‘tude!
Mike, over at T.O.P. had an interesting post called The Tenset. Here, stated very directly in his opening paragraph:
I’ll come right out with this…I wish every photographer’s website started out with the ten pictures (of their own, I mean) they love best. Call it a tenset to give it a name…a set of ten. A core set. A key set. A photographer’s ten best, or ten favorite, or ten most characteristic pictures, up front. Even if they recur in later categories.
Is that asking too much? (Mike Johnston, TOP, The Tenset)
When I read the entire post I got the feeling that he wanted photographers to customize their websites to suit his particular need. That is, he wanted to get in, discover quickly, and then get out. Mike does a periodic feature called Random Excellence. In it, he points out a photographer that he thinks does excellent work. As you may know, TOP gets lots of hits and if your website is mentioned there, you’re going to take a serious spike in hits for that day. Your 15 minutes of fame, so to speak.
The rest of the article goes on to have a discussion about user interface issues, etc. That part of the discussion is actually fairly interesting as it talks to the topic of usability. But, overall, I think that the article has a slant towards selling your photos or making it convenient for others to navigate the waters so to speak.
As it close to the end of the year, I think that thoughts naturally turn toward not only the coming year, but the there always seems to be the year in review thought as well. I know that it certainly has crossed my mind a time or three already. I start to think doing things like Mike suggested, a core set. But, what would that core set consist of? Would it be a set of 12, one from each month? Unfortunately, for me, creativity doesn’t really flow that way. It is kind of fits, starts, and clumps sometimes. Also, my favorites at this moment may not be my favorites tomorrow. What I feel represents my photography may change just as quickly. I was looking through this year’s photos and noticed my sudden shift to black and white and people photography, away from landscape. Now, here in December, I’m falling in love with the landscape again. Things change.
I do rather agree with the less is more principle. That is, if you can, pick about 10 or 12 representative pieces and display them on your website neatly, with easy to navigate images.
Overall, I’d say that I’m very lackadaisical in updating my online galleries. It’s just not so important to me. I feel that my daily photos that I choose are the ones that spoke to me the most OR, perhaps fit the post in some capacity. Further, when you choose those 10 or 12, do you get the same type of feeling that Chris said in response to a previous post that I wrote::
I struggle a bit with the following inner dialogue: “am I posting this image because I like it or because I think the people who read the blog will like it?” (Chris Klug – Patterns of Light N Dark)
In the end, who are those images for? What do you think about this Tenset idea? Further, if you are a blogger, do you feel that this is even necessary?
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13 Responses to “Who are those images for?”
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I didn’t read the posting in the same way as you, an I agree with Mike. If you’re a photographer with a website, it is effectively a place for selling yourself as a photographer. To that end, the design should be such that a visitor can get to the heart of things (i.e. the photographs) quickly and with minimal distractions. Most photo interfaces these days are all form over function – slow, clunky and too much distracting from looking at the actual pictures.
I also like his idea of the tenset- it’s a quick and easy way to see whether it would be worth going further. If a photographer has a clunky, slow website and no ready way to scan through the first few photos (to convince me to stay), I’m out of there. far too many better things to do with my time.
I like the idea and I think it does not hurt. I already have a menu “Portfolios” with one portfolio for each year since 2006 and a bicycle portfolio, I guess I’ll add another one as first entry, something like “On A Glance”, “Overview”, “If You Are In A Hurry”, or maybe even “The Tenset”. This should do the trick. OK, the visitor must come up with the idea to look under “Portfolios”, but I am not sure if I care for people who don’t manage to do that
Andreas, I like the concept of having photos grouped by year taken. Trying to maintain subject categories is difficult and often doesn’t fit or work well. With the yearly grouping you can also see changes and progress in the photography year-to-year. Mind if I pay you a complement and “borrow” this in the future?
Btw, I really like the header of your new layout now
Good! Now I can sleep better.
Mike’s article appears self-serving to me. Having ten pictures that represent your work, just so time-pressed viewers can decide if they like your body of work or not, doesn’t make sense.
But I do agree a photo web site should engage the view immediately. Like a good poem or novel, something should grab you and make you want to go further. Certainly one picture sometimes does that for me. Whatever method we decide to use, that seems like a goal worth pursuing.
I also like Mike Johnston’s idea. It makes sense. About 2 1/2 years ago, when we were in Sedona, AZ, I met a photographer who had been a student of Ansel Adams. He did one day, one – on – one workshops, so I signed up. When I met him early in the morning at his gallery, we sat down and talked for a while. He asked me a lot of questions about my photography, but there was one that I’ll never forget. He asked me how I knew if I’d made a “great photograph”. I was stumped. I said a lot of dumb things, and he listened patiently, but I think he knew that I didn’t have a clue.
At the end of my babbling, he said something like this: “If you make a photograph, and you like it well enough to hang on your wall – forever – then it’s a ‘great photograph’”. Now, I don’t think he meant that literally, but I got the message.
So I think Mike’s on to something. If you want others to know who you are as a photographer (and maybe yourself, too), then find the 10 or 12 or 20 images that you’d hang on your wall “forever”.
So nice to know that my inner babblings are now broadcast here as well. Very big grin.
While I tend to agree with you that Mike’s critique was a bit self-serving, there were some nuggets in there for me. Specifically the discussion of the categorization of the images. I know I do that on my main site, and it’s always made me a bit uncomfortable. Now that I have my act and stuff together, I am going to work on my main site as well as the blog.
I also like Mike’s idea. Too many photo-sites on the Web start to look like large collections of contact sheets, just so everyone who visits the sites can see what the photographer’s done. I find it hard to believe that some photographers feel that everything they’ve put on their site is their best work and ought to be shared with everyone.
I supposed you could always leave the contact sheet approach to place like Picasa or Flickr, and put only the best stuff on a personal site. even then, creating a “tenset” to show off your favorites is, I think, a great idea.
As for blogs, I tend to see photoblogs as another form of the “contact sheet” approach, designed just to share something you’ve shot recently, and perhaps explaining what you’ve taken that shot. I don’t visit blogs to find someone’s best work …
I must say that I like Mikes idea, have been trying to set up series of images I find good to be more easily accessible, but failed. No one knows I have galleries, you simply don’t see that. Not even I see that, resulting in that the sets gets old and outdated. But it actually doesn’t mater.
I think actually one should separate blogging from portfolio. If blogging is your main interest, it doesn’t matter if it’s hard to find the portfolio. Hey, for what do you have the portfolio or gallery anyway? As you asked, but in other words. I think, the gallery could be useful for others, to allow them get a grip of who you are and what type of images you create.
But as for portfolios, the main reason for having them is catching interest, for commercial reasons. And for this, Mike is completely right, you need to see a tenlist as soon as you enter the site.
As far as the concept goes I like the idea of being able to visit a photographer’s site and being able to view his images in a simple uncluttered manner. Slideshows work well for me and the number of images doesn’t worry me. If I like the photographer’s work then there’ll be no such thing as too many and if I don’t then I’ll have moved on before I get to ten. There is a lot to be said for web design though. Just as cramped galleries with bad lighting are not so enjoyable, ill-designed virtual galleries can also be a major detraction. Having said that, there are times when the art is so good that absolutely nothing detracts from the experience.
From the perspective of “how to pick the best set of images” I agree with Paul M. above. Any photo you’d be happy to hang in your home and look at everyday will be worthy of being included. Interestingly enough, ever since I’ve gone digital I have never printed so much as one image… I wonder what that says
btw I just love that platform panorama. I’d happily stare at that one for quite some time in any gallery, physical or virtual.
I certainly like the idea of favorites, but it is hardly an original idea. It really depends on the goals of the particular gallery. Not many people are going to automatically get what a “tenlist” is if named that way. A simple link stating “START HERE” is enough.
I understand the point about categories being too general – but having some is better than none at all. If I visit a gallery that is simply a series of a lot of images, especially having to view them one by one with no clue on how many there are – I leave. But we have to remember that photographers are NOT the general public. We tend to be overly critical about a lot of things that simply don’t matter to many people.
Mark, I think that you nailed it when you said:
“But we have to remember that photographers are NOT the general public. We tend to be overly critical about a lot of things that simply don’t matter to many people.”
We are quite critical when it comes to our work and the work of others.