DEVELOPING AN ESSAY

Following Kent’s advice on editing photographs, I’ll take you through my first time to edit an essay which happened at the workshop. In San Miguel de Allende, I watched Kent take a light table full of really good photos of Lance’s and turn them into two amazing essays. Click here to see Lance’s essays.

I wanted to do this too, but I was lacking the large amount of really good raw material to start with. This was a problem. So, I picked through my sets of shots to find *something* to make an essay with. With Raul’s help the next day, I did my first photo essay on a horse.

1) Sort through the pictures to create a large pile of “bad photographs” and a small pile of “potentially good photographs”. It takes me longer than Kent to find those truely "good photographs". So, I need to go through stages to find them.

At Pepe’s bullfighting school, I made 135 pictures (about 4 rolls if I were shooting film) of one horse in 20 minutes (between 2:33pm and 2:53pm on November 11th, 2004 according to the file information recorded by my digital Nikon D70). When shooting, I was not thinking much about the horse – mostly feeling it. Results: large number of “bad” or “duplicate” photographs. Thank goodness for my 4 gig. card.

I will spare you the large pile of “bad” photographs and skip to the ones I chose for a “first cut” at an essay. I went through these several times spending at least two hours and letting it sit overnight to come up with the resulting set of photos.

Choosing “potentially good” photographs to convey a message or story line is a key point. A photo might be “great” but if it does not add to your message, then it is “bad” for the essay.

2) What does this first cut say? That’s just the point. The message of this first cut essay is muddled. It does not tell a clear story.

Background: This horse had big problems. It tried to nibble me when I offered the back of my hand for it to smell. I wished I had an apple to feed it. Surprisingly, it backed away from me when I started to scratch normally itchy spots. It ducked my hand. The longer I stayed with the horse, the more agitated it became. The noise of my SLR seemed to drive it mad. I decided not to use my flash. As I moved my camera closer to the horse, it tried to bite my lens. I distracted it from my camera with my hand for it to bite. I backed away and it ran to the other end of the corral. When I came up to the corral bars again, it would charge me from the opposite end. Horses do not usually act this way – only when sick, mating or mistreated do they act this aggressive. On closer inspection, it had worn away a section of its mane from rubbing on the corral bars. It had not been groomed in quite some time. It was too thin with a sway back. This horse was very close to taking a trip to the rendering plant. I like horses. When making these pictures, I got very down in the dumps.

So, Raul asked me, “What do you want to say about this horse?” My response, “It’s been mistreated.” Raul killed my “darling” immediately - he tossed out my favorite picture.

3) Make a decision. Be brave, be decisive and “kill your darlings” – I had to eliminate my favorite picture of the horse from the essay in order to tell a clear story:

This picture is much too serene. It does not say, “two steps away from the rendering plant.”

4) Essay with a clear message. Start strong, finish strong. Vary the imagery from frame to frame. Place them in a layout. Fewer pictures is better than too many. Final essay:

I think the resulting essay works...but it’s hard for me to look at because it brings me back down into the dumps. My “darling” picture is not in it. But, it detracts from the story.

Once Raul completed this essay, I immediately recognized it as, “Let me out!”