(Conceptual) Projects

 Adding a little public display of affection to a straight-laced BYU campus.

For some, the term "conceptual photography" has a negative connotation. The current Wikipedia definition is relatively neutral:

"Conceptual photography as a part of conceptual art, a photography genre in which the artist makes a photograph of a concept or idea. Usually the conception of the idea precedes the realization of the photography."

The strict genre definition, then, quickly leads to academic philosophical existentialist debates (but then, doesn't everything?): Which comes first, essence or existence? Sartre be damned, I can never remember and don't really care. For the purposes of this ongoing compilation of posts, I am taking the broad view that all projects are conceptual once they are organized. Whether the idea preceded the photos or came from the photos isn't at issue in this list. The idea of this post is simply to get back to re-organizing the sidebar of my blog. That said, here are some posts that might inspire your own projects in some way:

• An intro to "concept" from when it was part of the now-defunct "monthly special"
• Inspiration from John Baldessari: a master of ideas
• When I was playing around with the idea of "photo within a photo" I did a two part post about turning my not-so-romantic surroundings into Paris (check out part 1 and part 2—they still make me laugh) and another post about remembering the orchards that were lost when my neighborhood was built.
• My love of street photography led me to create a Blurb book called Manif (short for "manifestation"—the French word for demonstration). You can look at the whole book in this post—just be click the view full screen box (the four diagonal arrows) in the lower right.
• My biggest project to date is the years-in-the-making ABC Paris project. It's interesting for me to look back at the origins, and then see how it ended up getting featured on Design Sponge and Black Eiffel, which resulted in a four-year contract with a company in Vermont. And of course, how can I not do some shameless promotion for the prints that you can buy.
• Another "project" (more like two things I made for a post)—OK, so idea for a project—is the "personality pie chart." I did one of my son Lucas and one of a friend in France. It could be fun to do something with later. Feels very commercial to me.
• A "things scrawled on wood in Paris" project is a casual ongoing project that looks at the kind of graffiti people did before there was spray paint. I have much better photos since I did the post—perhaps a follow-up will be in order.
• My long term Utah-based project is about State Street, and although I haven't done a real post about it yet, these "commute" photos came from a couple of hours of shooting.