Gifts of the Well and the Field

Theodor Paues

Theodor Paues is a Swedish amateur photographer, based in Stockholm. He is the host of a Swedish bi-weekly podcast about landscape photography. When not shooting, he runs a public affairs consultancy. He’s married with two children.

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Imagine you were forced to choose. Either you had to do all your future photography in just one single location, or every photo you take would have to be at a new place, for the rest of your life. What would you choose?

Thankfully, few of us are forced to make such a definitive choice. But all photographers must make some version of it. How wide or narrow should the scope of my photography be? Should I work within tight and well-defined boundaries – for example only particular types of images, in just some specific location? Or should I throw a wider net, trying a bit of everything? Maybe seascapes one day, macros of flowers the other.

I call these two approaches The Well and The Field, going deep or going wide. I believe most photographers do a bit of both, and many of us probably are not even thinking about it. We just shoot things we are attracted to, and sometimes we are attracted to the same things and the same locations, and sometimes not.