[MUSIC] All right, Two Projects Two Statements, you're probably wondering what that means, so let's get right to it. Your photographer statement is the word portion of your capstone project. A very different document than your project plan. In the project plan, you begin the process of narrowing the range of options from everything imaginable to a narrower path of action. That process of defining a plan still allowed you flexibility to explore, but at the same time, as we learned from the philosopher, Lao Tzu, it closed many doors so you could have a firmer understanding of where to go and where not to go. You work through your plans and photographs to come to the point where now, your project consists of pictures that are related in significant ways, and that is quite an accomplishment. In your photographer's statement, you have the opportunity to share your words that will bring emphasis to any one or more of many possible subjects. You'll have to open some doors and close others in forming your statement as well. This slide shows two photographer statements that I created for two very different projects. On the left, is one created to share with gallery directors and museum curators and visitors to galleries and museums where the work would be hung, about the project entitled, My Paris, which I developed in 2014 and 2015. On the right, is a statement I created to be hung with a video slideshow display of portraits and recorded voices from The Fisher Body Project. The Fisher Body Project is on permanent display in the R.E. Olds Transportation Museum in Lansing, MI, and it was dedicated in 2015. The writing style is very different in each. The tone of voice is different too, with My Paris in the first person and Fisher Body Portraits in the third person. The appearance is also very different. One is on a color paper base with a color photograph, as opposed to the other being simply a series of lines of text in black and white. The statement on the left also happens to be in French, while the statement on the right has never been seen in any language other than English. Why are two statements from the same photographer so very different? Well I know you can't read them on the screen right now, but let's take a look at three points that I think are most important for the photographer to consider in writing a photographer's statement. The first point relates to the importance of remembering that you are writing your statement for someone else to read. Well, that may seem like a silly point, but I have seen too many photographer statements that were written without regard to the recipient. And I'm not simply referring to the fact that the recipient might have spoken English or French. There are some people who will be very disappointed when the center of the universe is discovered because it will confirm that they are not it. It goes without saying that pompous, boasting, or other self-congratulatory type of statements are not appropriate for a photographer's statement. And that's about the only hard and fast rule that I'm going to share with you today. The viewer of your photographs and reader of your statement may be a stranger, but at the same time, there's someone who is interested in your photographs, in particular, and photography, in general. How would you address such a stranger if they were in the same room with you? What tone of voice would you use if you wanted to make them feel welcome, to develop an understanding of your photographs and of you? Are your readers going to have a command of technical terms for camera work and composition, or not? Thinking about your reader as a very particular type of person, the kind that you feel will be your typical viewer, can help you write a statement that's more valuable for them and at the same time true to yourself. It will then be true to the personal message and set a tone for communication that's positive and productive. The second lesson I've learned is to consider where the pictures and statement will be seen, and how that presentation context will impact decisions as to what I want to emphasize. Whether your works will be grouped together on the web, sequenced in a book, or arranged on a wall in a gallery, the physical setting of the photographs will be important to consider in creating your statement. In the case of my statements, one was meant to appear in the context of a gallery exhibit of nicely framed, SX70, impossible film Polaroid pictures, the My Paris series. The other statement appears in the context of an automobile transportation museum, dedicated to cars and other materials associated with the factories and people and other things related to Ransom Eli Olds, who founded the Oldsmobile, here in Lansing, Michigan. The third lesson I've learned about statements is one that I've shared with you in other contexts, from the pen of the great playwright, William Shakespeare. To thine own self be true. You must decide what is the major point or points you wish to emphasize to the viewer, reader? Choosing carefully from across the whole gamut of possibilities inherent in your project from the technical to the expressive. I'm certain that I cannot tell you exactly what to write in your own photographer's statement. I am not the famous Mr. Spock from the old TV show, Star Trek. And I cannot perform a Vulcan Mind Meld on you. I do not know you well enough. And even further, I do not know your project well enough or the context in which it will be seen or the potential audience well enough to venture a guess as to what your statement should contain. Even if I did know all of that, it would still be, in my opinion, a bit rude for me to propose what your statement should consist of. If you are true to yourself in emphasizing those aspects of your capstone project photographs that are most important to you, then to paraphrase the bard, you cannot then be false to any of your readers. Each photographer and each project they create is unique. And the statements that accompany each project will also be unique if truly formed. What I feel compelled to share about my projects, whether those things are technical or conceptual or both, I share because I want to bring special emphasis to them, with sensitivity to the audience that I anticipate will be my main viewer. You might view my projects and feel that I've emphasized something that is less essential than some other aspect. That's not only okay, that shows engagement with the photographs and the writing that is what an active learner does. I posted the two project statements in a reading section for this lesson, not as models for you to emulate, but as ways for you to understand better the thought process of one other photographer who, just like you, had to face the prospect of writing something relevant for viewers to absorb, along with a set of photographs. The links to the places on my website where you'll find those photographs are there too. I hope that, for you, they’ve passed that ultimate test of being true. [MUSIC]
