Small Stories, Small Groups of Prints
Plain old pictures follow-up: Foggy Harbor
This is a follow-up to last week’s newsletter describing my process in choosing the last photograph to be included in a collection of three. That group of three prints had a specific purpose, intent, and audience that guided my choices. Specifically, a gift destined for a neighbor and long-term resident of the neighborhood.
The big missing pieces were the other two prints that were already selected. Beyond that, I didn’t include the entire collection of photographs under consideration. Above are the final three selections that I printed and framed, including that final picture I was waffling on.
The collection under consideration
A total of six pictures, what I would consider a mini-project. I tend to work in groups of pictures rather than single photographs. I work this way from start to finish, from the moment I pick up my camera all the way to presenting the resulting pictures as prints. Yes, I expose a lot more frames than make it through the editorial process. In this particular case, I took about a roll of 35mm film’s worth, somewhere in the neighborhood of thirty-six.
All of those thirty-something photos were made with a 28mm equivalent on a Ricoh GR III. I’m super comfortable with that angle of view. It’s one of my desert island lenses along with a 50mm. Much of my photographic life was spent making portraits in one form or another. In a way, that’s how I approach every photographic scene.
Six photographs, six prints, a great number for a mini-project. In any given space, six is a great number. Even prints of a modest size can make a bold statement when presented on a wall as a cohesive whole. There’s an immense flexibility with small collections like this.
Two prints side by side or stacked
Three prints stacked
Four prints shown two by two
All six two by three or three by two
Varying the finished size a small degree and you see how flexible small groups of prints can fill any given wall area.
As mentioned a lot, I love to show small groups of related prints on any given wall together. You don’t need a ton of space to show all six; take a look back at my suggestion for a mini exhibition. This is how these mini-projects usually start out.
This particular mini-project started out as a dozen 4in x 6in prints that I whittled down to the six shown today. What about the other six I liked enough to include in my first editorial selection? I still like them but consider them alternates. I may use these alternates but not in the context of this mini-project on its own.
Approaching a subject
From a portrait photographer’s perspective, my approach with any given person is to tell that person’s story. I do that with gesture, expression, pose, wardrobe, and scene context/composition. I tend to approach everything that way. Maybe you can take some of that mindset and adapt it to your approach to whatever your preferred subject matter is. You don’t have to show all of the pictures you make. It’s fine to pick “the one” that represents all of them when you must, but it’s certainly a great thing when you want to tell more of the story having a deeper well of material.
Back in March of 2026, while on my front porch, there happened to be an unusual set of conditions one morning. Still air and fog; this manifested itself in still water. I quickly made my way down to our neighborhood harbor; these conditions are usually fleeting.
As I made my way down the long slope to the water, I started framing the scene. I adjusted my view of the main pier moderating how much of the surface was portrayed while paying close attention to the way the verticals intersected and interacted with the faint horizon line. The great thing about wide-angle lenses like the 28mm is not how much they can suck in but how little movement it takes to completely change the perspective and relationships of things in the scene.
I have eight or ten variations of this view. While on the pebbly shore, I quickly changed my elevation and framing tiny bits, maybe a few steps, and varied my height to compose a few variations of the opposite view of the harbor towards the deep-water pier as you saw in the previous newsletter.
As I made my way down the small pebbly beach towards that deep-water pier, I made a few frames of the main pier from a different point of view. What you don’t see are some of the photographs I made of detail of the beach itself. I didn’t include them in “the six” but they are flagged as alternates for potential use another day, in another context, a larger story.
I noticed a few interesting details on that main pier, some of the signage, and other combinations of horizontal and vertical features. I walked up onto the main pier and made my way closer and closer to some of those interesting details. I made a few framing and composition variations of each, which you can see in the rest of the collection of six. Note that the more abstract view of the deep-water pier at this slightly higher elevation almost hides the far pier, the one I did not select for the collection of three at the top.
Small stories lead to bigger stories
Stories don’t have to be complicated. Stories don’t have to be epic. Stories can be contained to one thing, on one day, or even one morning. The story of this particular mini-project is simply our neighborhood harbor on a calm, foggy morning one day in March.
The thing about small stories is that over time they lead to bigger stories. They connect in predictable and unpredictable ways. How you approach these on any given day will and does vary. Take a close look at a newsletter Eating Your Own Dog Food. Scroll to the bottom and you’ll see a quick snapshot of three prints on the wall of my primary workspace. These are detail shots on a sunny afternoon a couple of years ago of that same main pier. Yes, that “mini-project” has more than three pictures. It also tells a different story in a different way of that same pier, same harbor.
These are small projects and small ideas, but I can already see a much larger story and a much larger set of ideas emerging from these mini-projects. This is especially true when you start thinking of even the concept of harbor in not only a literal sense but also in terms of a figurative or metaphorical sense. You start to see larger concepts and larger bodies of work start to emerge.
What about those ”alternates” I mentioned, the ones I like but not when showing this mini-project, or other mini-projects on their own? I’ve found when curating exhibitions or collections for different audiences those alternates can serve you well. More importantly, when combining those mini-projects into larger projects, exhibitions, or stories those alternates can serve as connecting tissue in ways you’d not expect that serve the bigger narrative.
No matter if you pursue these concepts directly or not, they seep into your work and lead to new ideas and new ways of approaching subjects. They start to infuse your work consciously and unconsciously in ways that you might not realize until you are a way down the road you didn’t even realize you were on. Get out there, tell a small story of one subject. Do it today.
Your point is so well made, all about small projects and selecting pictures (I loved the previous post about using a regular person to help make that final decision). Absolutely love the concept and the way you approach it. Your text is fabulous. And inspirational.
The thing that struck me though, the photos supporting the text. All six together look less like a story about the bay, but somebody trying to figure out exactly how to frame the subject, moving around a bit to try different things. The center image does that, one is with stones, the other is cropped tighter without stones. Looks more like a cropping experiment than two very different images. I'm sorry, I didn't see the story there.
On the other hand for all six together, I love the angles pointing toward the center image. Leads my eye into the pictures. That works incredibly well. Which, oddly the final three presented doesn't do. I realize this is a picture for somebody that knows the bay well - but from a visual standpoint, the right picture should be mirrored so the angle points toward the center image. Leading my eye into the series, not away from it. That's also assuming they would be presented as three together side by side.
This could all be an anomaly of seeing the images on a webpage, looking at them all at once in a small size.
As always, I love your train of thought and how you share it. Please keep telling your stories and sharing your thought process. It's sort of like seeing the Diane Arbus exhibit in Portland many years ago. The exhibit included a bunch of contact sheets. Seeing pictures I'd known and loved for so many years in context of how she photographed them was amazing. Getting closer to the mindset of a photographer is a wonderful thing.
This is a true gift of wisdom you've bestowed upon us. Many thanks.