Planning a project

Learning goal

You will be able to start a photo project that stretches over several weeks or months from a blank page. You will explain why starting a project from the subject closest to you, one you can return to again and again, is more productive than a distant, big subject. You will tie the project to a question born of real curiosity, draw a scope limited in place, time and subject, and see the first shoots not as final results but as explorations made to get to know the subject. By keeping a project journal you will record the question, the shoots, access and ideas, and tie the project to a schedule. When photographing the people near you, you will approach them not like a stranger looking from outside but as the subjects of the story, and keep in mind that consent is a relationship renewed throughout the whole project.

The question

After the workshop sequence is finished, your friend puts an empty notebook in front of them and thinks about the next project. Everything that comes to mind is far away: the holiday crowds of another city, a highland pasture with no road, a market beyond the border. They all look impressive, but they all mean money, permission, time and going once and coming back. They can't start on any of them the next day.

One morning, walking to work from home, they notice something in the window of the neighborhood bakery they pass every day. It is six o'clock; inside, flour dust, the first loaves browning at the tip of the bread peel, sweat on the baker's forehead. For years they have walked past this door but never asked what goes on inside. How does a photo project begin? Is it looked for far away, or behind a window you pass every morning?

Context

In this module's first lesson you saw that a sequence can tell the time and place a single frame can't carry (Lesson 23.1). A project is a broader structure than a series: a body of work shot over weeks or months in connection with a question, deepening over time and in the end turning into one or more series. In the portrait and people lesson, too, we defined consent as a person clearly permitting their photo to be taken and used (Lesson 16.1); in a long project, consent isn't a one-time signature but an ongoing relationship.

Most projects start not with a big idea but with a small curiosity. Distant, impressive subjects often stay on the surface in a single visit; a near subject, on the other hand, opens up over time because it can be returned to again and again. This lesson asks where and how to start a project.

Simple explanation

Where does the subject come from?

A photo project is a body of work shot in a planned way over a certain period in connection with a question or a subject, which in the end turns into a whole such as a series, an exhibition or a book. Its difference from a single shoot is duration: a project returns to the subject many times and uses what it learned from the previous shoot on each return.

That is why, when choosing the project's subject, the first measure is access. A place you can go to every week, even every day, people you know, a neighborhood you already live in, give far more than a distant place. You can stop by the neighborhood bakery every morning; the baker gets to know you, and you learn the rhythm of their day. The baker who is uneasy about the camera in the first week stops noticing it by the third week. A photographer who spends one day in a distant village can't build this trust and often sees only the surface.

Alongside access, real curiosity is needed. A subject that doesn't truly make you curious is dropped once the first excitement passes. If you are curious why the bakery opens at four in the morning, where the baker learned this work, how the neighborhood shares its bread, this curiosity takes you back for months. Curiosity is the project's fuel; choosing a subject only because it looks impressive leaves this fuel short from the start.

How is a project limited?

A project question is the question that says in a single sentence what a project is trying to understand or show. "The bakery" is a subject; "How does a neighborhood bakery bring the neighborhood together in the first hours of the morning?" is a question. The question makes it possible to decide which frames belong to the project and which don't. As the project goes on the question can change, and it should; but without a question at the start, the frames shot turn into a heap.

Project scope is the limits drawn for a project in terms of place, time and subject. A single bakery instead of all the city's bakeries, the first three hours of the morning instead of the whole day, a single season instead of the whole year. A narrow scope looks restrictive at first glance, but it makes it possible to go deep into the subject. A wide scope, on the other hand, often ends with touching everything a little and telling none of it. Scope can be widened when needed; going from narrow to wide is much easier than finding the narrow within the wide.

A schedule is part of the scope too. A concrete routine, such as two mornings a week for two months, takes the project out of being an intention. Looking at the frames at the end of the schedule and asking the question again shows where the project is going. The schedule also sets a finish line; projects with no clear end either go on forever or are quietly abandoned. Doing a midway review at the end of two months makes it possible to decide consciously to continue, narrow or change the direction of the project.

What are the first shoots for?

A scouting shoot is a shoot made at the start of a project to get to know the subject, the place and the people, from which no final result is expected. The first mornings are spent learning the bakery's light, the baker's movements, the hour customers come. Most of these frames don't enter the project; but they show which corner gets the best light, which moment repeats, who likes being photographed and who doesn't.

A project journal is a notebook that records a project's question, shoot dates, notes, access information and new ideas. Writing a few lines after every shoot reminds you what worked, what was missing and what to look for in the next shoot. The journal isn't a shot list; it carries not a list of fixed frames but areas of interest, questions to ask and unexpected observations.

Photographing the people near you brings a special responsibility toward them. It is easy to show a neighborhood's people through the eyes of a stranger who has come from outside, as odd or colorful figures; but this takes them out of being the subjects of their own story. Talking with the baker, asking them what they want to tell, showing them the frames you shot, takes them out of being a topic and makes them a partner in the project. In a long project, consent is asked again at every shoot; the baker not wanting to be photographed one morning is part of the project. In a neighborhood with people of different skin tones, a shooting habit that always leaves some people in the light and others always in shadow or in the background also quietly builds a hierarchy; noting in the journal who appears how often and how makes this easier to see.

Visual evidence

On the first page of the journal you write a question: "How does a neighborhood bakery bring the neighborhood together in the first hours of the morning?" Under it you add the scope: one bakery, between four and seven in the morning, two months, two mornings a week. You talk with the baker and explain what you want to do; they tell you they don't want their apprentice's face to show.

The first two mornings are scouting shoots. The orange light coming out of the oven's mouth lights the counter only after five; the first customers, an elderly neighbor and two children on their way to school, come toward six. You note in your journal: no light before five, shoot only the apprentice's hands, the neighbor takes their bread in the same cloth every morning. At the end of the third week, looking at the frames, you see that the baker's dark-skinned face has always stayed in shadow, while the light-skinned customer has always stood in the light. In the fourth week you photograph the baker facing the oven's light, and their face moves to the center of the project for the first time.

Common mistakes

Summary

A photo project starts most productively from the nearest subject, one that can be returned to again and again, and from real curiosity; a one-sentence project question and a scope narrow in place, time and subject turn the frames shot into a whole. The first shoots are scouting shoots made to get to know the subject, and a project journal keeps the question, the observations and the next step on record. People near you are photographed as the subjects of the story, consent is renewed throughout the project, and who appears how is tracked in the journal.

Mini assignment

In this assignment you will take the first steps of a photo project.

1. Write three subjects at most twenty minutes from your home or work that you can go to every week; next to each, note why it makes you curious.
2. Choose one and write a one-sentence project question; underneath, add the scope in terms of place, time and subject, and a concrete schedule.
3. Do two scouting shoots; after each shoot, write a few lines in the project journal about the light, the people, repeating moments and things to look for in the next shoot.
4. If there are people in the subject, talk with them, explain what you want to do and get their consent; looking at the frames from the two shoots, note who stayed in the light and who in shadow.

Check yourself

• Can you go to the subject you chose every week, and does it truly make you curious?
• Looking at your project question, can you decide whether a frame belongs to the project?
• Did you see the people in the subject as the subjects of the story, and did you get their consent?

Glossary

Mini quiz

1. When starting a project, what is the first measure in choosing a subject?

• A) Being able to return to the subject again and again, that is, access
• B) How far away the subject is
• C) The subject not having been photographed before
• D) The subject requiring the most expensive equipment

2. What is the difference between "The bakery" and "How does a neighborhood bakery bring the neighborhood together in the first hours of the morning?"

• A) Both are the same thing
• B) The single word is a question, the long sentence a subject
• C) The single word is a subject, the long sentence a project question
• D) The long sentence is a shot list

3. Most of the frames shot on a project's first mornings don't enter the project. What are these shoots for?

• A) They are for nothing
• B) They go straight into the exhibition
• C) For testing equipment
• D) They are scouting shoots for getting to know the subject, the light and the people

4. In three weeks of frames, the baker's dark-skinned face is always in shadow, and the light-skinned customer always in the light. What is done?

• A) The frames are left as they are
• B) The difference is noted in the journal and the baker is photographed facing the light, taking them into the center of the story
• C) The customer's frames are removed from the project
• D) All frames are turned into black and white

Answers

1. A — A project requires returning to the subject many times; without access it can't deepen.
2. C — A subject names a field; a question decides which frames belong to the project.
3. D — Scouting shoots teach how the project will be shot; most don't enter the project.
4. B — Who stays in light and who in shadow quietly builds a hierarchy; it is noticed and corrected.

Summary card

• Start near: a subject you can go to every week.
• Real curiosity is the project's fuel.
• A one-sentence question, a narrow scope, a concrete schedule.
• The first shoots are scouting; keep a project journal.
• Photograph people as subjects; renew consent, track who appears how.

Bridge to the next lesson

The bakery project went well for two months. Then one morning your friend raised the camera and felt nothing. The same oven mouth, the same peel, the same loaves; the frames looked like copies of each other. The next morning they didn't want to leave home, nor the morning after. The project seemed dead, but the curiosity they felt about the subject was still somewhere. Why does inspiration disappear, and how does it come back? The next lesson tells about creative block and constraint exercises such as working with a single lens, a single color or a single street.