Hah thkoo field trips have their advantages and disadvantages. Typically, an entire school day is consumed and transportation is provided. OTOH, that school day comes at the risk of falling behind in some other courses, and those trips are necessarily to destinations that can absorb our numbers; plus, some people simply do not want to be seen on a Big Yellow Safety Bus. What’s a ’tog to do?
How about customizing your own outing?
Consider a set of concerns:
Location: your yard/block; another city; Bhutan.
Companions, for which consider St. Walker Evans’s opinion (taken in context of the 1960s): “Work alone if you can. Girls are particularly distracting, and you want to concentrate; you have to. This is not anti-feminism; it is common sense. Companions you may be with, unless perfectly patient and slavish to your genius, are bored stiff with what you’re doing. This will make itself felt and ruin your concentrated, sustained purpose.”
Time (calendar & clock), variable by light/weather, especially if you’re working solo.
Film & developer combination, not variables for some of us but very critical for others.
Goal(s): emulation of a recognized style (Winogrand, Callahan, Friedlander); nominal subject matter (bullfights @ midnight, fallen horses, lumpen menschen)
See what you can glean from http://2point8.whileseated.org/2005/09/06/rule-1/ (1 through 9, anyway)
Isolate your field trip from everything else. Have a photography to-do list with only one thing — shooting. Figure out how to eliminate other agenda items that get in the way. Suppose you had a to-do list with 10 things:
(1) Clean your room.
(2) Write a paper for Film Crit.
(3) Shoot for a project.
(4) Take a shower.
(5) Answer e-mail.
(6) Meet someone at Einstein’s.
…et cetera… it would be pretty easy to get everything done–except for (3). You would have been busy all day, but being busy is not the same thing as being productive.
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