On Filmmaking and Photography #2 (sequencing)

[@mattdayphoto]

Loved this. Recently read “Structure of the Visual Book” by Keith A. Smith, really interesting exercises and demonstrations on sequencing. That first clip, rearranging the edit and shifting the narrative, that book immediately came to mind!

[@chrisdonovan9781]

Was going to say this same thing! Very interesting book looking at sequencing from a somewhat scientific perspective, which is interesting for a few reasons. Not the least of which is that like any art "rules," the greatest among us tend to break them but not before we know them. This book is a great starting place to get to know the sequencing rules in my opinion!

[@ordinary.american.beauty]

Awesome thank you @matt day for that. I hadn’t known of any books on sequencing. I really need to buy a few and read them!

[@ordinary.american.beauty]

I love that you brought Helen Levitt into the video because I just found out about her work while watching Everybody Streets. She definitely seems underappreciated and under represented. I thought of the Japanese book as being really different.. interesting. I interpreted the changes through it to be like chapters of a book. But in regards to how it was coherent, I couldn’t say. Thank you! I would love to see more on sequencing, yes.

[@akaYu07]

James Nachtwey’s Deeds of War has a great sequence going from children playing with guns in different countries to dead children in different countries. I found that very powerful and even though the individual pictures in that book aren’t that strong the sequencing is superb, albeit less subtle than his later work. Great examples you gave and great to see that your Tiktok account is also gaining some traction. My wife and I really enjoyed listening to the analog talk podcast you were a guest on recently.

[@dyathink]

Really liked the Alfred Hitchcock part of this talk. It is about sequencing, obviously but also about how our perceptions depend so much on context. I just finished a series on IG asking viewers to guage their impression of someone in a mugshot versus a very similar looking person in a painting on the wall of a home in a real estate listing. I showed 9 pairs and the discussions that resulted were surprisingly (for me), well, surprised. It was as if, for the first time viewers were confronted with their own preconceived ideas of others that were purely shaped by stereotypical notions. In any case, while not about sequencing per se, the dynamic Hitchcock spoke of being used in cinema works on the same idea. So that was really interesting to me. Also enjoyed the other books you showed, especially Baldessari, because of how that radical cropping creates so much tension and almost anxiety from the break from the square/rectangular format that regardless of how dramatic the image is still confined in a very unrealistic conventional shape which always says to me, this is just a picture, it isn't real. But seeing slivers, and triangles and other geometric shapes floating on a white page seems somehow more like the way we do actually perceive and recall dramatic moments in our life. And the Japanese book was an absolute orgasm of imaging that seemed to just go on and on..perhaps multi orgasmic. Sorry if that is too graphic but how else does one visually absorb a book like that? Right. Thanks again for these videos, really get so much from every single one.

[@martylevenson7062]

Enjoyed your sequence of narratives! Feeling pulled toward visual stories that leave room for my imagination.

[@allendrexel7622]

Love these great insights, as always, Alec. Thank you!

[@pverdicchio]

hello Alec… recently purchased some of your books. Just opened Sleeping by the Mississippi tonight and slowly going through it. Thank you! 🙏

[@ilichcastillo]

In that way I was wondering if you are interested in checking some P.D. work as a photography research, such as, I don´t know, Timo Salminen, Yuuharu Atsuta, etc.. BTW all your videos are a gifts Alec, so thank you very much for that. Regards from Ecuador.

[@mandocron]

Thanks. Made me think of Yutaka Takanashi's book "Toshi-e" (towards the city) from 1974 - also an interesting cinematic inspired take on a photobook.

[@sheilamurphy3716]

Thanks! The subject of still photo sequencing is so rich. When I look at a photo book a sequence that unfolds and creates some kind of emotion or discovery is a joy. (Then again, sometimes I just don’t get it.) The paperback copy of “A Way of Seeing” that I have is sequenced somewhat differently than your hardback, but some equally intriguing mini narratives emerge.

[@louhautdavid6451]

After your videos about pictures and words, here come videos about sequencing in photography and film which is obviously full of words. I find interesting that words, in this context, aren't mentioned. I vaguely understand that the question of sequencing is complex enough to be separated of the narrative which, sometimes, surprisingly tells a different story. I don't know much about sequencing but I feel that's it's not a science. Unconscious must take an important part in the process and that's precisely the point with surrealism. There's a lot to learn here. So thank you for dealing with such a difficult question.

[@somephotovideos]

I love the reference to that Alfred Hitchcock video and using it to demonstrate the differences between narrative film editing and photography image sequencing. As someone who's been editing "motion pictures" my entire adult life, it's been exciting to combine both forms into the videos I'm making on my channel. I love the idea of KZbin becoming a place where photographers and filmmakers can create mixed media content that's experimenting with moving pictures and photos, sound and music to create new work. Also, quit showing all of these amazing photo books because my time spent on eBay has quadrupled since I started watching your videos 🤣

[@pixelnoir]

Thanks! would you talk about Nobuyoshi Araki on sequencing sometime?

[@Christian_from_Copenhagen]

Thanks, the last book and the reference to Koyaanisqatsi made me wonder what that film would look like as a photo book, given the film's clear structure but lack of narrative in the conventional sense. I have yet to see the two sequels, but Koya made a big impact on me when I first saw it.

[@HHCronikO]

14:50/ I think you're right. The colourful Mount Fuji preceeding the colourful, fully marketable shots of people in that pornified emotional comunication of advertisments, speaks to me about the comodification of nature. At that point, even before the apearence of the white house shots and Nixon, I've already got a strong sense of an anticapitalist outlook. The strong primitive effort that seemed to emanate from the firsts sequences, the flight and the waves, the laborers under the mid day sun, leading up to TINA, market fundamentalism, the consumer and spectacle society. Then, Industry against nature, man against world. And the defining coda: the whore and the fighter composing both sides of the complex Gioconda smile, complicit and contemptuous of our overlords and their bussiness meetings, sailing away in the vast sea of history, alone. My read is that of a pessimistic fable. More specific and material in it's thesis than Koyaanisqatsi, but in principle, simbolically commenting on the succes of capital and consumerism in atomizing society.

[@Raevenswood]

The Kuleshov effect is relevant to an extent but I think something that explains the greater meaning that photographs take on as they are juxtaposed with one another is a book by Douglas Holleley called “Photo-Editing and Presentation: A Guide to Image Editing and Presentation for Photographers and Visual Artists (Photo-Developing)”. He goes into detail about modes of logic ie: form, location, subject, genre, metaphor/symbolism in regard to sequencing images and he goes into great detail about the 3rd effect. The title sounds really "how too" but there is a great deal of theory in the book. I recommend.

[@neilgenower9950]

Still photography sequences allow the viewer to ponder the possibilities, whereas film editing moves the viewer on, only giving the viewer time to process the images in relation to the next cut. Consequently, still image sequences can have a variety of meanings, like the Hitchcock example. If the shot of Hitchcock smiling cut to the shot of the girl in a bikini then cut to a shot of hitchcock being joined by his smiling wife, the sequence would be conclusive, up to that point at least.

[@dodahlberg]

I just watched the Aperture video re: the Sleepwalking edition of the magazine. At the end, you mentioned you don't have many women subscribed to your channel. I must be one of the few. I've watched all your programs and look forward to them. You are correct, too many gear-head videos and not not enough content. That's why I'm here. I'll make more of an effort to comment.

[@AlecSothYouTube]

Thank you Dorie, very much appreciated

[@nedrelow]

❤ Also brought to mind the Malraux and Le Musee Imaginaire de la Sculpture Mondiale… and the importance of early photography’s ability to document sculpture, or trying to bring a 3d thing into 2d.. or far off monumental places

[@LloydSpencer]

Alec, have you had a look at and a read of "Another Way of Telling"... John Berger and Jean Mohr ?

[@AlecSothYouTube]

Yes, actually quote it in my most recent book, A Pound of Pictures

[@Michelle_Wellbeck]

The only surrealist photo sequences book I've seen is "Droit de Regards" by Plissart (warning that it's not safe for work) which I found wonderfully evocative, the idea that no two people will recount the same story out of the same sequence of images. Does anyone have any suggestions for other mysterious photo sequence books?

[@robertplautz9722]

the young Japanese woman in A Fine Day is Yamaguchi Momoe, singing sensation and film star etc of the 1970s. very famous photographs of her. i believe she sang for just a couple of years, and then retired after her marriage. some of the best popular music to come from Japan, a woman with beautiful voice control and maturity. other photos are of Japanese politicians etc from the early 1970s, including Prime Minister Kakue Tanaka

[@AlecSothYouTube]

Thanks!

[@markrammers8406]

I find it fascinating how Mr. Hitchcock's words about the smile come together in Mr. Shinoyama's book when Mona Lisa looks at the fatigued fighter, where this fighter gives Mona Lisa almost sadistic characteristics.

[@theghostsofgiants]

"A Fine Day" kind of reminded me of the book version of Chris Marker's "La Jetée"

[@katekirkwood6980]

Just watched your conversation with Michael Famighetti on your guest editorship of Aperture magazine and just thought to wave as a woman who subscribes and enjoys and is inspired by your blog-type videos on KZbin. We are out here.

[@AlecSothYouTube]

So so appreciated Kate!

[@Gellyvision]

As you've talked about the Kuleshov effect, fancy taking a trip to Soviet Montage? #sergeieisenstein

[@gabrielbenaim5820]

Interesting to compare the Shinoyama w Paul Graham's Empty Heaven, which is in itself an interesting book in terms of editing and repetition.

[@nanoulandia]

Female photographer here! I recently found your channel and love the topics you are covering. I am about to finish a Master degree in photography and I am very interested about how other photographers approach projects and, of course, sequencing. I had seen the Hitchcock video as part of my studies but had never heard of the photobook narrative as surreal. Definitely food for thought.

[@AlecSothYouTube]

And thanks for being here

[@DipinChenayil]

Thank you for this!! 🙏

[@9tusu761]

Thanks! Pretty sure that 1975 was Gerald Ford's White House?

[@guillermoquintanilla8374]

Thank you!

[@majki3144]

Respect that you check this video with mr Hitchcock

[@stephen_mcateer]

Cheers.

[@richardvincil6988]

👍