photo assignment: a day in the life
I keep mentioning that one of the best things I did this year was committing to the Focal Point 6 month Photo Class ran by Chelsea London. This is an account of the seventh assignment, the one I would say was the most intense and had the biggest effect on my photography.
the premise
photograph a whole day start to finish - from the moment of waking up, to going to bed
aim to take at least one photo an hour
cull these down to a series of 10 photos that document the day
and then cull down again to just 3 photos
I chose to document a trip we made to visit family. We often try to explore new places with them, so I hoped this would make for a more exciting day to document.
shortly after this the lens started to steam up!
My assignment started at 7am. Given that I myself was blurry eyed, the photos understandably lack the sharpness I gained later on.
After a cup (or two) of coffee, I was definitely ready to get stuck into this assignment. As someone who is regularly taking photos of more urban settings or of other people, it was fun to document my own morning routine, trying to make this as exciting as possible. It was nice to start the day with the intention of taking lots of photos rather than usually what happens which is taking photos if I feel like it or if I have enough time for it.
That day we ventured out into the city where we explored a new gallery exhibition for local artists. By this time I had already taken around 50 photos so I was definitely feeling warmed up. This had a drastic effect on the photos I was taking - I was making far fewer mistakes and my eye was getting quicker and better at looking for more intriguing compositions.
After a busy morning we retreated back home to relax, which is where I struggled more with this assignment. One photo an hour doesn’t sound too bad, but into the evening it becomes a real challenge to avoid things feeling stagnant. However difficult, I found great value in this as I forced myself to truly look at my environment for inspiration - checking for light, interesting textures, items and angles to compose.
By the end of the day I was exhausted and had taken over 100 photos. It doesn’t sound like much but it is much more difficult to be taking photos every hour, and ensuring each photo documents the story of the day. I was also shooting knowing I would ultimately be cutting down to 3, so I tried to avoid taking an excessive number of photos to make this process easier.
the culling process
The process of culling for me usually consists of going through Lightroom and flagging the ‘bad’ photos from the ‘good’ photos. Once I’ve passed through a few times I will often have a selection of photos that are either SOOC JPEGs or RAWs that will need further editing. Cutting down from 100 to 10 photos highlighted that my method definitely isn’t the more time efficient and I would definitely love to learn a better method. If anyone has any tips I’d be happy to hear them!
Our assignment asks to select photos that best document and tell the story of the day, and from there, submitting a final 3 photos.
The best way to tell a story in three photos is to use an establishing shot that sets the scene, a context shot that adds detail, and finally an environment shot that adds atmosphere or shows a wider surrounding. These create a triptych that tell a story from a specific day.
the final three
This is my final trypich telling the story of the day. As I had photos from various places within the same city I decided that the story I wanted to tell was about family visits - lots of home cooked food followed by a post-meal walk.
I had so much fun with this assignment. Taking photos every hour even when I was in the same location for some time pushed me to look for interesting things to photograph. It’s an interesting tactic which differs for example, when I am using my film camera and have to savour each shot, spending more time waiting for the perfect shot. I would say I am more concious of ‘wasting’ film so will avoid the shutter if I am less sure.
As I mentioned I found that taking so many photos in the morning definitely had my eye more warmed up by the time I was in the city and taking photos more in my usual style. Of course a major learning point was practicing culling but a main takeaway was a lot about storytelling and creating a narrative through a selection of photographs.
The larger collection of 10 photos that sum up the day are below: