Alain Briot Fine Art Photography

2015-2016 Mini-Series
Portfolios

This page features several mini-series completed in 2015 and 2016.

1 - The following Mini Series are available:
Click on the images to view each Mini-Series.

1 - Arbres sans Feuilles	2 - Outils de Ferme	3 - Dessins Rupestres
4 - Bodie	5 - Reflections	6 - Petroglyph Sculptures
	7 - Bristlecones

2 - What is a Mini Series ?
A mini-series is a project that is designed and completed in a very short time. I also call these mini-projects. The two names, mini-series and mini-projects, are interchangeable.

Instead of taking months or years, a mini project takes minutes or hours. On average my mini-projects are completed in one to two hours maximum.

I complete mini-series regularly and this for several reasons.

First, because of its size, limited scope and non-ambitious goals, a mini-project is not stressful or frightening.

Second a mini-project does not offer a chance for procrastination. Because it is the result of immediate inspiration, and because it is thought of in the field, it is a spur of the moment thing that asks to be started and completed immediately. It is this immediacy that takes away the opportunity to procrastinate.

Fourth, because a mini-project has low ambitions, fear of failure is absent. There is no time to consider how the project will be used, if it will be difficult or not, or if it has been done already or not. Plus, since no one but you knows that you are working on this project, the option is there to keep the outcome private if you want.

Fifth, we take more and more photographs due to the ease with which digital photographs can be captured and processed and due to the omnipresent role that photography plays in our lives. The outcome is an ever-increasing number of photographs that we struggle to account for and use in a meaningful way. One solution to this problem is to show our work not as single images but as group of images. Creating mini-series is an attractive option because it offers a simple and creative way of presenting groups of photographs organized in a logical manner around a specific theme.

The size of a mini project depends on my inspiration (superficially or deeply inspired for example), on how much variations I am able to find in the subject (repetitive subjects versus subject with multiple aspects for example), on the subject itself (a single piece of farm equipment or a barn full of different machines for example) and on the time I have available (a few minutes or a couple of hours for example).

One thing that is constant is that I don't have a minimum or a maximum number of photographs in mind when I start. I haven't created a project that consists of a single image so far but that is certainly an option should a subject with such a possibility present itself.

Another constant is that each mini-project is given a unique title. On this page I used French titles to reflect my French heritage and because I like to use French titles for artistic projects.

I also don't have a set idea for how the project will be used. It may end up as an online portfolio like you see here, it may be printed and offered as a small folio, or it can be simply abandoned. Other options may be considered as well such as using the photographs in the context of a larger project, or in a book or an essay for example.