The afterlife of your 'killed darlings': Crafting a narrative beyond the series

Part 6 in the series 'Long-Term Photography Projects'

What to do with single images that do not fit in a body of work?

The process of selection is like wielding a sculptor's chisel in the field of long-term photographic projects, where each image becomes a brushstroke on the canvas of a larger narrative. With every masterpiece, however, there are those beloved images - your 'darlings' - that, for reasons both practical and artistic, may not find a home within the chosen series. So here we take a thoughtful journey into the afterlife of these 'killed darlings', exploring the many possibilities that breathe new life into these unsung heroes of the photographic process.

But first, let’s start with a personal story from my Burnout project:

So, I was working on this photo project about burnout. Trying to capture the feeling of being totally drained but still pushing through. Anyway, I had this one photo that was just... different. It was like a stroke of boldness in the middle of all these muted, moody shots.

But…