make your photos speak

When I was in college, I had a teacher who believed that one of the best ways to grow your vision or style was by picking a theme and working it to death. She believed that by picking a theme and redoing it over and over and trying to create it in different mediums would force a break through in creativity.

I don’t entirely agree with her. However, I have found that it is a useful tool and certainly a good method of practicing your art when your creative juices are dead.

In music, a variation on a theme is defined as “One of a series of forms based on a single theme.” If one practices a variety of approaches to one image, one is going to find that a single theme yields a variety of moods. Just like a theme in music.

One useful thing to keep in mind when approaching a theme is distance. How close you are to an image and how far away you are creates perspective. Distance often reflects place and closeness often reflects intimacy. Both the telephoto lens and the macro lens are suitable for every subject. Consider what Victor Hugo says “Where the telescope ends the microscope begins, and who can say which has the wider vision?”

What does any of this have to do with chicken, you ask? The song One Vision by Queen made me think of this article.

It begins:

One man one goal one mission,
One heart one soul just one solution,
One flash of light yeah one god one vision 

in the middle it says

Vision,
Give me your hands,
Give me your hearts,
I’m ready,
There’s only one direction,
One world and one nation,
Yeah one vision 

it ends

Just gimme gimme gimme
Fried chicken 

So here is my worked to death theme - or if you prefer my fried chicken.

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