Erik van Straten
Mentor
No. No style, thanks!
Erik.
Erik.
Rayt
Nonplayer Character
You have created your own!
John Bragg
Well-known
Some very interesting posts here. These threads come up every so often and opinions are polarised each time. I can easily see that a fixed style may be limiting in some folks opinion, but once you settle on a formula of equipment and medium that suits your personal vision, then that can dictate to some extent the style. I shoot 100% mono film and that in a mix of SLR, Rangefinder and Compact cameras. I develop it to suit my personal taste and whilst I no longer wet print (darkroom mothballed) I scan and inkjet print. For years I only used Tri-X but now it is HP5+, strictly exposed by available light. Those are the materials that I am comfortable using, but beyond that I shoot what I see, with no conscious thought about style.
Yokosuka_Mike
Abstract Clarity
I must have a style. I know this because one of the temporarily banned members of RFF told me that he no longer looks at my pictures because they all look the same.
Another RFF member told me that I must be using some kind of voodoo magic micro contrasting application (that I have never heard of) to modify my images because there is no other reason for them to look so much like each other.
Is it possible that my images look similar to each other simply because I took them?
I like to take pictures with my cameras and lenses. I like to share my images with the RFF community. If I have a style, so be it.
All the best,
Mike
Another RFF member told me that I must be using some kind of voodoo magic micro contrasting application (that I have never heard of) to modify my images because there is no other reason for them to look so much like each other.
Is it possible that my images look similar to each other simply because I took them?
I like to take pictures with my cameras and lenses. I like to share my images with the RFF community. If I have a style, so be it.
All the best,
Mike
Richard G
Mentor
Larry's signature quote is from Elliott Erwitt. I see no 'style' in his work. He's pretty good.
Dogman
Mentor
I have no style. I'm a slob.
Calzone
Gear Whore #1
A,
I kinda use photography as a very "personal journal." In a way like you just to record a moment in my life.
The stuff that might be categorized as "Urban Landscape" or "Street Photography" is really just to have a sense of home to take with me when I retire and leave NYC.
Likely not important to anyone but me.
Cal
agentlossing
Well-known
But what if "not important to anyone but me" is actually the way to make truly quality work, in opposition to the mentality "work that is important to a lot of people?"
I have a theory that what psychology tells us about communication is really relevant to people's work in photography and other artform/craft. Communication is an approximation at best, what we have in our brain is communicated via a lossy mechanism, i.e. speech, where our chosen words and concepts are colored by our experiences and the way we see the world. Then the hearer picks up those words, interpreting them through their own lens, full of different experiences and understanding, and you end up with a really messy end result.
Take that concept and apply that to creating work for an audience. You have to determine what that audience wants. The audience broadcasts that through lossy, messy communication (often on the internet), and then you try to understand it through your personal lens, which isn't the same as the lens that designed the message. Then we try to make work that we think fits our understanding of that.
The only person we really know is ourselves, because we don't have that messy, imperfect communication going on between two parties.
Bill Clark
Mentor
My style is I enjoy making photographs of people when they are happy.
Smiles are much easier to make than frowns.
I’ve photographed people when there are tears of happiness and joy.
I have been lucky. I’ve photographed the father walking his daughter down the aisle, starting a new life for both of them. I have had folks who need a little coaching to show their true colors when photographed. Some just needed a little encouragement while others a little wine helped to quell the nerves.
It was my job to make everyone look beautiful and I had fun doing it. Clients could tell it and soon I won them over. I hated to retire. But it was my time to go.
Life is great.
Smiles.
Smiles are much easier to make than frowns.
I’ve photographed people when there are tears of happiness and joy.
I have been lucky. I’ve photographed the father walking his daughter down the aisle, starting a new life for both of them. I have had folks who need a little coaching to show their true colors when photographed. Some just needed a little encouragement while others a little wine helped to quell the nerves.
It was my job to make everyone look beautiful and I had fun doing it. Clients could tell it and soon I won them over. I hated to retire. But it was my time to go.
Life is great.
Smiles.
RichC
Well-known
Me? Style? Yes... not a style but many and fluid! I create a style for a single photo or a project, then discard it. Maybe I'll use it again, maybe never.
My style is no style and all styles. Whatever works for my subject and how I want to show it.
Sticking rigidly to one style = the death of creativity,
Some photos from my Insecta project(about 80 photos):
Some photos from my River Fleet project (about 70 photos):
Photos picked at random from various projects:
My style is no style and all styles. Whatever works for my subject and how I want to show it.
Sticking rigidly to one style = the death of creativity,
Some photos from my Insecta project(about 80 photos):
Some photos from my River Fleet project (about 70 photos):
Photos picked at random from various projects:
DownUnder
Nikon Nomad
All this is difficult to put into words and try to explain. But...
'Style' in photography - what is that? Many of us have no end of difficulty to explain it, which may be why we often confuse it with 'technique', or the mechanics of doing what we do.
Technique - that gawdawful topic too many photography students back in the '70s and '80s would bore the pants off the rest of us in trying to explain the mistakes they made in shooting their class subjects, not really understanding the basics of what they wanted to do and were doing, mostly focused on hipster fame and big money but lacking the life experience to see much of anything. Most of these young wannabees are now long gone from the scene and the few I occasionally run into say they no longer shoot or even own a camera - which perhaps says it all for the illusions they had back in the day, whether they called it style or technique.
Back to style. Me, if I have any beyond shooting mostly documentary images, I would have to say I have two distinct styles or techniques or whatever - never mind the definitions.
The first is from my architectural training (I'm now retired from this profession). We architects tend to think in grids, so the images I make from this school of - whatever - tend to have all the verticals perfectly verticals. Too bad about the horizontals, this being the product of shooting mostly full frame digital with my Nikon D800 and a 28mm lens. They look after themselves, the horizons.
My clients like these images, and now and then they buy them - otherwise they tend to bore the pants off most casual viewers, so I rarely show them to anyone except fellow architects (also mostly retired or unemployed) and publishers.
The second is my more loose, free, taken from the hip and on the go style, similar to Calzone's (see #27) and, I think, ideally defined in those beaut images posted by Rich C (see #30). Both (also many others on RFF) truly excel at what they do, but the latter seems to me to have combined the best of the two (style and technique) and fused them together into images that look arty, visually striking, and meaningful - which is about the best any photographer can ever aspire to.
As for me, my 'looser' images are for my amusement and satisfaction and draw heavily from my 1960s photojournalist period (greatly influenced by Life magazine of the era), my travels in the '60s and '70s, my younger life and a gritty, off-the-cuff approach using B&W film, my ageing Nikkormats and two F-era prime lenses, (mostly) a 35 2.0 and (rarely) a 50 1.4.
Most everyone I know likes these images, but for reasons I really don't understand I rarely show them, only now and then to my partner, my best (and most stringent and vocal) critic.
So. to sum up all this, do I have a 'style'? I don't know. Probably not. If 'style' is what I do, then yes, I have a 'style'.
As for my 'technique', well, remembering the 1970s and 1980s, I will respectfully spare you all that.
'Style' in photography - what is that? Many of us have no end of difficulty to explain it, which may be why we often confuse it with 'technique', or the mechanics of doing what we do.
Technique - that gawdawful topic too many photography students back in the '70s and '80s would bore the pants off the rest of us in trying to explain the mistakes they made in shooting their class subjects, not really understanding the basics of what they wanted to do and were doing, mostly focused on hipster fame and big money but lacking the life experience to see much of anything. Most of these young wannabees are now long gone from the scene and the few I occasionally run into say they no longer shoot or even own a camera - which perhaps says it all for the illusions they had back in the day, whether they called it style or technique.
Back to style. Me, if I have any beyond shooting mostly documentary images, I would have to say I have two distinct styles or techniques or whatever - never mind the definitions.
The first is from my architectural training (I'm now retired from this profession). We architects tend to think in grids, so the images I make from this school of - whatever - tend to have all the verticals perfectly verticals. Too bad about the horizontals, this being the product of shooting mostly full frame digital with my Nikon D800 and a 28mm lens. They look after themselves, the horizons.
My clients like these images, and now and then they buy them - otherwise they tend to bore the pants off most casual viewers, so I rarely show them to anyone except fellow architects (also mostly retired or unemployed) and publishers.
The second is my more loose, free, taken from the hip and on the go style, similar to Calzone's (see #27) and, I think, ideally defined in those beaut images posted by Rich C (see #30). Both (also many others on RFF) truly excel at what they do, but the latter seems to me to have combined the best of the two (style and technique) and fused them together into images that look arty, visually striking, and meaningful - which is about the best any photographer can ever aspire to.
As for me, my 'looser' images are for my amusement and satisfaction and draw heavily from my 1960s photojournalist period (greatly influenced by Life magazine of the era), my travels in the '60s and '70s, my younger life and a gritty, off-the-cuff approach using B&W film, my ageing Nikkormats and two F-era prime lenses, (mostly) a 35 2.0 and (rarely) a 50 1.4.
Most everyone I know likes these images, but for reasons I really don't understand I rarely show them, only now and then to my partner, my best (and most stringent and vocal) critic.
So. to sum up all this, do I have a 'style'? I don't know. Probably not. If 'style' is what I do, then yes, I have a 'style'.
As for my 'technique', well, remembering the 1970s and 1980s, I will respectfully spare you all that.
RichC
Well-known
Thank you!
To say a little more on style in photography...
Style should help tell the stories we embed in photographs.
It should never be an end in itself. It is nearly always a mistake to develop a style and apply it rigidly to every photo (I say "nearly" as there are rare exceptions, such as the unmistakable Todd Hido, who pictures the American Dream turned uncanny nightmare.)
Everything visible in and used to make a photograph has a job to do, and must help communicate this narrative. Anything that fails to do so or, worse, makes the message less clear has no place in photography. A style is useless when it serves no purpose except aesthetics, or when it obscures the message; and the same goes for our tools - beautiful brass and leather cameras are often in reality junk, because they get in the way of picture-making and efficiently creating the style needed. Don't be sentimental, be practical: if that means selling vintage Leicas to afford the latest camera-phone better suited to a particular photo project, then do it.
Nothing should get in the way of creating the best photo possible.
Cyriljay
Leica Like
When I shoot I don't think about a style. I keep on shooting and after some times I look at the photos as series. This gives an eye for the viewers to say HAY I LIKE YOUR STYLE.
I have some photos from archives and they go back to a period of more than 25 years.
Now I call them documentary as they tell you a past history prehaps. At the time when I shot them they were just clicks. ( Cliché in French)
I learned this process by a master. It works for me other than that STYLE A IS SERIES OF PHOTOS THAT LOOKS LIKE SOME SIMILAR PATTERNS.
I have rule of thumb when shoot.
I don't do or look for easy shots instead I wait for moment, a rearity of a seen that gives or always exist as normal. I visualize to manipulate some vision into my own interpretation by doing in the camera or after shooting. It is always adding little or more light or reducing inthe process.
I have some of my projects here curated as series. They are old archived photo from the past. Just tell me what do you think . DO I HAVE A STYLE????
https://www.behance.net/CyrilJayant
I have some photos from archives and they go back to a period of more than 25 years.
Now I call them documentary as they tell you a past history prehaps. At the time when I shot them they were just clicks. ( Cliché in French)
I learned this process by a master. It works for me other than that STYLE A IS SERIES OF PHOTOS THAT LOOKS LIKE SOME SIMILAR PATTERNS.
I have rule of thumb when shoot.
I don't do or look for easy shots instead I wait for moment, a rearity of a seen that gives or always exist as normal. I visualize to manipulate some vision into my own interpretation by doing in the camera or after shooting. It is always adding little or more light or reducing inthe process.
I have some of my projects here curated as series. They are old archived photo from the past. Just tell me what do you think . DO I HAVE A STYLE????
https://www.behance.net/CyrilJayant
Erik van Straten
Mentor
"Egyptian", "Archaic", "Classical", "Roman", "Romanesque", "Gothic", "Renaissance", "Baroque", "Neo-Classicism", "Impressionism", "Post-Impressionism", "Cubism" and the like are styles that are not tied to persons. The term "style" is an art historical classification, not a personal one, that is useful to art historians. However, this thread always refers to styles that only mean a personal way of working. It may be good to be aware of this. Everybody has a personal way of working. Says nothing.
Erik.
Erik.
Bill Clark
Mentor
My personal way of making photographs is my style.
You can stick to those other words/terms that you choose: however, my style, is my style. And I did OK with my style of photography.
Here is another definition of style with photography:
https://www.artinstitutes.edu/about/blog/38780-v2-7-types-of-photography-styles-to-master
Here is one of the terms you mention and I don’t see the word style being used:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cubism