This past Spring I started to put together a sort of visual common place book.
If you are unfamiliar with what a common place book is, it’s a notebook that traditionally houses quotes/writing that a person feels a particularly strong sense of connection to.
By keeping track of the ideas, passages, verses… that really punch you in the gut, you are better able to understand what you like, think, and believe.
It’s also handy for if you tend to use quotes a lot and need to easily find said quotes.
My visual common place book is just a file on my computer that houses stills that I dig.
If I’m watching a movie and see an image that I really like, I’ll take a photo with my phone and transport that image to the respective folder at a later date.
Since I’m taking an image of a monitor or TV with my phone the image is never great, but that’s not the point. I’m more trying to keep track of the blocking, framing, colors, and art direction. The photo is just a reference.
I don’t take a photo for every film I watch, even if that film has excellent photography.
The real purpose behind this collection is to be able to reference the stills for my own projects.The stills that I take are usually taken because I want to replicate them in the future, and by having them at the ready in these organized folders I am setting myself up to do just that.
Also, it’s just plain nifty to see the kinds of things I keep. It really shows the macro view of what I like, which is sometimes hard to figure out.
I think this might be something I do forever, it just seems useful.
And fun.
Like collecting stamps or butterflies.