It seems we are all obsessed with ‘photography projects’, or ‘art projects’. It seems the bias is that if we are ‘serious’ photographers or aspire to become more ‘serious’ in photography, we need to work on a concentrated/focused/’serious’ photography project.

But is this all nonsense? What is even the definition of a ‘project’? Let me try to essay some thoughts below:

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A ‘project’ as a pre-planned thing

The mainstream way we define ‘project’ is:

A pre-planned something we plan on doing/building/making.

Therefore it seems in photography– a photography “project” is:

You pre-plan (before shooting anything) a photography endeavor — that you plan on pursuing with focus and determination for [x] amount of time.

Problems with projects

Now– there are some problematic things with pre-planning a photography project.

1. Is the project even possible to pursue or shoot?

First of all, before you start a photography project, how do you even know whether the project is possible to complete or pursue? For example in the past, I have often planned certain ambitious photography projects, but when attempting to shoot it– I found out it wasn’t really “shootable”. Often when we pre-plan a photography project too much, we over-complexity the concept. And as a consequence, we don’t go out and shoot anything (paralysis by analysis).

2. The planning fallacy

Secondly, there is the ‘planning fallacy’ — we generally over-plan things, and we think that we have the brain-power to predict what will happen in the future with supreme certainty. However reality is far more complex than our planning ability is, which means:

We can never truly pre-plan anything with accuracy.

Thus this means perhaps it is a better strategy to be flexible — to generally steer our lives in a certain direction, but recognizing the fact:

We can steer our ships in life in a general direction, but we can never perfectly foresee the dragons we will encounter in the water, nor can we perfectly predict how turbulent the sea will be.

3. Do you allow yourself to change course, adapt, evolve, or change?

This is the problem with projects:

Too often we try to be ‘consistent‘ with a project, and thus end up dying from rigor-mortis (dying from becoming TOO rigid).

I have realized that consistency is for suckers— meaning, there has been too much of a bias that true ‘wise’ people were consistent.

But the fact is, the only reason why consistency is praised as a virtue (credit to Nietzsche for the thought) is that when people are consistent, they are predictable. And when people are predictable, they aren’t dangerous or a threat.

Thus, consistency is a virtue in humans because it signals that a person is non-dangerous.

Therefore the general bias in history/philosophy is that consistency is good (consistency in life, relationships, and even art projects).

But what if consistency was bad for artists? What if the notion of ‘consistency’ or a ‘project’ is simply a notion to make the lives of art-curators and historians easier?

Categorization

Generally speaking, everyone wants to put you inside a box. Why? It makes you easier to understand.

Why do others want you to be easily understood?

1. If you’re easily understood, you aren’t perceived as a threat.
2. When you’re easily understood, others feel superior to you (once others perceive you as ‘understandable’, others get an ego-boost from their own personal mental flexing or superiority).
3. A lot of categorization nerds derive deep pleasure from being able to categorize human beings into different buckets.

Plato is to blame.

Yet this over-obsession with classification is bad. It goes back to the philosopher Plato. Plato thought that true knowledge/wisdom was being able to name everything, and put everything into perfect buckets/categories. But truth be told, Plato is probably the worst tyrant of knowledge. I echo the sentiment of Nietzsche:

It seems that all the philosophers and thinkers after Socrates/Plato aren’t very good/wise.

In-fact, I am a bigger fan of the pre-socratic (philosophers born before Socrates). Such as Heraclitus, Democritus, etc.

The pre-socratic philosophers were more about ‘flux‘, change, and inconsistency. They realized the world was INFINITELY more complex than philosophers and scientists made it out to be. In-fact, the pre-socratic philosophers have more of a Zen-Buddhist-Taoist vibe (I prefer this).

Hybrid-planning projects

Let’s say you want to pursue a photography project. What is the best way to do this?

In my SUITS project, this is what I learned:

Have a very general/loose notion of what you want to photograph, then start shooting it, and ‘iterate’ as you pursue the project.

What does it mean to ‘iterate’?

To ‘iterate‘ means to repeat something– but every time you repeat it (another time), you improve a little bit. This is similar to the ‘kaizen‘ approach:

Improve 3% everyday.

So while you’re pursuing a photo project (or any project) — just strive to make it a little better. This means:

1. Figure out your project while you’re shooting it.
2. While you’re working on your project, keep adapting it and changing it to the changing circumstances of your life.
3. Allow yourself to change your project in new directions, as you gain new information (the ‘Bayesian statistics‘ approach to living life– as you gain new information, simply change the way you approach something.)

Identify certain themes or things you like to shoot.

Another way to think about a project:

Just identify what you’re already photographing, and call it your “project”.

For example, I’ve been really loving to shoot textures as of late on the RICOH GR II — with and without flash. I didn’t plan on pursuing a ‘texture project’. I just found myself drawn to textures, and shot textures out of my own personal interest/fun.

Thus, perhaps a good way to pursue photography project is this:

Simply allow yourself to shoot anything and everything (random), and then identify the certain themes AFTERWARDS — then continue to pursue it until it bores you (then move ‘onto the next one‘).

Just keep shooting.

It seems the optimal strategy in photography is to not worry about projects, or even worrying about making ‘good’ photos. Just keep shooting — and strive to be inspired to make photos until you die at age 120.

SHOOT ON!

ERIC