It all sounds very grand, "shooting a series" yet it is little more than taking a number of images that are in some way related or even better contain a narrative that others can relate to. The world is full of photo opportunities and is perhaps an overwhelming challenge to represent in a series of say 25 pix. I would suggest that we need to break our series down to bite sized chunks !
Street photographers could well argue that a series of street pictures would hang well together and this may well be true, however a photographic style alone is not enough, as it may contain various styles within itself, a broad range of random subjects would also weaken the collective strength of a series. Take a look at many Flickr pages and you will see realms of street pix that appear unrelated and weakened by images that are reactive captures and collected with a mind set that is not dissimilar to indiscriminate litter picking. Should you pick enough litter and focus your eyes firmly on the ground eventually you will pick up a five pound note or two but this is not a reliable income stream, more importantly having to view everything as viable is not efficient, a policy of only bending down to pick up five pound notes should be cultivated.
Once your series policy has been established within your own mind, you will discover that life has just become easier as not only are you aware of the subjects that are relevant to your visual policy (series) but you now filter out subjects and locations that do not contribute to your now established photo agenda. The agenda you choose might evolve over time, this is not a bad thing as you should not feel creatively trapped by your project, you might even go off piste now and then, these moments will probably sow the seeds for your next series. The important thing is to maintain your focus on the series you are already working on.
The "Another Day Off" series that I am working on now consists of more than 100 images now, I have taken an overview of these images and identified a number of areas I want to improve. The important point to make here is that the decisions are based on the overall strength of the series and how they relate to each other, not the merits of the individual images. When complete I expect to edit 150 pix down to about 50 pictures that should be viewed as a series not 50 individual pix shot around the same theme. I hope the images will flow and compliment each other.
A judicious editing policy at both the capture and post production stage appears to be the key to pulling a series together, good luck !
Keep it real !
