A few months into the project, I got very interested in the idea of rules for their own sake. It was [[The things I thought this project was about|One of the things I thought this project was about.]] One of the rules that seemed easiest to break was to only take one photo at every stop. I got twisted into a knot thinking about whether or not purposing to break the rules made the rules themselves pointless. Of course, a rule you purely give yourself to constrain your art is already rather pointless. So, I was worried about making it even more pointless. ![[3699.jpg]] *[[Stop Number 3699]]* Setting these metatextual issues aside, at this point in the project, I had followed the same routine enough that it felt like an actual transgression to take more than one image. [[Treating digital like film]] has become one of my most precious methods of accomplishing digital fine art photography. Or, at least, photography I felt good about spending my time doing. To give it up lightly with ten images at one bus stop felt like a big step outside the norms I had established for myself. ![[3699-2.jpg]] *[[Stop Number 3699-2]]* I chose ten photographs because the freedom to make as many images as I want at a bus stop made me woozy. In other words, restricting myself to *one* feels as though I must work hard to make the *best image I can see.* Forcing myself to make ten feels like it pushes me towards seeing as many possible compositions as possible. To say "I'll just keep photographing until I run out of ideas" is how I end up doing strange things like [[creating 840 photographs of a shopping cart corral|creating 840 photographs of a shopping cart corral]]. ![[3699-3.jpg]] *[[Stop Number 3699-3]]* These images are in chronological order— the peaches were the first image I made, and I actually think this was one of the less interesting compositions I ended up with. One of those "look, a thing" photographs that reveal nothing more or less than the thing shown. In this case, road peaches. I moved on to other subject matter. I chose to throw ten photos at the wall at this stop because the light was decent, the surroundings were interesting, and the reflective puddle against the blue sky was pleasant to me. ![[3699-4.jpg]] *[[Stop Number 3699-4]]* If the desired output from this project is good photographs, I'm not sure how close I got to that goal when making these ten. I'm a strong believer in the [[hit-ratio]] of photographs, that any photographer is going to make a vast ocean of mediocre work in comparison to the substantial work. The same holds for writing (the evidence is all over the page). Yet, the question becomes, does increasing the output tenfold within a narrow span of time necessarily yield more "hits"? ![[3699-5.jpg]] *[[Stop Number 3699-5]]* A necessary precondition for that to even possibly be true is that ten unique ideas must be represented among this collection of closely-spaced photographs. As you might have guessed so far, I don't think I rose to the challenge of representing ten unique compositional or thematic ideas from the anchor-point of a bus stop. There is only so many ideas one can represent in a sad, post-industrial semi-wasteland corner of Richmond. Put another way, one cannot let the shutter loose ten times on a nearly identical composition and expect that, by making ten photos, one must be good. ![[3699-6.jpg]] *[[Stop Number 3699-6]]* So, in order to attempt to get at least one or two decent images, I forced myself into making photographs like the one above- grass and mushroom. I can still remember what I was trying to do, I just don't think it's particularly interesting. There is the echo of the contour of the mushroom relative to the car tire above, there is some contrasting light and dark, but the texture of out-of-focus grass just screams to me of my earliest experiences in digital photography when I was in high school. It's a weird and distasteful bokeh soup. ![[3699-7.jpg]] *[[Stop Number 3699-7]]* This decathlon of image making in one site reveals one of the main tensions of this project: [[Is it practice, or is it art?]] The fact that I sit down now to write about it, to push it out into the world, seems to skew it towards "art." Had I left all these photographs "undeveloped" and unremarked upon, it may just be practice. Of course, just because I publish it and invite your viewing eyes to consider it does not make it good art. Curation is necessary, and I have a hard time asking people to care about something that I gave no more than a few minutes of time and attention to. ![[3699-8.jpg]] *[[Stop Number 3699-8]]* I think what I struggle to account for is that sometimes people like photographs that I have no strong feelings toward myself. Sometimes people enjoy listening to the things I've said or written and it wasn't something I preciously picked over before sharing in the world. I struggle to account for it because I really enjoy making pictures. I somewhat enjoy writing. I leave a lot of it unshown and unpublished- is this selfish? Am I hoarder or overly prideful of my work by *not* showing it? ![[3699-9.jpg]] *[[Stop Number 3699-9]]* I used to make photographs like the image above of the grass and the puddle and think that everyone should see it, and having seen it, appreciate it, and having appreciated it, appreciate me. I feel no strong compulsion along those lines any more. Yet, having swung away from the need to justify myself by what I can make, I'm left with quiet questions like "well, then, what should I do with all these pictures?" The strange website you find yourself on is one answer to that question. There may be [[What should I do with these pictures?|Other answers to that question.]] ![[3699-10.jpg]] *[[Stop Number 3699-10]]* Having made ten photographs at one stop was basically a microcosm of all the issues faced at other places in the project. The project [[The things I thought this project was about|is partially about making images for the joy of making images.]] After I made these ten photographs, I struggled to asses their relative worth or lack of worth because they certainly fulfilled the mandate of being made at a bus stop. I even kinda liked some of them. Were they lesser for breaking that loosely-held rule of "no more than ten images at a stop?" I don't think so. But, I don't think they had much heft to them to begin with, so wherever their value lands I'm not sure. I hope you enjoy the photos above. —Nick Seitz, July 28, 2025