I’ve been wanting to share a workflow I’m exploring. Usually I edit photos with a sequential system of several passes. In the case of my own photos I try to leave a long time between a pass, months or years.
The normal cycle is to do a review of all the material immediately after capture and let it sit for a year before doing the second pass (on all the material). From the combination comes the “draft” of my work, which I post on my photoblog. At this stage I already nominate some photographs as “ my-favs”, which are the ones I show when someone asks for a theme. To do something I consider meditated I leave it even longer.
What I’ve been experimenting with for a while is the “memory” edition. It’s about proposing a theme and seeing which photos I can recall without help from the archive, or from the previous classification.
The photos below are the ones I remembered when thinking “New York, New York”. I chose the theme because it’s the next group of photographs I have to prepare for the photoblog.
It’s a fun game. For example, the first one that came to mind has a curious caption: “PSYCHIC READER”.
The second is a reference to another author. I have to admit, I’m a disaster at remembering names. When I saw the scene I recalled a very similar photo (Winogrand, Friedlander?). The original was taken during the day, in black and white. In the background you could see the same building. What encouraged me to stay in the place “hunting” was the sign. In the original the building was still the Pan American.
It’s curious that this photo was the sixth I remembered. For me this image is the key to what I want to achieve when photographing a city. To avoid going on a long explanation the explanation is on my blog.
In seventh place appeared one of my all‑time favorite photos. It has a computer‑themed wink, behind the girl using a Mac there’s a guy wearing a Microsoft T‑shirt.
And possibly the most curious is the last one. This belongs to the trip I’m editing now, but I have no idea why I could have remembered it.
Are these my best photos of New York, the ones I can recall just by putting the sentence “New York, New York” in my head? I don’t know. I’m sure the one with the puppy appears on the list because a few weeks ago we talked about dog photos with a friend, and the one with the bridge is here because during the move I came across a book where it was published.
Would I remember the same photos if the intention of the selection were different? Yes, I remembered these photos with the sentence NYC, but the goal was to write this entry. Possibly the context led me to the Met Life one…
Another system I usually use is opening a folder at random and picking any photo to see what comes out. This system is definitely just for fun; the memory one is something I’ll keep working on.
I hope you found it interesting.