Series and studies in photography can help you in many ways.
Are you drawn to photographing certain subjects? Do you ever feel like youāre running out of ideas or new ways to photographic those subjects?
Where to start
Start with what you have. Take a look through your archives to figure out what it is you seem to shoot the most. Is it a location? Are there certain colors that show up over and over in your library? Do you gravitate toward the details in a scene? How about reflections or shadows? Architecture? Macro?
How do I find these in my archives? Keywords! You do keyword, donāt you?
What creating a series or study can do for you
Determine your niche
Creating a series can help you determine what your niche or style is. By pulling images that have a common theme you will be able to see patterns and consistency in your library. You might even be surprised at what you find. We tend to just go out and create individual images, not really thinking about our complete library. We shoot at the moment because weāre traveling, or out for an event, on a photowalk, etc. without really considering the fact that weāre likely creating more images to add that could be cultivated into a series.
“See” more
Focusing on a series will help you see more. When you are looking for specific things as you are out photographing youāll be much more aware of what you are seeing. If you shoot a lot of a certain shape, say circles, the more you look for circles as youāre out, the more youāll see them. Itās kind of like when you buy a new car and you never really noticed that particular brand/model before on the streets but now that you have yours you see it everywhere.
Slow down and look around
Youāll become much more deliberate about the images you are creating. By choosing to shoot images for a series you will slow down and look around before clicking the shutter. Youāll likely capture other interesting images in the process that you may not have noticed if you werenāt taking the time to look specifically for your series shots.
Become more cohesive
Your social media feed will look more cohesive. If you are on social media, particularly Instagram because of the way the images are presented, you will be presenting a much more focused group of images. Your image as a photographer will look much more polished and professional. Iāve been doing a series and studies of nine on my Instagram feed for quite some time. It helps me focus also on what images to choose to edit and present as I go through my archives and as Iām out shooting.
Get out of a slump
Having a series or creating studies (or several) to work on can make it easier to get out of a slump. It happens to all of us ā we donāt feel like going out and creating images. Having a series to work on, can give us the needed nudge to either go back through our archives, find and post-process old images that fit within the series or give us a reason to just get out and take specific shots for the series. Either way, it helps get the creative juices flowing again.
With so many beautiful options in this world to photograph it can be overwhelming to choose what to focus on. Take the time to choose one or two subjects and create your own series. Doing this can be a great way to learn more about what you love to capture, what you see around you and help you to be more present at the moment when you are out creating images. Art is everywhere.
Do you create a series or subject studies? Weād love to see them, share them in our Photofocus Community.
I really see things different when I go back and look again, at different times of the day and certainly depending on the weather.
Excellent point Theo – thank you for that. So many contributing factors to how something looks and how a scene presents itself.
I always enjoy seeing more with your articles and I have learned to plant one foot while turning in different directions to see better. Thanks again, Lauri
Thanks so much Carmen – if I can get a few people to just see a little bit more… I’m happy.