A curious thing happened on the way to the forum.

[Tom Dinning]

In my thread on Sydney I noticed a couple of people mentioned 'series' as thought the photos belonged together or they were taken sequentially or should be displayed together.
I'm not sure what was meant so I'm asking.
What constitutes a series?
I understand about documentary photography as one might find in a National Geographic or old Life. Each photo goes to make the story. Some of the photos I showed in the thread were part of a sequence or story telling but not all of them and not all the sequenced shots were shown. The shots were taken over a 10 year period and there was never any intention to bring them together.
I'd appreciate your input on what you consider constitutes a series.
Cheers
Tom

 

[Ivar Dahl-Larsen]

I think against better knowledge that a series is a sequence you feel belongs together and which you want to show, as in a documentary, or a storytelling sequence. I aim to tell a little about my county in Norway soon, maybe spread over two to three times if I am allowed to and naturally that would be a series of pictures that belong together. I hope that it answers your question Tom.

 

[Pete Askew]

Good question Tom and I go along with Ivar. I tend to think of images of a similar theme, place, person etc as a set and reserve series for images that are related in some way such that they convey a sense of story. Sometimes such a series might flow across a series of threads (such as Paul's series about the recovery of his daughter from her accident). But that's just me.

 

[Paul Lange]

I think I will have to answer a question with a question and ask: Why did you choose to include those particular photographs, in that particular order, in the post?

Were they your best photographs on the topic that you wanted to show us? Did they show some kind of development in your skills and understanding over the time period? There must have been some reason why you chose them, even if you have to think why retrospectively? Our was it something akin to just grabbing a bunch of photographs out of a box and showing them in the order they happen to be in, but the format of the forum then forced an unintentional series?