Collecting ideas

As soon as I saw that I was going to take this photography class in spring term, I started thinking about all kinds of different ideas that I could use for my final project. 

There were literally a million brilliant things going through my head and I felt inspired by so many things I saw either in my daily life or while scrolling through the internet looking for inspiration.

I started writing down my ideas in a few bullet points so I could actually look at them over and over again after every photography class and then slowly decide which ones would get into the shortlist. 

So here are all the ideas I collected over the last few weeks and months: 

1. The hidden everyday -> take everyday objects (ex.: bench, traffic lights, etc...) and work with a low depth of field to emphasize only that very object, showing it in much more detail and thus creating a way of looking differently at everyday objects

2. Looking at life from a different perspective -> take pictures at random everyday places, but instead of taking them from a normal perspective I thought it would be interesting to just lay down on the floor to take the photographs

3. Consumerism -> show how we are constantly influenced and manipulated in order to consume and buy products that we often don't even need

4. Otherness -> Race, Homosexuality, Disabilities, Street artists, etc...

5. Different faces -> inspired by Rainer Maria Rilke's extract 'I'm learning to see' from The Notebooks of Malte Laurids Brigge, I wanted to work with different facial expressions and emotions to show how each and every human being has different faces and multiple 'masks', that they wear for different occasions

6. Beauty standards  -> what society perceives as beautiful and how trying to satisfy these standards can degrade a woman

7. Landscapes/ Sunsets  -> show the deeper meaning of landscape photography, inspired by the readings from week 5 about cultural imaginaries and landscape photography

So, as you can see, I had a bunch of ideas, but I guess that I kind of underestimated this project at first, because although all of these ideas might be good and some of them could maybe develop into a serious final project, I didn't really realize that I have to do much more research to find a topic that could really become the base for a good project. 

The thing about my assignment is, that it has to be a photographic essay, meaning that each picture has to have it's own story and it's own meaning that contributes to the general theme of my project. 

Most of the ideas I've had so far can't work out as a project because although they might be good for one or two shots, they don't form a good photographic essay in which every picture is different and yet all of them touch upon the same topic. 

So what I've learned from these past weeks of gathering ideas and thinking about my project is that it needs time to come up with a thematic that doesn't only sound good but also constitutes a good base for a good photographic essay.