Looking for feedback on my ongoing personal project, Project: One Song

[Chad McClarnon]

The description of the project and a link to the gallery are on my blog here;

http://www.cwmphoto.com/blog/old/150


please feel free to leave any and all comments here and/or on the blog and feel free to share the link in any way you see fit. Thanks so much!


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Chad McClarnon Photography
chad@ cwmphoto.com

Follow me on Twitter:

http://www.twitter.com/chadmcclarnon

 

[Ken Tanaka]

Hello Chad, and Welcome to OPF.

Yours is an interesting project. (The following is my off-the-cuff reaction after reading the project's description (on your blog) and then looking at each image.) I, too, would have been inclined not to name the piece to which each subject was listening.

But.

After seeing such diametrically opposite reactions -- tears to laughter -- I found myself far more intrigued by wondering about the music than the photographic subjects. After ten or so photos they just began to look like more of the same, rather like an ad for headphones, and my mind wandered.

Here are two ideas that might lead to a more interesting strategy come to my mind.

1. Reveal the audio subject. (What if, for example, it was not a song but rather a carefully-selected short story?) Perhaps offer a link to the song on your site and let visitors become more immersed in the project.

2. Photograph people listening in their own environments. Yes, I know it would be more work. So what? I think it would make for a more visually and emotionally interesting series, and it would certainly make it look much less like a commercial ad campaign.

BTW, I am a strong proponent of such photographic projects as I think they propel camera-owners / camera fetishists into becoming photographers. I salute your efforts thus far!

 

[Asher Kelman]

Hi Chad,

I'm impressed now as I was in September 2008 when you joined us! I'd like to see your pictures here rather than us just visiting. The cows along the ridge line with the sky above, the girl to the lower write in front of a wall with climbing vegetation, the man in the road, almost defiant. It's important to participate by sharing pictures and have them appear in your post too. That makes the forum work as people can react to your work, give feedback and themselves get stimulated to do the same.

Asher

 

[Asher Kelman]

Now to these pictures,

Chad, it's important for this project to hear the music otherwise we have no idea of these reactions. They are meaningless with out a time base, which is, after all the music itself. I too am very keenly interested in art as both an expression of the artist and a set of reactions, digging into our persona and experience. You, however have sought to show only one part.

One could record conversations and take them out of context and even write them down. "So, what can I do for you know?", "What's your pleasure?" or "How can I make you happy?" could come from which, if any of the following:

The young lady in the frozen yoghert sotre, The Russian Ambassador, A parent to a depressed teenager, a desperate wife to her philandering husband or other situation.

To suggest we can learn much from that sampling out of context is, to me at least, just a fanciful concept, although I do like the drive to get answers.

Now, back to your current project. I do like the technical aspects of your photography. It's all so very well done and the pictures are engaging. However, you want it to be more than that, and yes, it can be that too. I am, as often, well informed by Ken's clear comments. I agree with his immediate reactions. The solution is simple. If we you might now add music to the pictures and then place the pictures in a time sequence, then you might very well have something that moves us and makes a buzz.

I hope this helps.

Asher