Exhibiting.

[Elaine Maria]

I'm at the moment preparing for a joint exhibition. My class lecturer is very much pushing consistency and is suggesting that we keep more than one important element present in each of the ten images.
For example he has advised me to maintain a black background, multi-exposure, the same atmosphere and theme throughout the body of work.
Yet, when I look at professional photographer's exhibited work I don't see such blatantly obvious and plentiful common attributes , like for example you would rarely see ten images being exhibited with all the same background.

I would really like to hear others opinions on this.
I'm not against the idea of what he's suggesting, I'm just curious to see if it's a general consensus.

Thanks.

 

[Torus34]

Oh, my! This is something of a can of worms in that we do not have an opportunity to chat with your instructor and find out where he's coming from.

So, I'll take the risk of assumption. It may be that he wishes each of you to display, across the range of your prints, something of a 'voice'. By voice I mean that certain, er, j'ne sais pas that makes the work of a great composer, musician or painter uniquely identifiable.

I'll further assume that, as a student, you're still seeking your own voice or style. Lacking that, it's possible to achieve a certain cohesion through the means he has proposed.

So, you might wish to look over your work and see if you can put together a set of prints which contain some other unifying characteristic - kind of like that you find in the Project Runway finalist's Fashion Week collections. Then see if you can sell him on that.

Wishing you a successful exhibition response,

Jim/Torus34

 

[craig]

As always Torus has hit the nail on the head.

A cohesive body of work is super important when you are a student. He is trying to get you to create a style that will ultimately be your calling card. This is basically an exercise that will help you down the long run.

Love & Bass