A lot happens behind the scenes of The Photograph Collective. While there’s an external component of sharing our projects online and developing a presence with our followers, first and foremost we seek to be a community of photographers. At this point we’re truly spread out across the world and certainly across the United States. Living in New York City, however, has the wonderful perk of being a destination for nearly everyone. In the past few months Mary, Stephen, Khatiti and Jessica have all visited the city and we’ve been able to put away our computers and correspond in person! A few weeks ago, I met up with Khatiti and Jessica at the phenomenal Sarabeths for brunch, and we discussed everything from our lives to the direction we want The Photograph Collective to go in. I’m adamant about The Photograph Collective being a truly collaborative process – by no means was my original plan perfect and I’ve always hoped the framework would be flexible enough to move and change as our needs do. Since our inception, we’ve expanded from four photographers to nearly a dozen, tried using Google Docs/Google Forms/DropBox/Wordpress/Instagram/Twitter/Facebook to figure out what works best, invited new friends of friends to join us, and more. As some of you might know, for the first two projects we have been split up into two smaller sub groups behind the scenes. Within these groups we exchange ideas, ask questions, and send over preliminary ideas. The idea is that these groups are supposed to help you develop and stretch in your creativity. The problem is, as with any group, emails start getting extremely long…responses start happening less and less…some people feel awkward emailing…and things just become difficult to keep up with. Life gets in the way! So over brunch, we thought – what if we worked just in pairs for the idea generation part? You’d be held responsible to be a good partner because you couldn’t just be a wallflower on a larger discussion, but you could also exchange more ideas. We now implemented this for Project 3 which we’re wrapping up within the next week, and so far so good! It’s not a perfect model quite yet, but I’m excited to see how we’ll change the format and mix it up time and time again until we get it right. Even when that point comes, I’m sure as our needs and schedules and lives changes, The Photograph Collective will too!

Best,
Amanda

Note: All photos are taken on an iPhone 6. Don’t judge the quality!