Photographing a plant as it grows
A plant is the test case for whether a progress series is worth keeping. Nothing visible happens between one day and the next, and then you look at March beside September and it is a different plant.
01
Mark the pot and mark the floor
Plants get turned towards the light, and a turned plant photographs as a different shape. A small mark on the pot and a spot on the floor gives you the same view every time — the single highest-value thing on this page, and it takes a minute once.
02
Daylight, never a ceiling light
Leaves are translucent and colour shifts hard under artificial light, so a series shot at mixed times reads as colour change rather than growth. The same window at the same hour keeps green looking like green.
03
Every two weeks beats every day
Daily photographs of a plant are almost all identical and make the playback drag. Fortnightly is where each frame differs from the last, which is what makes a sequence feel like motion instead of a slideshow.
Fortnightly, and through the winter
The dormant months are the ones people stop photographing, and they are also what makes spring legible when it arrives. Keep the empty frames — a series with gaps in it still plays.