Samuel Bradley

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My name is Samuel and I am a photographer.
I seek only to make memorable photographs.


All the work I post is my own unless I say otherwise.

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January 10, 2012
in Anonymous
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Hello Samuel, in terms of photography, would you say doing 'series' is more important and generally better than doing single unrelated images? If yes, why?. What exactly is the essence behind doing series work, besides telling/documenting a story? And do you reckon doing series is something every photographer should endeavour to do?.

Asked by Anonymous

This is an excellent question (why anonymous?), it’s also extremely hard to answer. Please forgive how hopelessly inadequate my answer will be and remember to read interviews with much greater minds on the subject.

  In my humble opinion shooting and editing a series of photographs is one of the most important aspects of photography. It is also one of the hardest things to do. I’m not sure what the essence is behind it but sometimes, singular photographs are not enough. I’m not saying everything has to be a series, some of the best photographers in the world manage to say everything with a single frame. People like Jeff Wall and Gregory Crewdson are perfect examples.

 Then you have someone like Alec Soth, who actually uses a lot of photographs that could easily stand up on their own to make a series. I remember reading an interview with him where he said if anything his pictures are too iconic, too perfect, which makes them difficult to put together. I think his older work is more like this but more recent sets like broken manual and the smaller publications Little Brown Mushroom has put out use quieter pictures to lead you through the work. That is a skill I think is extremely important to develop.

 You must learn to recognise photographs that would work as part of a set, rather than just writing them off because they’re not going to get a buzz on their own, say on tumblr or flickr. When you set out to shoot a series, and you plan your subject or theme or whatever, you always think about the big pictures, the glossy, nicely lit, controversial or beautiful benchmarks that are what made you want to start shooting in the first place. But when you actually begin working, you have to look for the bits in between.

 Having said all this, anything could be a series. A load of pictures of naked girls, all the bands you’ve ever shot, pictures of the backs of people’s heads. It could be so simple and still blow people away. You don’t have to make a seminal piece of documentary work, but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t try.

 I think a good essay could be written on this topic. If anyone else has any thoughts please send them my way.

 

Notes:

  1. wittyfish said: This is really interesting. I have only dabbled in photography and the idea of putting together a series instead of single images makes me want to invest a lot of time into it. Very insightful!
  2. samuelbradley posted this
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