Step 2 – Clustering Details

Once you have generated a list of details you need to organize them.

Read through your Step 1 list of detail sentences. Every time you find a detail sentence with a common subject, copy and paste it into a special sub-list. So if you have several sentences with the subject “little girl,” copy them into their own list. The easiest way to do this is go through your complete Step 1 list and color code every subject, then go back and copy out all the ones with the same color.

Make sure that anytime you have called the same thing two different things [that’s why I urge you in step one to use the same words for the same thing] put them into the same cluster. So if you called it “a 2-story white building” three times and “white stucco building” twice – you should have five sentences in that cluster. This will be the case most often with people. You may have 3 sentences with “reclining man” as the subject and 2 others that have “he” as the subject but he refers to the reclining man. Put them all together. DO NOT put things together that seem the same but really aren’t. If two sentences have ‘tall woman’ and one has ‘tall woman’s black hair’ – don’t put them together yet. They have different subjects. We will deal with that in step 4.

The end result will be several smaller lists – one for each key term that repeats itself. In the typical images we have been looking at there can be anywhere from 4-5 to 8-10, or more sometimes. A lot of this will depend upon how you generate your details. But a lot of this is built into the image – after all there are a certain number of things at minimum in the scene.

After you have finished, you may find some singles left over – sentences that all have different subjects than each other or the clusters. These are generally small things. Put these sentences in a cluster labeled SINGLES.

What follows is an example that might make this all clearer:

The following example is in response to the picture “Beggar”under Photography > General.

First identify the subjects of each sentence -

Step 1

  1. A naked baby girl is laying down on her back on the side of an elevated walk way.
  2. She lays down with her hands are crossed on her chest and her legs are crossed at the ankles.
  3. A big damaged white metal mug sits beside the baby girl.
  4. A short haired woman with a black short skirt walks by the baby.
  5. shelooks at the baby.
  6. Next to her, a beautiful well dressed woman with white high heel shoes walking with her big step.
  7. Green trees line the sidewalk below the elevated walkway.
  8. The wonderfully coiffuredblack hairof the well dressed woman sags over her white dress on her right shoulder
  9. The well dressed womanstands up straight.
  10. She carries a small black purse on her left hand.
  11. A young man walks down the stairs behind the two women.
  12. He carries a big bag on his left shoulder.
  13. He is wearing a white and a blue t-shirt and a blue pants.
  14. The short haired womankeeps going her way carrying a black bag in her left hand.
  15. Next to the man, a young smiling woman walks.
  16. Behind them tall thin buildings with small windows rise up.

Now go back through and copy all the ones out with the same Subject and copy them into a small separate list that is labeled –

Step 2

baby girl

  1. A naked baby girl is laying down on her back on the side of an elevated walk way.
  2. She lays down with her hands are crossed on her chest and her legs are crossed at the ankles.

short haired woman

  1. A short haired woman with a black short skirt walks by the baby.
  2. shelooks at the baby.
  3. The short haired womankeeps going her way carrying a black bag in her left hand.

well dressed woman

  1. Next to her, a beautiful well dressed woman with white high heel shoes walking with her big step.
  2. The well dressed womanstands up straight.
  3. She carries a small black purse on her left hand.

young man

  1. A young man walks down the stairs behind the two women.
  2. He carries a big bag on his left shoulder.
  3. He is wearing a white and a blue t-shirt and a blue pants.

everything with only one sentence, put together under the title Singles

singles

  1. big damaged white metal mug sits beside the baby girl.
  2. Green trees line the sidewalk below the elevated walkway.
  3. The wonderfully coiffuredblack hairof the well dressed woman sags over her white dress on her right shoulder.
  4. Next to the man, a young smiling woman walks.
  5. Behind them tall thin buildings with small windows rise up.

the number of sentences in Step 1 and in Step 2 should be the same – and each sentence should read the same – this is simply an organizational step