Photography allows so many different outcomes, that we struggle a bit to define or understand them. At best, we can only give loose definitions; we are not building Crossrail. It seems that the word project encompasses the intention to make a group of images, linked in some way.
The link may be either strict or tenuous. The conventional family album (if it still exists) has a rather rigid structure: pictures of members of the family, on notable occasions, arranged in chronological order and often including factual notations ("John, Little Johnny, Gran and Mum at Whitley Bay for Gran's 70th"). There are (or were) fairly strict conventions of posing too – all facing the camera and smiling, with Dad behind the camera and mostly unrecorded. Dear dead days, I fear.
On the other hand, if we believe we are making something creative we may begin with only the loosest sort of plan. Consider Two Blue Buckets, or The Somnambulist. It's difficult to imagine that these began with a fully structured plan, but rather that they grew as they progressed. (Or, progressed as they grew, of course. Words are unruly servants, don't you find?)
A photographer setting out to record dry stone walls might meet a dry stone waller and fall into conversation. The waller may have an interesting tale to tell. He may introduce our photographer to other people of related callings, hurdle-makers perhaps. Our photographer would be made of stone to resist this chance to record remarkable people, their crafts and their lives. The Wall project may metamorphose into Working Hands or a study (– see, another word for a project) of tenant farming.
Even if these are not forthcoming, the information gathered might well feed back into the original project, so that instead of recording the undoubted beauty of these ancient divisions, the work concentrates on different methods of construction. For all I know, experienced wallers may be able to distinguish the work of individual builders by their personal style. The walls may become a background for portraits of their builders. And then the work may even expand to include quotations.
And so on. It's hard to make general rules about creative work
I recently saw some picture of a house for sale near me. Hall, with back-lit stained glass in the door, dining room, lounge, kitchen, breakfast room, bedroom one, all the other bedrooms, the bathroom(s), the garden, the patio and various pictures of the exterior. Far too expensive for me.
All the pictures were decently done, with vertical verticals, accurate-looking colour and carefully-chosen viewpoints. This seems to me to be a kind of pictorial engineering. The objective was easily defined, and a time limit would have been imposed. Presumably a certain level of craft skill would have been expected and delivered.
So, here we have several kinds of project. The family album, open-ended but governed by unspoken rules, the tightly defined and closed-ended house pictures and the open ended creative study of walls. Naturally, I think that the last one is the most demanding and worthwhile.
Perhaps I have banged on for long enough, but a further consideration is what is to happen to the images afterwards.
The family record is a physical album, kept in a safe place and notoriously brought out to embarrass the children when they bring home their first boy- or girlfriend. The estate agent's pictures are currently on the web and may vanish when the house is sold, but the Walls images have multiple possibilities.
They may be shown individually at a camera club, as marking-fodder and be forgotten, which is a pity.
They might be sold to different publications, which is good for the photographer.
They may be exhibited, which raises all sorts of new things to decide – selection, size, framing, matting, captions, arrangement on the available wall space (seldom optimal) and price. An artist's statement may be needed.
Or they may become a book, which imposes the task of precisely sequencing the images and making decisions about bleed and suchlike. A book may demand extended text.
Motivation is another matter and as far as I can see, is entirely personal. The pictures of the house will have been done for money, but where did the motivation to develop those skills come from?
, or it could be to show something that concerns you enough to show through photos why it is of concern, (environmentally)