Well, I finally committed to a first dummy. I more or less settled on a sequence, made 5 x 7 1/2 inch work prints, stuck them onto 8 1/2 x 11 paper and slid them into an album.
Looking at the whole thing flat on a wall is a very different experience from seeing the images in a book. When you transfer the sequence from the wall to a book you experience the photos on pages and turns, you see how it works and doesn’t work. Because of this you inevitably end up moving a whole bunch of pictures around. So for the first dummy I like to use cheap photo albums that have sleeves, which allows for easy shifting of the images.
As I was sliding the images into the album I saw some stupidity right away and changed bits of the sequence then and there. Then, first time ever, once the prints were all inserted I closed the album and walked away. Usually I rush to an easy chair and flip through right away. But I’m trying to take it easy here, stay relaxed. If you don’t this process can climb on top of you like bad drugs. (You ever taken bad drugs? You end up bent out of shape on the floor, just trying not to die. Yup.)
Got up the next morning, had some coffee, made breakfast, ate it, then sat in an easy chair and had a look at what I’d done. Before I was halfway through I began rearranging images and, in the end, removed four entirely.
Then I showed it to Cin. She had mostly positive things to say (the best being, as she closed the book, “How the fuck did you do that?”). She also pointed out a number of bad choices as well as some confusion and, conversely, not enough confusion in the flow of images. Then we had a wide-ranging discussion about the work in general.
That led to further changes (refinements?) and then, over the next few days, I spent a fair amount of time having a harder look at the thing. That resulted in even more changes.
Now I’m gonna show it to all manner of folks, get more feedback. Then I’ll have to weigh a bunch of disparate comments, have a rethink, and get down to the second dummy.
Feels good, though, to finally have something in my hands.
(AND, PARENTHETICALLY)
(I might mention that I generated about 5,000 images over the year and a half I was shooting this project. That was whittled down, over two and a half months of edit/sequence, to the 45 that, at this point, are in the book.
The fact that there were 5000 to choose from is unusual for me. Most of my projects are shot on film. When I shoot film I approach the subject in a different way: I shoot more slowly, consider more, take fewer pictures, so the shape of the project becomes more defined during the shooting phase.
Of course it’s necessary to apply a tight edit/sequence no matter how you shoot the photos, no matter how many you have to choose from. In a lot of the digi vs film debates that used to rage, and still rear up from time to time, these differences [how the tool changes your relationship to the subject, the subjects’ relationship to you, what that causes and how you deal with the aftermath] . . . these differences don’t seem to enter the conversation too much. But it does make a difference.)
