Comment | Serial Offender - Why I am embracing image series recently
Every now and then I came across photographic publications recommending to capture image series for various reasons. I have ignored this advice for quite some time, but changed my mind recently. Why? Let me explain …
General information about image series
A series needs at least 3 pictures and is adding an additional layer of context to the individual elements. The topic of the series can refer to various aspects: Content, image look, chronological order - just to name a few - can be the uniting element of the images.
More often than not you will shoot the images for your series with a given topic in mind, but sometimes you discover a common theme of your photos only in hindsight, still enabling you to present these images in a harmonic looking compilation. I will elucidate this and further aspects based on a selection of my own series.
Heather Size Series
The series I bothered you with over my recent three Facebook posts was shot during the blooming of the “Westruper Heide“ in August 2020. Although I really like this heather landscape and live only a couple of kilometers away from there, I never managed to get the quality results I was hoping for. Somehow the trees surrounding the heather made the images’ backgrounds appear too busy for my taste. Fog would be a great problem solver here, but the combination of fog, heather blooming and free time for photography just didn’t occur in the last couple of years.
I tried to make a virtue of necessity and challenged myself with the self-given composition task to create an image series of the blooming heather by capturing a small, a medium and a large subject. Here’s what I came up with:
I won’t maintain the captured images are in any way better than my previous, unsuccessful tries, but by compiling them into a series their photographic value increased - at least for me.
Image series benefit No 1
The significance of unspectacular photos, tending to attract almost no attention in the flood of images we are confronted with, raises.
15 Minutes Series
This series, taken during my Valensole photo trip in 2019, was also based on a self-given composition challenge. After having found this remote lavender field, I wanted to use the remaining 15 minutes before sunset to capture the mood of this evening in three different compositions. It worked out almost perfectly: The time difference between the first and the last image was 15 minutes and 46 seconds …
As I normally tend to photograph with a precisely made plan with being on location early, giving me enough headroom to work on a specific composition I then stick with, this task was particularly challenging for me. After all I had to think about multiple compositions, but was rewarded with 3 nice images instead of just the one I would have gotten if I hadn’t left the beaten path.
Image series benefit No 2
Image series make you break with worn patterns and can increase your creativity and output.
Seriem Nigrum et Album
The subject of this series is the auditorium on Tenerife, designed by the well-known Spanish architect Santiago Calatrava. I had the opportunity to photograph this building on a family vacation in the spring of 2019 and was instantly fascinated by Calatrava’s design language. As I anticipated a single image wouldn’t do justice to his work, I decided to go with a series - Fine Art style, long-exposed and with a very dark sky. I had to modify this look in the post-processing for various reasons, but was still able to visually unify the three photos.
The plan to get at least 3 unique captures of the auditorium was compositionally as challenging as the self-given task of the “15 Minutes Series“. Despite of the fast changing light, I wanted the images to have the same look, so I had to put some extra effort into the editing - giving me the opportunity to practice some post-processing techniques I had never tried out before.
Image series benefit No 3
Image series can strengthen your compositional skills and enhance your post processing techniques.
The Rothenburg Series
I photographed the Rothenburg Series with some popular and some lesser known views of the city in the 2020 pandemic year. Due to this circumstance Rothenburg had far less visitors than usual, making it easy for me to get the desired, tourist-free images.
By compiling the single image to a series, I am able to present some highlights of this beautiful city in a comprehensive manner. The viewer does not only get a good impression of Rothenburg’s medieval charm, but also of the way I saw and “felt“ the city - which wouldn’t have worked out so well with a single image.
Image series benefit No 4
You can better accentuate your personal view on a given location and convey a broader impression of it to the viewer.
Blue & Gold Series
Finally I want to provide you with an example of a series consisting of images I shot without having a later compilation in my mind. I chose the theme “Lit buildings during the blue hour“ - arguably one of my favourite genres.
Although those images don’t necessarily belong to my better ones, they represent quite nicely the special light situation during the blue hour. The balance between the natural and artificial light, the great looking cold/warm color contrast and last but not leas the quiet and peaceful mood you find on location at this time of the evening (or morning) are probably the main reasons for my joy when shooting scenes like these. In the recent past I have extended the bandwidth of the subjects I am shooting, but if someone would have asked me some years ago “Which kind of photography do you do?“, I could have answered by showing this series.
Image series benefit No 5
You can easily define your photographic preferences with image series and show other people vividly why you are so fascinated by your favourite genre.
Some concluding words
I have only touched upon the advantages of image series that seemed most important to me. Many of those overlap and/or complement each other. As mentioned in the beginning, you can also use image series to show a chronological order - may it be as the main or as a side aspect like in the Rothenburg Series, in which the order reflects the decreasing light from golden hour to night. Although image series will probably remain the exception in my photography, I am going to choose this resource with pleasure in suitable situations.
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