OK, so now we are getting to the nub.
Hint was, that a photo should have a purpose, relevance, and interest. What you are shooting at the moment are typical hobby shots; exercises in technique, shot not to a brief, or for any specific audience, but for your own pleasure. This is not really 'portfolio' material, or 'Presentation' material; and as a record of your own progress.. its not really 'work book' stuff either.... yet...
My daughter is doing her GCSE photography at school; she has an A3 scrap-book, she has to take in every lesson; each lesson, teacher gives the a 'brief' to shoot to; something like, "The theme is 'Texture'.. shoot 25 photo's to show how you might capture texture; provide a contact sheet of the full set, and three 5x4's from the set, fully critiqued, explaining your objective & set-up and technique for that photo. And that's what goes onto a two-page spread of her 'Work-Book'.. the theme, the 25 picture contact sheet, three notable photo's from the set.. and EXPLANATION of them. that's the key thing.
Purpose of a Work-Book, is to record your work; success AND failure.. you don't chuck out all the duffers just to make it look like you were an innate natural talent straight fro the start! Purpose is to keep track of your exercises, what you were trying to achieve, how you tried to achieve it, what worked, what didn't.. for your OWN reference.. or perhaps for a tutor/mentor in academic study. And You'll often learn more from the duffers that did't work, than you will from the odd shot that did.. and them's the ones you ent put on flikr, are they?
If that is where you are at, and what you want to create, then; go back to disc and dig out the duffers that go with the photo's you put on flikr; look at each 'set'; try and remember what you were trying to achieve, and state your 'brief', then self critique the shots you got from it..... and there is no shame in serendipity!* IF you didn't know what you were doing SAY SO.. don't make up a brief to explain the photo, recognise where you have got stuff by lucky accident, and SAY SO. Its the explanation of the photo, that is MORE important than the photo; Context; Relevance, REASON. Explain your photo's to your 'audience'... which in this case is YOU, so you know why you took it, how you took it, and whether its worked or not.
Having gone through what you already got, and put the words by them to explain them... duffers included....next step, before you pick the camera back up and carry on snapping, is to set your brief; define the experiment THEN go try and fill it.. you don't HAVE to stick to it, and you can always make another; but, the 'leap' is to move away from 'hobby' snapping, and shooting, like a pro, 'to order'.. even though you are 'comisioning' your self!
Make sense?
*Serendipity-Photography
I come from Film. We had to wait until the film had been developed to see our photo's; and we were never TOO sure what we might get. Which for me was a large part of the joy; the anticipation and the 'surprise'.. even if it was that the shot DID just 'work'! Something that's bee lost in digital, I think. Possibly why I still shoot the odd roll of out-of-date film, in cranky old cameras that possibly have sticky shutters, or perished light-seals and stuff! But still.... it's the spirit and ethos that Lomo slapped a brand name on and flogged to the Hipster generation.. to be perverted, when that generation jumped on £5 film cameras, I remember being pretty 'high end' serious film cameras, and calling them 'Lomo' just 'cos they are cheap, and can slap 'cheap' out of date emulsion in them! BUT.. that takes us off on another topic... Point is, that 'Serendipity-Photography' existed a long time before Lomo came along, and added punk, anarchic 'Just Do it' attitude to it. BUT, still merit in it, and a lot of fun to be found, JUST having a crack and seeing what you get, and sometimes enjoying your mistakes.. and learning to be had, IF you analyse why the 'mistake' made the photo.
