Do you have a style?

[BillP]

There's been a lot of talk here lately about HCB, Salgado, etc and their styles.

Do you (think you) have a style of your own?

Is it acknowledged as such by others, or are you deluding yourself?

Have you worked to develop a style? If so, do you think you have succeeded? How did you go about it?

Does it matter?

Discuss.

Regards,

Bill

[NB23]

My story about my style is looong. I'm not saying it's unique nor good... It was just hard work.

I think it takes about 10 years for someone to acquire a true, solid style. This still doesn't mean the given style is appealing, though. It only means it's constant and understood.

[Pitxu]

Having a style can mostly be a handicap, limiting, a trap even.

"Oh yeah, your the guy who does them ****** photos."

[Silva Lining]

No pop, no style, strictly roots.....

[rover]

Having a style can mostly be a handicap, limiting, a trap even.

"Oh yeah, your the guy who does them ****** photos."

I guess it can be, but in general I would disagree. One can have a style, a process and all that in which he is comfortable, but not be constrained to only that type of shooting.

A style would allow for growth and improvement in production of a consistent and certain quality of image, but there can always be diversions. If that becomes a handicap, then that is a problem with that individual and his approach.

Have you worked to develop a style?

Absolutely not enough and I am not delusional enough to say that I have. There are images that I like, images that I make that I like tend to be in ballpark of that "style", but I have by no means worked hard enough to even make believe I have a style.

I do a lot of diversions.

[tripod]

I think that everyone has their own style, and that it is constantly evolving, or should be. The more experienced one becomes the more consistent this style becomes, (even as it is still evolving), and the more recognizable it becomes to others. A raw beginner's style is typically all over the board.

The appreciation of different styles is purely subjective.

The big question in my mind is: can a style be consciously developed, or does it just happen on its own? Sure, another photographer's style can be immitated, but one's own style, I think just "becomes" without effort beyond the hard work of improving one's craft.

[bmattock]

No method, no guru, no teacher.

Or, to put it more simply - no. I have no specific style. And that's ok.

[feenej]

Yeah, you need a style. It's like picking a topic for a paper when you are in Jr. High: the narrower the better, otherwise you are just spinning your wheels. This is the most important thing for a photographer who wants to make a contribution to the field.

[Pitxu]

The big question in my mind is: can a style be consciously developed, or does it just happen on its own?

I think the best "styles" are the ones which happen on their own.
One day whilst browsing your contact sheets you might suddenly become aware that a style is developing. It might not even be the style you were chasing, a surprise!

[Silva Lining]

I do think to some extent you need to specialise or standardise your equipment to achieve a style... Although I have differing styles with each camera, I am lucky enough in that use too many different cameras to settle on one 'style'. Having a 'style' is a goal that is not without merit, if that's what you want.

I enjoy exploring a range of styles and equipment, and whilst that may make me 'Jack of all trades and Master of none', its great fun. :)

[MikeL]

My style is high-brow, decisive moment kinda stuff.

[Yammerman]

I think it takes about 10 years for someone to acquire a true, solid style.

A few years ago I read it takes seven years to really get photography and now you've added another three - at this rate I'll be dead before I've got the hang of this game.

I 'm with Pixtu that a style would probabley be limiting. I have yen for detail and the macro as it makes my world bigger but lifes too short to be so restricted. I've also toyed with structured images but jeez how tedious would that become. I am addicted to the sound of the shutter and have realised I am something of a diletantte so everything is up for grabs.

I think my personality and situation dictate my style but given a a different array of subects and a different enviroment I'm sure it would change.

I've too many cameras, lenses and formats to get a consistant look and while I'm going through a servere cull at the moment I'd be suprised to ever reach the one camera/lens senario.


I'm still learning so maybe style comes later.

[bmattock]

Again with the shoe-gazing. Egads.

[nikonhswebmaster]

I think the best "styles" are the ones which happen on their own.
One day whilst browsing your contact sheets you might suddenly become aware that a style is developing. It might not even be the style you were chasing, a surprise!

I would agree, since "style" encomposes so many things... choice of subjects matter, choice of format, printing size, color, etc etc.

Not easy to define when one is taking a journalistic approach (e.g. recording rather than creating fiction or abstraction).

After a lifetime to know if your work is truly individual? Not an easy question unless your work is very narrowly focussed like a Jeff Wall. The vast majority of the time I recognize "style" because of the context, not the content, or I know the work already.

Who knows -- if a body of unsigned Gene Smith work was found, would we know for sure it was his?

[bmattock]

Yeah, you need a style. It's like picking a topic for a paper when you are in Jr. High: the narrower the better, otherwise you are just spinning your wheels. This is the most important thing for a photographer who wants to make a contribution to the field.

That is the funniest thing I've read in a long time. I mean, in a purely horrifying kind of way.

[Matt White]

I have lots of "styles". I'd like to think of this a sign of my limitless artistic versatility. But realistically the ways my shots turn out probably just depend on what I'm trying to photograph, what camera I'm using and whose work I am subconsciously copying this week.

[oftheherd]

If I have a style, I am unaware what it would be. When I can make time, I enjoy taking photos. When in Korea, I used to enjoy taking photos of what I considered their culture or history. Especially of the three kingdoms era. But I don't consider that a style. That was an interest. What is style? Is there a style that hasn't already been done?

[Morca007]

I have no idea. It's a lot easier to identify someone else's 'style' than your own. I think a lot more of it has to do with editing (in selecting which shots to present) than your actual photos.

[anoldsock]

I don't think you can define your own style, or rather it's something that happens that you're not conscious of. It's something that develops based your photographic eye and evolves over time. Sometimes other people relate to it, sometimes it doesn't. It's like your style of dress, you dress a certain way to your preferences and sometimes people like it, others will hate it. It's just something that naturally happens over time as you develop an affinity of shooting one way vs. another.

...so just like how people develop personal style, dress and persona...so does everyone has a photographic style.

[f/stopblues]

I've noticed, especially after walking through a local art fair over the weekend, that the "style" people in this thread are talking about are two different notions.

One idea of style consists of a conscious decision to shoot with a predetermined idea in mind so as to create a look. It's a matter of your "syle" dictating your content.

The other idea is that a person just shoots what interests them. The more they photograph, the more refined the person's photographic interests become, and thus, a "style" emerges naturally. In this case, the content dictates the "style."

It just comes down to why a person shoots in the first place.

[Chriscrawfordphoto]

I have a style that people recognize when they see my work in galleries and exhibits. It comes from having worked on several very long term projects over a period of years (two of my projects have each taken over a decade and are still in progress). I think the reason many photographers never develop a style is that they are snappers, not artists with something to say. I've noticed over the years that photography as a hobby attracts people who own expensive cameras and never produce anything with them. There's also those who do take a lot of photos, many of them quite good, but they photograph in a disorganized way that reflects the fact that they are not interested in anything specific. Instead they constantly search for the 'pretty picture', and they might end up with many good images but as a whole their body of work does not show a as the life's work of an artist with a vision or a message.

[tritiated]

I'm not sure if I could possibly have style - having only been taking pictures for less than a year...ha
Unless you call naivety a style!

[OurManInTangier]

I have no style, or so my friends always tell me, though they're usually talking about my clothes.

As for photography, I don't consciously look to develop a style as I don't want to force myself down an unwitting route whereby I merely ape the style of photographers I admire - I believe its all too easy to do this at the best of times. I do however hope that the interests I have in life, my outlook upon life and the elements of it will be reflected in the photographs I take. Also, if there is a strong compostional awareness in the majority of my images (or certainly those I deem successful enough to show to others) then this may all come together to be thought of as a 'style.'

I haven't taken any personal photographs for a while as I've been busy starting a business but one of the last ones I did, a month or two back, was a snap in Cambridge (England) on a misty morning of a guy on the river in a punt. I rather liked it and put it up here and on Flickr. Someone, either here or there, came back to me saying they liked it but it was a 'definite departure from my usual style which was far edgier.'..........I was unaware of any real set style I may have had and found it quite amusing that somebody else had thought of me having a style when it was utterly unapparent to me.

I just do my thing and what comes out is hopefully a reflection of me and my thought processes on a subject. However, I would say that *I* need to follow my interests more fully, to explore them in greater depth now that I have the time and to hopefully produce projects and a true body of images rather than a series of fractured images loosely connected by the fact that I took them.

We'll see how that goes :)

[Roger Hicks]

I think the best "styles" are the ones which happen on their own.
One day whilst browsing your contact sheets you might suddenly become aware that a style is developing. It might not even be the style you were chasing, a surprise!

Dear Richard,

I'd completely agree, and go further: these 'self-generating' styles are the only ones worth bothering with.

Deliberately setting out to 'have a style' rather negates the idea of taking the best picture you can of a subject that interests you.

A personal style will develop fastest when you limit your equipment -- fart-arsing around with 10 different cameras and 20 different lenses is hardly conducive to a single style -- but you can also have different styles in different areas, e.g. a still-life style, a reportage style, an architecture style... Of course, many of the people with the most recognizable single 'style' shoot a limited range of subjects as well as using a limited range of equipment.

Finally, my own belief is that as a general rule, others should see your 'style' before you do. When they say, 'That's in your style', and you ask them what they mean, you should recognize what they say, and realize that it's what you do, even if you hadn't thought about it.

Cheers,

R.

[payasam]

People who know me have often been able to pick out my work in galleries, publications, family albums; but I do not claim to have a message or a vision.

[Spider67]

I had about 10 decent pictures and I put them in a portfolio liked to show them around......and after a while I started copying myself partly because some people wanted to have their pics exactly like those I had shown them but for the larger part because

"......you might suddenly become aware that a style is developing. It might not even be the style you were chasing, a surprise!"

That's what I would think is it in a nutshell. In my opinion you can adopt a certain look but style is an achievement or rather a development.
When style gets a prison: I read that even Helmut Newton had a problem to get landscape photos he made in an exhibition even later as a book its still ahd to be combined with nudes.

[Marc-A.]

Having a style can mostly be a handicap, limiting, a trap even.

I can’t develop on the subject right now but I’ll quote a French novelist and a great Resistance fighter:
“L’artiste naît prisonnier du style, qui lui a permis de ne plus l'être du monde” said André Malraux (“The artist was born as a prisoner of his style, but his style freed him from the world”). Some prisoners are freer than most of those who think they are free without hard work. By the way, I agree with Ned about hard work.
I’ll quote another French writer, a great poet, Paul Valéry, who said: “Le style, pour l'écrivain aussi bien que pour le peintre, est une question non de technique mais de vision.” (“Style, for writers as well as for painters, is a matter of vision, not of technique”).
If it is true about painters, so it is about photographers.
Personally, I don’t know if I have a style (it’s too soon, since Ned rightly said it takes 10 years to develop one’s own style), but when I take pictures I can’t help shooting things always in the same way, always. I can’t do HCB, or Doisneau, or Winogrand … but I see things in the language of my own visual poetry, and shoot what I see, how I see it … whether it is bad or good.
Best,
Marc-A.

[Chris101]

Yes. Blurry, grainy and of subjects not often thought of as photogenic. I often claim that a preference of uniqueness, rather than goodness.

[350D_user]

Apparently I have a style. Whilst doing a magazine article, the guy from the magazine said "Ah, you're the one with the black and white train photographs". This then evolved from concentrating on just the lumps of steaming metal running on rails, to including the railway workers, eventually the railway workers ended up being the main subject.

Is this a "prison"? Not really, people tend to be... everywhere. If I'd have just stuck to the train photos, then it would be a prison.

[John Bragg]

For me a style develops from the things you like (even subconciously), about the work of others that you admire. It is pointless to emulate the things you dislike.... I rarely use colour and most photographs that excite me are mono, so I learned to dev and print mono (after a brief flirtation with colour transparencies). That was only the start of it though as I had to then learn how to print in a style that I liked as well. Decisions, decisions, all the while. This film or that ?? Which paper and developer ????? They all have an effect on style as percieved by the casual viewer and I guess, if I am honest with myself, I have a style that has been over 20 years in the making. My prints please me and that is important.

[williams473]

I have the opinion that in photography style develops more out of technical choices.

Take for instance how Picasso sketched - one way art buyers determine if they are buying an authentic Picasso sketch is by putting the pencil strokes from the drawing under a microscope - Picasso made decisive, unbroken lines when he sketched (because he was so damn good), whereas an imitator often stops midline to see if they are getting it right, and this is evident to an expert. But I digress - point is, the style of Picasso is obvious in something as fundemental as the way the pencil was moved across a sheet of paper.

In photography, we have a lot more technical "stuff" between us and the paper, such as film type, developer, agitation pattern, contrast preferences, paper selection, dilution of developer etc... it goes on. I think it is only natural that after doing photography for quite a while, most people settle on the "best" workflow for them - and the massive collection of choices is what could loosely constitutes someone's style. I'm not sure how one see's things through the lens or the subject matter they shoot determines style as much.

[itf]

http://i51.photobucket.com/albums/f362/kidbike/me.jpg

I have a style! I don't know if it shows in my photos though. It is, however, pretty tough taking photos while I'm holding my sleeping-bag cloak on.

[mfunnell]

Finally, my own belief is that as a general rule, others should see your 'style' before you do.Damn! I was about to say I wouldn't (and can't) have a style - unless someone tells me so. How else am I supposed to know?

For the rest of it (whatever that may be) I'll just keep taking photos that suit me.

...Mike

[pesphoto]

i dont think about it, I just shoot what I see

[Matthew Allen]

No style here either. Questionable morals too...

In time a style might emerge but there's no point in trying to force it.

By the way, I couldn't disagree more with what feenej posted.

Matthew

[Dektol Dan]

Styles are fashion. To a photographer they are just another angle or perspective.

[swoop]

I've been told I have a way of seeing things. But I don't see it. I just take pictures the way I take pictures. I don't know any other way.

[chikne]

I have a style that people recognize when they see my work in galleries and exhibits. It comes from having worked on several very long term projects over a period of years (two of my projects have each taken over a decade and are still in progress). I think the reason many photographers never develop a style is that they are snappers, not artists with something to say. I've noticed over the years that photography as a hobby attracts people who own expensive cameras and never produce anything with them. There's also those who do take a lot of photos, many of them quite good, but they photograph in a disorganized way that reflects the fact that they are not interested in anything specific. Instead they constantly search for the 'pretty picture', and they might end up with many good images but as a whole their body of work does not show a as the life's work of an artist with a vision or a message.

You certainly do have an arrogant style!

[ClaremontPhoto]

I do small city day to day life with a wide open lens, and a slow shutter.

[Pherdinand]

Yes i have a style but alas not in photography :D

[chikne]

Could a "style" manifest itself after post-processing (a) photograph(s)?