30 Strangers exhibit – behind the scenes

The 30 Strangers exhibit is this Friday. July 2nd. It’s going to be great fun. I hope to see you there.

I thought I’d share with you the process of selecting the images that will go in the show.

I estimate that over the course of the month of April, I shot 6,000 – 8,000 images for this project. That got narrowed down pretty quickly to 2,267. Those are the images I showed the clients when the came back to see their pictures. Anywhere from 60 – 120 images per session.

I took those 2,000 images and selected 118 that were possible candidates for the show. I made 4×6 prints of those 118 pictures, drove to Salt Lake, and got Kent Miles to help me make the final selection.

On Friday, if you come to the show, you’ll see the 30 images we selected.

I asked Kent to help me for a few reasons. Kent has had more photography exhibits than any other photographer in the state. He has such a broad understanding of taking multiple pieces, and combing them to make a single piece, which is to say, the exhibit.  Not only is he a excellent photographer, but he’s an excellent artist, and a skill separate from that of a photographer, a gallery curator. Also, he’s looking at the images with fresh eyes. I’d spend quite a bit of time looking at these pictures that it’s helpful to have someone with new perspective.

Selecting 30 from 118 isn’t just a matter of picking the best picture from each session. To make an interesting exhibit, you want to create some rhythm from piece to piece. There’s got to be some variety, not just in size and orientation (square, vertical, horizontal) but also in the tone and message and feeling from each picture. So you lay them all out and see how one picture will look next to another. You ask, do any others that look the same as this one. How should this one be cropped. On and on.

The cropping makes a huge difference. As we’d look at each image, Kent would spend time coming up with different variations on how each one should be cropped. He’s always said that the most important line you draw in your pictures is the line you draw around the edge of the frame. You can see that different parts of the image become emphasized more or less, depending on where you put the edge of the frame. Often times, radically altering the way you respond to the original image.

Here are some things to think about when you come to the exhibit on Friday that may help you enjoy the show a little more. Questions to consider–

1. Why is this image (whatever one you’re looking at) placed next to this image? Do they strengthen each other by being placed next to each other?
2. Why would he crop it like this? Would the impact of the picture be improved if it was cropped more? Less?
3. How do these pictures make me feel?
4. What do these pictures say about the relationships between mothers and daughters?
5. Is it the photographer’s responsibility to tell the truth about these people’s relationship or is it ok to just make them look good?
6. If the pictures move you in any way, can you describe why? If the pictures don’t do anything for you, can you describe why?
7. How does the way they are presented (how they are framed, placement in the gallery) effect the way you feel about the collection as a whole?

And here’s Kent, hard at work:

See you Friday, July 2nd – 6-9pm.

And remember, if you can’t make it on Friday night, we’ll have the following additional gallery hours:
July 3 & 5 12pm – 8pm
July 6-9 2pm – 5pm

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Justin Hackworth Photography. We’re not just making pictures, we’re making history.