As the adage goes, “you must run before you can walk.” This also applies to photography. After you’ve learned how to consistently produce beautiful images in your camera, what’s the next step?
Well, for many people, the next obvious step is working on a workgroup or a single project. By working this way, you’re no longer aiming for a single good image, but multiple good images that need to come together to tell a cohesive story.
Photographer and YouTuber Bryan Birks invited American photographer Mark Steinmetz to discuss two of his projects, one about minor league baseball and the other about summer camp. Neither of these are impressive or inaccessible, but it is through Steinmetz’s vision that the images and stories that appear to be striking.
As Birks commented of Steinmetz’s work: “it’s like anything anyone can do. Seems simple, easy. Doesn’t look too complicated. I can go out and do it.”
Maybe that’s exactly the point: a project doesn’t have to be this big thing, but the little moments that can take place in your own backyard. What matters is how you, as a photographer, apply your vision and creativity to create something out of what is available.
