Chapter 38 — Exercises

A long-term project is learned by doing one, so most of these exercises ask you to choose a subject, return to it, sequence frames, and — above all — edit. Several deliberately give you no camera at all, because the hardest skills in this chapter (choosing a subject, killing a darling, ordering a sequence) are skills of judgment, not capture. Difficulty is marked ⭐ (warm-up), ⭐⭐ (core), ⭐⭐⭐ (stretch). Do the starred and odd-numbered ones at minimum; model answers and critiques for those live in the book's Answers to Selected Exercises. Keep everything — your mini-essay feeds the Portfolio, and your editing notebook will sharpen every project you ever make.

A reminder before you start: in this chapter, cutting is the skill. If an exercise asks you to reduce twenty frames to five, the value is entirely in the five you remove, not the five you keep. Resist the urge to keep more.

Part A — Finding a subject (Eye Training, no camera needed)

Exercise 38.1 ⭐ — The three-question screen. List five possible long-term project subjects from your own life and surroundings. For each, score it 0–2 on the three questions of §38.2: access (can you reach it repeatedly with no plan?), sustainability (will it still surprise you in month six?), and care (do you honestly feel a pull toward it?). Total each. The point isn't the math — it's noticing how many "interesting" ideas die on access or care. Which subject scored highest, and was it the one you expected to choose? Write one sentence on the gap between the subject you expected to win and the one that actually did; that gap is where most abandoned projects live.

Exercise 38.2 ⭐ — Topic → subject conversion. Here are five abstract topics: memory, work, loneliness, belonging, change. For each, write one concrete, accessible, recurring subject that contains it and that you could photograph on a Tuesday afternoon (e.g., "loneliness → the all-night laundromat on my corner"). The skill is converting the un-photographable into the photographable.

Exercise 38.3 ⭐⭐ — Write three working hypotheses. Pick your top subject from 38.1 and write three different one-sentence working hypotheses for it — three different bets about what the project might be about. (A harbor could be about "a place of work," "the men who outlast the industry," or "the light at the end of the day on water.") Notice how each hypothesis would send you toward different frames. You don't have to commit; you're learning that one subject contains many possible projects.

Exercise 38.4 ⭐⭐⭐ — The sustainability stress test. Take a subject you're tempted by but suspect is too thin (a single statue, a building façade, one object). Write out, honestly, every source of variation it offers over a year — season, weather, time of day, events, people, decay, light. If you can't list at least four genuine sources of change, the subject is an exercise, not a project. Either find the variation you missed, or reframe the subject to include some (the statue alone is thin; "the statue and the people who pass it" is a project).

Part B — Shooting the project (Shoot This)

Exercise 38.5 ⭐ — The first return. Choose your project subject and photograph it twice in one week, on two different days, in two different conditions. Make at least ten frames each visit. The only goal is to begin the habit of return and to feel how the second visit already differs from the first — you'll notice you've started photographing past the obvious.

Exercise 38.6 ⭐⭐ — One subject, five returns, five constraints. Over two to three weeks, return to your subject five times, each visit under a different self-imposed constraint: (1) only wide frames; (2) only tight details; (3) only at one specific time of day; (4) only the people (or only the absence of people); (5) free choice. Keep everything. This builds the project and rehearses the "change the constraint" tactic of §38.5 before you ever hit a plateau.

Exercise 38.7 ⭐⭐ — Shoot the four roles on purpose. In a single session, deliberately try to make one frame for each role of §38.3: an establish (wide, scene-setting), two develop frames (closer, the texture and the people), a potential turn (something that complicates or surprises), and a resolve (a closing, quieter frame). Don't worry if they're not great — the exercise is thinking in roles while you shoot, which changes what you point the camera at.

Exercise 38.8 ⭐⭐⭐ — The pairing hunt. Across one or more visits, deliberately make pairs: two frames meant to sit next to each other and create meaning in the gap. Make at least three pairs — one echo (same shape/gesture, two subjects), one contrast (two opposed frames), and one cause-and-effect (a face, then what it's looking at). Lay each pair side by side. Write one sentence on what meaning appears between the two frames that isn't in either alone.

Part C — Sequencing (Read the Frame & build)

Exercise 38.9 ⭐ — Diagram a sequence you admire. Find a published photo essay (a magazine photo story, a photographer's project page, a photobook you can flip through). Map its first eight frames to the four roles of §38.3 — mark which is establish, which develop, where the turn falls, where it resolves. Note: does it follow the shape, break it, or repeat roles? You're learning to see structure in finished work.

Exercise 38.10 ⭐⭐ — Sequence the same frames two ways. Take six to eight of your own frames from Part B. Arrange them into a sequence twice — two genuinely different orders. Write one sentence describing how the story or feeling changes between the two orders. This is the core lesson of §38.3 made physical in your own hands: same frames, different essay.

Exercise 38.11 ⭐⭐ — Open and close. From your project frames, choose your single strongest opener and your single strongest closer — and justify each in two sentences: what the opener establishes and how it sets mood; what the closer leaves the viewer with. Then build the middle to connect them. Choosing the bookends first (as §38.3 advises) often makes the rest of the sequence obvious.

Exercise 38.12 ⭐⭐⭐ — Find your turn. Lay out all your project frames and identify the turn — the one image that, placed two-thirds through, would recast everything before it. If you don't have one yet, that's diagnostic: go shoot for it specifically (the empty slip, the sign, the face that reveals the project's real subject). Write what your turn does to the frames before it, and confirm by placing it both early and late — it should be far more powerful late.

Part C2 — Read the Frame & Recreate It

Exercise 38.13 ⭐⭐ — Critique a described essay (Read the Frame). Read Figure 38.3 in the chapter ("Last season at the slip," the six-frame harbor mini-essay). Treat it as a finished sequence and critique it using §38.3: (a) name which role each of the six frames plays; (b) identify the single most important frame and say why; (c) name one pairing in the sequence and the meaning that appears in the gap between the two frames; and (d) propose one change — a frame to add, cut, or reorder — and defend it. You are practicing on a described essay the exact judgment you'll apply to your own.

Exercise 38.14 ⭐⭐⭐ — Recreate a master's essay form (Recreate It). Study the constructed "country doctor" essay in Case Study 38.1 (Figure CS38.1) — not its subject, its form (establish → develop → turn → resolve, with at least one quiet "small" frame for rhythm). Now recreate that form with a completely different, accessible subject of your own over a few returns: a barista's shift, a grandparent's afternoon, a janitor's round, a market stall's morning. Six frames, the same four roles, the same use of a quiet beat to set up the turn. The challenge is to borrow the structure, not the content — proving the form is a transferable tool.

Exercise 38.15 ⭐⭐ — Five conditions, one project frame (Five Conditions). Take one spot or subject inside your project and photograph it under five different conditions: (1) soft/overcast light, (2) hard/direct light, (3) a wide establishing scale, (4) a tight detail scale, and (5) with a person present vs. absent. Lay the five out and self-select the two that would most likely earn a place in the final essay — and say which role each would fill. This trains you to see how many different frames a single subject yields, which is the raw material a sequence is built from.

Part D — Editing (the central skill)

Exercise 38.16 ⭐⭐ — The over-cull to five. Take twenty or more frames of one subject and edit to exactly five that tell the clearest story in sequence. The constraint is the lesson. Then — the part that actually teaches editing — write one sentence for each cut frame from your top ten explaining why it didn't make it. (Reasons should include: redundant beat, breaks rhythm, off the through-line, weaker version of a frame I kept.)

Exercise 38.17 ⭐⭐ — Kill a darling, on the record. Identify the single most beautiful individual frame in your project — the one you'd print huge. Now ask honestly: does it serve the essay's through-line, or does it pull the viewer out? If it doesn't fit, cut it from the essay and write a paragraph on what made it hard to cut and why the essay is stronger without it. (If it genuinely fits, find the next-most-beautiful frame that doesn't, and do the exercise on that one.) Almost every project has at least one darling to kill.

Exercise 38.18 ⭐⭐ — The four-pass edit, written down. Run your project frames through the four passes of Figure 38.4 and record the count after each pass: Cull (everything → possible), Selects (possible → strong on quality), Through-line (strong → serves the story), Sequence (order). Note specifically which frames died in Pass 3 (the through-line pass) that survived Pass 2 (the quality pass). Those frames — strong but off-spine — are the heart of what editing teaches.

Exercise 38.19 ⭐⭐⭐ — The borrowed eye. Show your select-set (after Pass 2) to someone whose judgment you trust, without telling them the story you intend. Ask only: "What is this about? Which frame is strongest? Which one doesn't belong?" Record their answers and compare to your own edit. Where they diverge from you is where you were editing from memory of the day rather than what's on the screen. Revise your edit using what you learned, and note what changed.

Exercise 38.20 ⭐ — The redundancy purge. Lay out your project frames and find every pair that does the same job (same scale, same subject, same beat in the story). For each pair, choose the stronger and cut the other. Count how many frames you removed purely for redundancy. Redundancy is the silent killer of essays; this purge alone tightens most sets dramatically.

Part E — Fix the Photo (diagnose and prescribe)

Exercise 38.21 ⭐⭐ — Fix the flat essay. A described essay: eight frames of a farmers' market, all shot wide, all at chest height, all at midday, in roughly the same order of stalls. The photographer says "it's boring and I don't know why." Diagnose the problem using §38.3, then prescribe the specific re-shoot — what to vary and why.

Exercise 38.22 ⭐⭐ — Fix the highlight reel. A described essay: twelve genuinely stunning frames of a mountain region — each could be a print — but viewers say "nice photos" and move on; no one is moved. What's wrong (hint: Pass 2 vs. Pass 3), and what's the fix? Be specific about what a through-line would do here and how to find one.

Exercise 38.23 ⭐⭐⭐ — Fix the dead middle. A described situation: a photographer is four months into a project on their grandmother, has stopped going, and says "I've made every picture there is." Diagnose what's actually happening (§38.5) and prescribe three concrete constraint-changes that could crack the project open. Then say what signal in the existing frames they should look for to find the project's true subject.

Part F — Settings & production drills

Exercise 38.24 ⭐⭐ — The consistency settings choice. You're starting a year-long project you'll shoot whenever you pass the subject. In a short paragraph, decide and justify: which one camera will you use for the whole project, and why does consistency matter more than picking the "best" camera for any single frame? (Reference §38.2's Gear Note — what does a project shot on a different camera every week read as?)

Exercise 38.25 ⭐⭐ — Spec a zine. Plan an eight-page zine of a 6–8 frame essay (one frame per spread, plus a title page and a statement page). Sketch the running order, mark where the page-turn does work (a reveal, a pause), and write the title and a two-sentence statement. You don't have to print it — but specifying it forces every sequencing decision to become real.

Exercise 38.26 ⭐⭐⭐ — Spec a wall. Plan a wall (or hallway) hang of the same essay: decide print sizes, what hangs beside what, what a viewer sees first from across the room, and what pulls them in close. Note how the sequencing decision changes when it becomes spatial rather than page-by-page. Which frames need to be big? Which survive small?

Part G — Reflection and Portfolio

Exercise 38.27 ⭐ — Build the Portfolio Checkpoint essay. Complete this chapter's Portfolio Checkpoint: shoot, edit, and sequence a 5–8 image mini photo-essay on one subject; give it a title and a two-sentence statement; add the strongest 2–3 frames to your Portfolio folder as a labeled set. This is the chapter's keeper and likely the narrative heart of your eventual capstone.

Exercise 38.28 ⭐⭐ — Write the statement last. After your essay is fully edited and sequenced, write its artist statement — and notice that you can now say what the project is about far more clearly than you could before shooting. Write two versions: one of 25 words, one of 75. The discipline of the short version forces you to name the through-line.

Exercise 38.29 ⭐⭐ — The project drift log. Write down the working hypothesis you started your Portfolio essay with, and the subject the finished essay turned out to actually be about. If they differ (they usually do), describe the drift and what in the frames revealed the truer subject. If they're identical, ask honestly whether you went deep enough — or just stayed on the surface you planned.

Exercise 38.30 ⭐⭐⭐ — Commit to the long one. Choose the one subject you'll commit to as a real long-term project (a month minimum, ideally a year). Write a one-page plan: the subject, the working hypothesis, the return rhythm you'll keep (a specific day/time), your first milestone (a date and a deliverable — a zine, a wall, a 12-frame essay), and the constraint-change you'll try first when you hit the plateau. Sign and date it. This is the most valuable exercise in the chapter, because it's the one that becomes a body of work.

Part H — Interleaved (mixing prior chapters)

Exercise 38.31 ⭐⭐ — Critique your own essay (Ch. 31). Apply the description → analysis → interpretation → judgment vocabulary of Chapter 31 to your whole sequence (not a single frame): describe what the set shows, analyze how the sequence works, interpret what it means, and judge whether it succeeds. Then critique it without ego — name the weakest frame and the weakest join, and fix them.

Exercise 38.32 ⭐⭐ — Light across the project (Ch. 5). Review your project frames for the quality and direction of light (Chapter 5). Is there a consistent light you're drawn to across the set (a recurring soft window light, a recurring hard graphic shadow)? That consistency is an early fingerprint of voice — note it; you'll examine it directly in Chapter 39.

Exercise 38.33 ⭐⭐⭐ — Consent across time (Ch. 32). If your project includes people, write out your ongoing consent plan (Chapter 32): how you'll keep the people in your frames informed and able to revise or withdraw as the months pass, and how that differs from a single one-time release. A long project is a relationship; plan to keep it honest.

Exercise 38.34 ⭐⭐ — Sequence for a channel (Ch. 34). Take your finished essay and sequence it specifically for one presentation channel from Chapter 34 — print/wall, web set, or a feed-fighting online post. Note what you'd change about the order or selection for that channel versus a book. Same essay, different home, different edit.

Stretch challenge

Exercise 38.35 ⭐⭐⭐ — Thirty days, one subject, one essay. For thirty days, photograph one accessible subject on a fixed rhythm (daily if you can, or every other day). Make a Light Log note (Chapter 5 / 37) each time. At day thirty, run the full four-pass edit, build a 10–12 frame essay with a clear establish/turn/resolve, sequence it, title it, and write its statement. Lay day one's frames beside day thirty's. You will see, in your own work, the §38.1 claim made visible: the late frames are about meaning; the early ones were about surface. That gap — produced by nothing but return — is the entire argument of this chapter, proven in your own hands.

Model answers and critiques for the starred and odd-numbered exercises appear in the book's "Answers to Selected Exercises." Try each with a camera — or, for the editing exercises, with your own frames spread out in front of you — before reading them. In a long-term project, the attempt is not just the lesson; the attempt is the project.