2024 04 01
Kate Condic stands in as a subject for my Keep it 100 portrait session. While not quite on Kander’s level, I do enjoy this work. Chicago, Illinois. February, 2024. © Clayton Hauck
Nadav Kander is a favorite of mine. His series on the Yangtze River (“The smallness of man and the bigness of their ideas”) was super influential and really stuck with me as a young photographer and his portraits to this day are among my favorite from any working photographer. This video (linked below) popped into my feed and included some really nice takeaways. The channel, Graeme Williams - Photographic Conversations, I am also finding very much worthwhile, so recommend taking a look yourself if you want to dig into photography a bit more.
The takeaways I had which I aim to incorporate into a new personal photography project I have brewing involve his method to approaching a series of work:
“Let the work happen and then find out what it means to me.”
Use word association in a series project: flat, slow, quiet, dissolving, ending, becoming, insignificant — then use that to help guide the feel and vibe of the photos. This will help you define the images you aim to make.
Build a scrapbook of paintings, photos and artwork that helps further build the feelings and emotions of the series to help you translate them into images.
Composition then colors and tone. Strong composition is most important; “a strong composition communicates as much as literal information.”
Then translate all these vibes into photographs using your own skills.
Perhaps this is as helpful to you as it was to me.
-Clayton
