The Importance Of Concept Development For Projects And Passion Projects

The best thing about my career and why I fell in love with it is seeing your vision come to life, and within that, the creative process that gets you to your end results. When I started photography, I had no knowledge about what concept development is until I enrolled at my current institution. From there onwards, my creative process drastically changed from just shooting, to shooting with intent and purpose, which is what I want most of my work to be built on.

Personal projects or what I like to call them “Passion projects”, are important to have as an artist because they remind us of why we started our journey in the first place. They bring us back to the drive and passion we have for our career within the midst of intense commercialization that leads to our burn out. Most importantly, they continue to sharpen our artistic abilities.

In 2020 doing my first year, I learnt about what a visual diary is. It is the first step to getting shape of your idea as well as a concept development that helps visualize your direction. My visual diaries are how I plan all my shoots, from the research development, down to the styling, the theme of the project, look and feel, angles and poses, lighting diagrams and techniques, and reference images for my subjects.

Research development- 2nd year conceptual development skill

“Research development helps define your message or your intent within a passion project. It helps direct the visual content to what you are trying to say.”

In 2021 during my second year, I sought to strengthen my research development skills, which is an integral part of conceptual development. For example, my personal project titled “Lady in Black” was lacking what I now realize is the most important thing within a photo series or any other passion project, research. Research development helps define your message or your intent within a passion project. It helps direct the visual content to what you are trying to say. This is the first part where you shape your story so that it gets easier when you must start executing it visually with elements that will be in your photos.

Themes- 3rd year conceptual development skill

“Having a theme for your images or rather something that is consistent within your images really helps them to connect and tell a continuous story in all your images.”

Currently in my final year, I have strengthened conceptual development skills such as the aspect of theme development as well as making images connect as a photo series. Having a theme for your images or rather something that is consistent really helps them connect and tell a continuous story. This has really taught me how to strengthen my story telling skills, the work that I produce, as well as the overall process of creating a body of work.

In all my university years, the thing I’m most grateful for is learning how to develop my concepts and shape my creativity to give life to the imaginations I have.