person to that object and gives birth to a belittling meaning.

Summary card

• Pairing is built three ways: shape, contrast, meaning.
• The third meaning is born in the gap between two frames.
• Order changes the story; transitions make the eye flow.
• Test the sequence physically with small prints.
• When pairing a person, look through their eyes; don't pair skin with an object.

Bridge to the next lesson

A few days after the workshop sequence was pinned to the wall, your friend looked at an empty notebook. The next job should be something big: another city, a distant village, a ceremony they had never seen. But the workshop sequence had been born neither from a journey nor from a plan; it had started with a single sentence the older club member said one evening, a request for help, and your friend's curiosity about that craftsperson's hands. How does a photo project begin? The next lesson tells about starting a project from the subjects closest to you and a real curiosity.