Shaping the Next Two Years of Portfolio Work
For the past several months, my photography practice has been less about producing finished images and more about listening—to the work, to the patterns emerging in my contact sheets, and to the quiet tension between what I’m drawn to and what I resist. That listening phase is intentional. I expect it will take another 4 to 6 months of experimentation and introspection before I can confidently commit to the final 2 to 4 portfolios I’ll pursue over the next 2 years.
This long runway is by design. As I outlined in Three Sessions a Week for 105 Weeks, I’m not interested in short-term output or reactive projects. I’m interested in building bodies of work that can stand together, speak clearly, and reflect a coherent way of seeing.
Recently, one name has kept resurfacing as both an anchor and a compass: Henri Cartier-Bresson.
Not as a style to copy—but as a framework to think with.
Henri as a Reference Point, Not a Destination
Cartier-Bresson’s work has become a calibration tool for me. Not because I want my photographs to look like his, but because his practice was built on principles that feel increasingly relevant as I shape my own portfolios.
- Observation over intervention
- Respect for the integrity of the frame
- An understanding that photography is as much about restraint as it is about reaction
- A belief that meaning emerges when head, eye, and heart align
These ideas already run through much of my writing and shooting, particularly in how I think about situational awareness, walking as a photographic method, and the discipline of a fixed field of view.
At the same time, Henri’s work exposes the gaps in my own practice—and those gaps are instructive.
One Portfolio Taking Shape: Abstract Street Photography
I’ve been clear, at least provisionally, that one of my potential portfolios will live in the space of abstract street photography. This work grows out of moments when light goes flat, when gesture disappears, and when structure, rhythm, and fragmentation take over.
I’ve written about this tension in Building an Abstract Street Portfolio: Alignment Without Imitation, and it remains a space where I feel both energized and uncertain. That uncertainty is healthy. It tells me the work isn’t resolved yet.
Henri rarely worked abstractly, but his sensitivity to geometry, timing, and visual tension sits quietly beneath much abstract street work—even when the human figure disappears. In that sense, this project feels less like a departure from Cartier-Bresson and more like a contemporary echo of his compositional discipline.
Still, time will tell whether this portfolio survives the final cut. I’m leaving that door intentionally open.
The Counterweight: A Documentarian / Photojournalist Project
Where Henri’s influence presses most directly on my thinking is in my growing inclination toward a documentarian or photojournalist-driven project—one that could act as a counterbalance to abstraction.
- I don’t see this as a contradiction.
- I see it as necessary.
If abstraction is about distillation and ambiguity, documentary work is about clarity, context, and responsibility. Henri understood this deeply. His photojournalism didn’t chase spectacle; it observed consequence. He photographed what happened around events, not just the events themselves.
This resonates strongly with my interest in photo essays, narrative structure, and long-form observation. Much of this thinking already lives in posts like How to Build a LIFE Magazine Photo Essay and Getting Started in Photojournalism. Still, I haven’t yet committed to a sustained documentary project with the same seriousness I’ve brought to my street work.
That may be about to change.
Environmental Portraiture and the 28mm Question
Another persistent thread is Henri’s environmental portraiture. These were not studio constructions. They were collaborations with place—portraits that revealed something about how a person occupied space.
This aligns naturally with my long-term commitment to the 28mm field of view, explored in Finding Style in the Street and Faces of Toronto. The 28mm lens demands proximity, awareness, and participation. It doesn’t let you hide.
Environmental portraiture at 28mm feels like a logical extension of that philosophy. Less about faces in isolation and more about presence, context, and relationship.
At the same time, I’m becoming increasingly open to breaking my self-imposed 28mm constraint when working in a documentarian or photojournalist context. Henri himself was pragmatic. The idea was never allegiance to a focal length—it was fidelity to the moment.
If a story requires stepping back with a longer lens or going wider to situate a subject within chaos, then the tool should serve the work. I’ve already begun exploring this flexibility in projects like Friday Night Lights and Stepping Back: A Day With a 200mm Prime.
This feels less like abandoning discipline and more like earning the right to bend it.
Toward Fewer Projects, Deeper Commitment
What Henri ultimately offers me isn’t a checklist of genres to pursue—it’s permission to slow down and commit deeply.
Over the next few months, my task isn’t to make quick decisions. It’s to pay attention.
- Which projects continue to pull me back into the street
- Which ones deepen my understanding of the city rather than decorate it
- Which bodies of work feel necessary, not just interesting
By the time I arrive at my final two to four portfolios, I want them to feel inevitable.
- Not because they’re fashionable.
- Not because they perform well online.
- But because they reflect a way of seeing I’ve earned through time, walking, restraint, and attention.
That, more than any aesthetic trait, is what I take from Henri Cartier-Bresson—and what I hope will quietly shape the next two years of my work.