Finding You Style? Don't Bother...

[Rob MacKillop]

I've really enjoyed viewing a BBC DVD called "The Genius Of Photography". Maybe some of you saw the original series? For me it has highlighted the fact that every photographic image I've seen online and in books, magazines, etc, has some historical precedence. Someone else got there first...

As soon as you take and present an image, someone somewhere will say: "That belongs to that tradition" or vein, style. In some way, that cheapens your effort. As if to say, "He's not original". If not original (they will argue) he is by nature being "derivative".

So, looking to find your style? Don't bother - it's not yours.

That's what THEY (whoever they are) say. I say, "**** that, sister!". Style is not something you should try for. Just take your camera and look at the world. People have looked at the world before, and that doesn't make the act of looking less meaningful.

A corollary with music. In the 1930s, composers argued that music was dead. We'd had tonality and atonality, and there was nowhere else to go. Then a young guy from Kansas, called Charlie Parker, tried to play a note on a saxophone...another young guy called Jimi learned a guitar chord, and in Liverpool, four guys got together to play a few songs.

Don't look for a style or a voice...just look.

Here endeth the homily...

What brought this on? The sun is shining

 

[Nihat Iyriboz]

Interesting, Rob..

Follow your heart

"We must remember that a photograph can hold just as much as we put into it, and no one has ever approached the full possibilities of the medium." - Ansel Adams, Photographers on Photographers (Aperture Vol 151) by Helen Levitt, Gordon Parks, Eikoh Hosoe , ISBN: 0893817732

Will We Ever Run Out of New Music? - YouTube

 

[Dan Cattermole]

Good words Rob!
Don't try and find something to be, but more, be something by what you find....
I knew what I meant.

 

[Paul Lange]

What bought that on Rob? Can't just be the sun. I suppose there is a lot of wisdom out there but it is mixed up with the stuff that we could do with leaving behind. Finding out what is what is the trick and its not easy.

 

[Lesley Jones]

I'm with you there Rob. Does it help if you do your art (whatever that may be), purely to please yourself?

 

[Craig Sperring]

So very very true Rob!

 

[Rob MacKillop]

Don't know what got into me today

 

[Julian de'Courcy]

Rob your style is pretty good and very refreshing.













.

 

[Chris Dodkin]

Don't know what got into me today

Malt?

 

[Brian Moore]

Did someone mention malt...?

 

[Rob MacKillop]

I don't drink...life's weird enough already.

I guess I was venting frustration with a couple of my students who used to take photographs 'in the old days', and can't seem to find one word of encouragement for my paltry efforts. Everything I show them (and they do ask to see) gets reduced to being derived from some famous or obscure photographer.

It's easy to get my own back though...once they start playing [devil]

 

[Paul Lange]

Shouldn't that have been followed by a loud and resounding "WOH HA HA HA HA".

 

[Brian Moore]

I think about this style issue from time-to-time and wonder if it would be possible for someone to characterize my photography as this style or that. But who cares? Shouldn't the question be more about quality or even art?

Davie is a landscape photographer. I'd say that's his "style." There are a million landscape photographers. But the quality of Davie's landscape work transcends mere style. In my opinion.

Likewise, Darren Bradley is an architectural photographer. That's what I would say is his "style." There are a million of them out there. Indeed I myself have made (often feeble) attempts in this genre. But the quality of Darren's work is also transcendent of his style, in my opinion.

We are lucky to have many fine photographers on RPF but Davie and Darren are the two whose work pops most readily to mind when I think of a photographic style.

Others of us seem more predatory in our work. Snapping this kind of thing or that as the mood strikes, such that perhaps we may be less easily characterized. And yet, there is much quality to be seen.

Rob,...tell those posers to get off their style high horse and try to look at the light you have captured in your very fine work.

 

[Davie Hudson]

I think about this style issue from time-to-time and wonder if it would be possible for someone to characterize my photography as this style or that. But who cares? Shouldn't the question be more about quality or even art?

Davie is a landscape photographer. I'd say that's his "style." There are a million landscape photographers. But the quality of Davie's landscape work transcends mere style. In my opinion.

That is so very kind of you to say Brian.

I think when it comes to choosing a style, you can't it's all about personality in whatever you do. I always tell prospective Dj's who want to play in my club that i want to hear them, their personality and not just a set by numbers, it is the same with photography.... Let yourself shine through

 

[Nihat Iyriboz]

Regarding Creativity, Individuality, Style & Opinions

Any form of art or music created in communication with one's inner self, and valued by the viewer with the right hemisphere of the brain without comparison, without intellectualization, would be the perfect experience. There has to be the process of becoming one with the subject for both, the artist and the viewer/listener (receiver).

In case of photography, the shutter click first happens inside of us. Those two clicks are the communications between our physical world and the world beyond us. Every one us is unique in what we do. We are as different as our finger prints and more. Those differences may not be noticed by people who has not yet developed sensitivity for the given art form.

I remember not knowing or feeling the differences between the interpretations of Narciso Yepes and John Williams for the famous Francisco Tarrega master piece "Recuerdos de la Alhambra". Having listen so many times and having learned to play the piece, now I know. One can bring so much style and individuality even to a scored classical music piece.

Your students are probably experiencing a significant paradigm shift at your presence, Rob. I sense that once the playing starts, they bow to you in humility as if entering an Aikido dojo, and you greet them with this.

 

[Rob MacKillop]

Kind of

 

[Stephen McCullough]

I feel it's important to keep your point in mind. I know I am influenced by photography that I see - obviously by what I like, but also I think by what I don't like. I know it has really influenced me when I feel a 'burn' to go and make some photographs.

I am sure that my sad little efforts could easily be summarized and characterized as being of a particular school or influence. That doesn't bother me. What may leave me a little nonplussed is the person who looks no further, because regardless of influences there is always, without exception, a little of the photographer in his or her photographs.

 

[Rob MacKillop]

Good comments, everyone.

 

[Hamish Gill]

I like this thread but everytime I read it I've had a drink and can't get my thoughts down properly ... I will!

in terms of styles that have had the most effect on me off this forum, as ive said before, definitely Brain and Darren's!

... I have more thoughts ... Not now though

 

[Rob MacKillop]

It's an interesting, if occasionally inarticulate thread Just to clarify my thoughts: I have never, and never will, try to get a style. I just do what interests me. Other people have noticed a style in my work - though I can't see it myself - and my natural instinct is to disassociate myself with any style, as that would be limiting. That said, I do like other people's styles!