'Begin at the beginning,' the King said, very gravely, 'and go on till you come to the end: then stop.'
- Lewis Carroll

Creating a photo essay or series often doesn't come naturally to photographers, just as many writers make poor editors. But if we wish to tell a complex story, or to create a cohesive body of work, it is essential to go beyond the individual image. While the King's advice is an excellent way to tell a story, Alice didn't have to worry about mixing photographic style, content, and context.

For this assignment, try to great groups of images that tell a story or communicate something beyond the content of a single image. The precise form is up to you, but aim for 3-6 photos that need a minimum of text to tie them together. And while new images are always encouraged, also look for trends and themes in your archives. Sometimes the best series are the ones that are created naturally over time, and they're just waiting to be discovered.

My camera has been giving me an EPITS error a lot recently ("every photo I take sucks") so I've gone back to a sequence that I shot last August. It's hardly "National Geographic", but the series does add some interest to photos that are fairly weak individually.

bird bath




(it's odd that all of my cameras suffer from the EPITS error at the same time.)

I enjoyed that, Matthew.

My camera never has EPITS, but sometimes I suffer from TPMBB.
(The Photographer Must Be Blind).

My Highway Series--still an in-progress work but coming along nicely.
As the new highway projects around the city get completed (there are many!) I'm given new opportunities with nice clean new subjects, as well as the gritty look of the ones under construction.


They don't really tell a story yet, but when I'm finished and they're shown in the proper order the series will present a timeline of birth, then useful life, leading to eventual decay.


Old but functional:




New:


New with fog:


Under Construction:




Whenever the conditions are right I shoot another, and am always looking for new places to safely park.

I like this topic for the assignment Matt.
Thanks...

Very sweet series Matt... I like it a lot. It does tell a story...

Beautiful series of the Highway Keith. Great pictures all.

My series of the Sealife Center in Timmendorf. I hadn't posted them before as G had done it already, and they are so similar.... But then, when I saw the assignment I thought it was a good chance to post them here.

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#2



#3



#4



#5



#6


I know I lost a bit of detail if you see closely, but I couldn't do better, they all were taken with iso 3200 and f1.8.

Keith, great series - I love the highway shots. It's amazing how you've turned these ordinary things into almost-portraits.

Nice topic! And fine entries so far,
Keith, I really like your highway shots!

this one is less a series than a composition of three pics on the topic of a color:




I put another series here,

but it is not for the faint hearted (I think some of you know what to expect...)

unfortunately the sorting algorithm if the galeries defies my logic... maybe someone can help me with that?

Greetings!!

Uli

Village School


I recently visited an elementary school in a small village near Huainan, we had collected some clothes and money to donate to selected families.

Here are my village impressions


The kids were all excited to greet us visitors....


Class: This school has four class rooms, there is no heat, toilets are outside... there is one phone, but they can only dream of things like computers or English teachers.


offices and schedule board


Then we walked with one of the 12 year old girls to her home, a small house she lives in with her grandparents and an older cousin. Her grandmother was just doing the laundry in the small courtyard of the house


laundry


their kitchen


The girl's bed, which is also where she does her homework,
and she has to share the room with her older cousin....


...whose bed fills the other half of the crammed littel room.

shuttertalk Wrote:Keith, great series - I love the highway shots. It's amazing how you've turned these ordinary things into almost-portraits.

ditto that.. those shots are fantastic!!!

Uli - some of your best work form China for me there - love it.

Uli, the China series are all great. The intimacy of the interior work really stands out, and the colour series is fantastic. It's striking and very different. You're going to create an amazing book.

thank you guys!
the school/village series was all shot with the 5D when I barely knew how to hold it and I was pleased with the results.

Uli

Ok - I can't do it in 6 shots but here is a recent wedding told from beginning to end with 12 shots. To make it a bit different I did them all in black and white for this post. This is not my best work and all the photos are not perhaps the best choice for black and white - just for fun and because I don't post enough in these great assignments

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Nice work Chris!

Uli

...just one more:

I think I have shown these pictures before, they are an impression of this wonderfully run-down, giving-you-a-60s-feeling place called the "Strandbad" (Beach Park) in our town Mannheim.
The river here is the Rhine.



Enjoy!

Uli

Once again Uli - excellent work.

Excellent series Uli... both...

Chirs... your series is a dream... Wonderful all your pictures. Beautiful bw treatment too for this series.
Inspiring work...

Gush - thanks Irma.

Some very inspiring stuff there.:/