Too Much Style

What is at the heart of "style"; how is it defined in the context of photographic creativity?

John Sexton, who's mentor and was AA, and who photographs the natural scene, is he as well supposed to stand up and start being his own photographer? He and others produce photographs that are similar in style to something someone has done before? It's not wrong to seek to be as good as someone whom you admire? Like someone said earlier, they're not trying to find the tripod holes of someone who went before them and niether am I.

IMO, the bar was set long ago with the early masters as to what defines fine art black and white photography. I'm not referring to mere subject matter but rather that visual sense of beauty, tonality, and sharpness that is possible in a photograph that I may make. I choose to reach for that bar in the "style" of Adams, the Westons, Sexton, etc... I like how they "see" the natural scene. Does that admission make me a copy cat, someone who lacks my own personal sense of creativity? I don't believe that nonsense for a second.


Chuck

"If I have seen further [than certain other men] it is by standing upon the shoulders of giants."

Isaac Newton (1642–1727), British physicist, mathematician, universal genius. Letter to Robert Hooke, February 5, 1675.

So this Van Gogh dude was tripping on Japanese prints and most people don't think of Hiroshige when they see paintings he could barely give away. OK he was influenced, he borrowed, he stole but it didn't matter cause he was a failure. Some dude that I think was married to Georgia Okeefe made some fuzzy picture trying to imitate something that someone would paint. Smart people back then were deciding which side of their nose to look down at such a thing and now that picture rakes in a couple million bucks for someone.

Maybe the only style of value comes from definitive failure in imitation, maybe it comes from what is chosen to be imitated.

I wanna go back to the failure part of this though...especially in painting, I trip on the failures of representative artwork. If a painter was so skilled at replicating some scene in nature I would go "wow, I gotta go there sometime". But with a smart and lazy painter that took some shortcuts and shorthand tricks and just plain changed things up for the hell of it I would go "wow, I gotta meet that dude". And so it's the things in any given medium that fall short of what's expected that make for style in my eyes.

What I think is cool and how I fail is my style.

Another quick thought: I'm an artist. The pretty pictures I make serve no other purpose in this world therefore they are art and fine art at that (it don't matter what people think qualitatively of the term...it just means that it has no practical application). You can call me a sucky artist but I ain't gonna be bashful about stating the purpose in creating the things I create.

"Every artist dips his brush in his own soul, and paints his own nature into his pictures."

Henry Ward Beecher

kjsphoto said:

"Every artist dips his brush in his own soul, and paints his own nature into his pictures."

Henry Ward Beecher

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This is very true Kevin, but what's in an artist's soul? Speaking personally, my soul has bits of Weston, Adams, Rodin, Moore, Modigliani, Cezanne, Monet, Bernini, Beethoven, Mozart, Respighi, Laclos, Dahl, and countless others who have created wonderful works of art which have enriched my life.

Am I supposed to amputate this part of my soul before I make a photo? If I were to do this I'd be commiting an artistic crime which, in my opinion, is on a par with copying the works of others.

Some people are so obsessed with creating "new" and "original" work (work which they want to be completely uninfluenced by others), that they fail to produce anything significant at all. I think that's a shame and a waste of potential.

I was a constant experimenter with processes when I first started photography in the mid 90's, and that carried over to visually experimenting as well. Those negatives would ripen over time and looking back I would see something that I realized I liked. I guess that is how style develops. You try things out and they either work for you or they don't. Certain characteristics show up again and again in your images, and you would be a wise man to look for them and realize they are there. You eventually arrive at something you like if you pay attention. Avedon once said when asked why he photographed all the time against a white background, that to him it was a process of saying no. No to fancy lighting, backgrounds, etc. until he arrived at what would be his style; simple light, white background and the sitter. It worked for Avedon. You need to find what makes you you and what aspects of making images are important to you. This isn't necessarily an easy process, and I think it takes some maturity to realize it.

I think the longer that you look at photographs, the more the nuances of a photograph begins to distinguish itself. Bill's work has been compared to Kenna's perhaps simply because of the aesthetics of the square and long exposures. Does this make a style? I don't think so. To me they are worlds apart, and I would never confuse Bill's work with many of the Kenna wannabees. Bill's images have a depth to them that is lacking in the clinical images of Kenna's "style" (opinion, I am not knocking Kenna, I think he is a great photographer). The depth is a stylistic element that perhaps only Bill can imbue into an image, in his way, making his decisions. On the other hand, Horne's work was almost the exact same as Kenna's in many respects, although I think he is differentiating himself somewhat now. When I first saw his work, it was difficult to see where Kenna left off and Horne began. I guess we all have to begin somewhere though, and Kenna, Weston, Adams is a good departure point. None of us create in a vacuum either.

Sorry this has been long.

Patrick

Is the unique essential? Gasteazoro, Kenna and Schwab

Ian Leake said:

Some people are so obsessed with creating "new" and "original" work (work which they want to be completely uninfluenced by others), that they fail to produce anything significant at all. I think that's a shame and a waste of potential.

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I'm not so sure that the entirely unique is still possible - and I agree with your sentiments Ian. Personally, I believe there is a lot to be said for being directly influenced by others; not mimicking their work, but taking elements you favour and refining them.

I've read Jorge Gasteazoro's blog: he claims that Kenna's 'success has spawned a generation of photographers who, with more or less success, have copied his style'. If someone has been directly influenced by Kenna, and then gone on to do it better, I see no issue with that. We all want to create pictures we like, and if someone can show me a more refined version of what someone else has done; fantastic.

I remember Bill Schwab posting a photograph from this years Iceland trip. It was a panoramic with mountains in the distance, and a black rock emerging from the lowest part of the image. Someone criticised the rock's inclusion - (removing it might have been an obvious choice). But Bill responded; suggesting that the rock makes it more than just a pretty picture.
I would have removed the rock immediately, but gradually its inclusion has grown on me - and in fact it could influence me should I ever be faced with a similar choice. In many respects the image is like others that it has preceeded, but he has offered a different interpretation; a refined version that includes his preferences. That i believe is style. It makes no odds if it is similar to something before.

Bill, funnily enough I pm'd you yesterday about a very similar subject!


And a final thought.....

‘...we also have to take into account the immense weight of seventy or eighty years of classical modernism itself... artists of the present day will no longer be able to invent new styles and worlds - they’ve already been invented; only a limited number of combinations are possible; the unique ones have been thought of already.’ - Fredric Jameson.

I've been thinking about the "Kenna" style and while some people may consciously try to make Kenna like images, many others are just products of the same time, art and cultural influences growing up that Kenna went through. Minimalism was not invented by Kenna, shooting against simple backgrounds were not invented by Kenna, time exposures were not invented by Kenna. All of these things are common visual cues that many of us, who share the same generation as Kenna, were exposed to. Kenna has just brought it all to a very high level of development, but many of us, and maybe that is the key to Kenna's public success as an artist, share and appreciate the same aesthetic.

I can look at the work that I did when I was 16 and that's going back to the early 70's long before Kenna was known, and if those images were printed now I bet that some would say they see a Kenna influence. We are all to some extent the products of our time. Our work is often judged against the present times, with little thought as to our formative years.

As for my own work, it has been called "Kenna like" on occasion. But you really have to know the background of the photographer before you can assign an "influence" to them. I spent the last 30 years shooting advertising photos, the most common, bread and butter, bang em out, type of shot being the product or person silhouette. That is a single object, visually centered against a white background. But if I go out and shoot a lone tree on a snowy hill, some will think, "Kenna".

Baril/Van Dongen alike

Having followed the thread about the Kenna-alikes I was mulling over the idea of starting a thread similiar (copy of) this one

because I use type 55 and photograph flowers I've repeatedly been accused of ripping them (Baril/Van Dongen) off, most notably by gallerists who represent either one. It took me quite a while to realise this was just laziness on their behalf not to engage with my work on anything more than a superficial level, i.e. Oohhh look polaroid borders, predominantly dark/light flower pictures, yada yada yada. So I now no longer take it as criticism and move on.

When I produced (self published) my book I quickly realised it bore numerous similarities in production to Baril's 4AD book, but on looking further along my bookshelf I realised it also looked like a Bravo book I had and then several others (whose titles escape me at the mo). So I let that worry go too.

Mind you when I first saw Josefs books I thought if you put your hand over the photographers name you would be hard pressed not to think it was a Kenna book, so now I just think good on him, Kenna's books sell well, people who like his books (who are probably more numerous than those who buy his prints) will probably like Josefs and if they fit nicely on the shelf together then even better.

as an aside, Josef's work that he did on the stuff the artic explorers left behind is absolutely brilliant and the book that goes with it couldn't be further from Kenna's.

thanks for starting this thread Bill, it's nice to know that we can still talk about stuff here on Apug that's about the why of photography and not the how

A recent "artists statement" I had to write for an exhibition contained my admission that I have no style..so that is my style.
Adhering to one I think limits me. My prints are various papers, developers, toning..what fits the image more or less - for me.

I'll also stick to my Rodin signature..

A lot of the angst about influence derives from a pernicious mixture of insecurity and hero worship. Insecurity because photography still likes to cringe in the shadow of the classical fine arts, and has unquestioningly swallowed whole the old romantic notion of the artist - this despite the notion's rejection in the wider art world, and the ubiquitous acceptance of photography in the contemporary art scene. Hero worhip because people are led by popular culture (and, it must be admitted, human nature) into worshipping photographers instead of photographs, and to rely on the crutch of an arbitrary canon instead of relying on and developing their own judgement.

The second major cause of unneccessary worry is the idea that the only photography that counts is historically significant art photography. If I want to comission a portrait of, say, my kids I would be overjoyed to find an Penn-wannabee working locally at reasonable prices. Who cares if the result won't hang in the Met? One of my favourite Swedish photographers is a sort of quieter, small-town Freidlander. I'm delighted that he is around to document the world I live in with that sort of take: Friedlander isn't going to pop over and do the job any time soon.

Personally, I learn more about myself, and find ways to develop my own ideas more effectively, if I explicitly acknowledge and work through an influence. Not to make 'successful' photographs on the cheap-n-ready, but to tease out what it was that attracted me to that style, that take on the world. Armed with a tad more self-knowledge, it's easier to go out and be myself.

I think it takes an artist time (sometimes a long time) to grow comfortable within their own skin and produce work that is uniquely their own. If they join the gallery scene early in their careers when they still haven't shed the effects of their stylistic influences, they may be taken advantage of by gallery owners who're trying skim a little profit from some highly successful artist, like a Kenna. Don't get me wrong, there's probably many a great gallery owner out there, but there's also some who wouldn't think twice about bellying up to the trough.

And what are the hungry young artists to say? They bring in a body of work and the only ones chosen by the gallery are similar to another photographers work that has a proven sales record - they're probably happy just to get some work on the walls! Once in the door and a few prints sell, wouldn't you start to take more photographs like the ones that sell the most?

In my case I borrowed heavily from those who's work most spoke to me when I was younger...but they don't live where I do, or have the same depth of understanding or love for my subject matter that I do, so if they did photograph here our work would probably be quite different...I hope

Murray

Struan Gray said:

...photography... has unquestioningly swallowed whole the old romantic notion of the artist - this despite the notion's rejection in the wider art world...

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This was a thought provoking post, Struan. But do photographers really see "artists" in a different way from painters? And what is the "romantic notion" you refer to?

I suspect that most artists who practice photography as a medium don't start off there. We come into photography from other artistic media, for various reasons, mostly having to do with economics and maturity. I know I was given art lessons as a young child - in addition to the basic eye-hand coordination stuff that was taught in elementary school, I went to classes outside of school to learn to draw. I didn't stay in those classes long enough to get into painting, but in junior high and high school, I did have exposure to painting, drawing and sculpture, at a definitely more advanced level ( woodcarving and stonecarving, in addition to painting with acrylics and watercolors ).

Most kids are taught to draw and paint before they ever have a camera put in their hands. Kids at kindergarten and elementary school level are rarely taught wet darkroom practice because of the legitimate concerns about chemical handling. I think this is part of the reason we have a different relationship with photography as an artistic medium; there is something primal about paint and clay that is not there with photography.

It will be interesting to see if this changes with the maturing of digital photography into something you can safely and economically entrust to a child. I think this change will finally be the point at which the "is photography art?" question loses relevance, because it will be available as a medium for children to work in. Just as you don't give a four-year-old oil paints, but rather tempera and wax crayons, you wouldn't give a four year old film and pyro developers, but rather a digital camera and a desktop computer. They won't require any greater hand-eye coordination or mind-eye coordination than pastels, tempera or crayons do.

I think the romanticization of the "artist" as opposed to the photographer comes not only from this origin of artistic expression in early childhood, but the false notion that an artist creates something from nothing, whereas the photographer only copies what is already there. Photographers have gotten themselves caught up in this same false trap; they accept that notion, which was really a mid-19th century conceit to justify and sustain the relevance of painting and sculpture as media in the face of photography's arrival. It was a way to add to the mystique of the existing plastic arts and prevent their falling victim to the success of mechanical reproduction offered by photography.

If my prediction about digital revolutionizing the way in which we teach art to children comes true, the same thing will happen with wet-darkroom photography. We're already seeing it now anyway, here on APUG among other places, just in a primitive form. We're re-hashing the arguments of painters against photographers in the 19th century, and in the long run wet-darkroom photography will become the accepted canon of "ART" and digital will be the upstart mechanical reproduction medium of commercial communication and graphic design.

well - in this loving little country of Denmark, photography isn't art.
there is a court ruling that states that..

.........

So; who is this kenna guy?

I'm supposedly a W mortensen wannaby... (and was even before I knew of him..)

or Witkin wannaby..

or (fill in the blank) wannaby.

Struan Gray said:

...One of my favourite Swedish photographers is a sort of quieter, small-town Freidlander. I'm delighted that he is around to document the world I live in with that sort of take: Friedlander isn't going to pop over and do the job any time soon....

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Might that be Lars Tunbjörk? I really like his work.

gandolfi said:

well - in this loving little country of Denmark, photography isn't art.
there is a court ruling that states that..

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Gandolfi, your country is a wonderful enigma

It's a good idea to keep in mind that artists of the pre-romantic era focused on rendering their subjects with skill and taste that conformed to the common practice of the era, and not on a self-conscious concern with their own unique style. Vermeer was so much a member of the guild he belonged to in terms of style that it's apparently very hard for scholars to always be certain exactly which pieces are actually painted by him. Prominent artists had stables of assistants who managed the drudge work of art that the master chose not concern himself with, and the final arbiter of the quality and value of their art was the opinion of the client. Sometimes, in fact, music of the 18th century is even characterized as belonging to the "period of common practice" where national styles were what people discussed, not personal ones.

So angst about one's place in, ahead of, or behind the zeitgeist is unfortunate. It is totally normal to absorb the influences of the photographers who inspire you, and totally within the practice of artists since Lascaux to make art that reflects those influences. Over time, the greatest practitioners change direction and many follow in their own way, still making enormously worthy art. It's perhaps the intimation of one's not being one of the very, very few who move and shake that is the hardest pill to swallow. It's one of those times that it makes sense to 'get over yourself'.

I tried to read this whole thread, but I'm out of my ADD drugs. So, I'm going to ramble my way through my thoughts, and tomorrow I'll come back medicated to see how I did.

I was three years old when I started playing the piano. I wasn't taking lessons; my five-year-old sister was, and I was very good at mimicking what she played. At four years old, my parents decided I should have lessons, too, but I was seven years old before they realized I couldn't read music. My piano teacher would play each new piece for me when he assigned it, and I would play it back note for note. I didn't start learning properly until he stopped playing new pieces for me.

When I studied foreign languages in school, that skill was enormously useful. But it was NOT useful when I started exploring photography.

I knew right from the start of my photography obsession that if I looked too much or too long at other photographers' work, I would copy it, whether I did so consciously or not. So, I isolated myself, as completely as I could. No photography books, no looking through photographers' websites, no photography magazines, nothing. (OK, almost nothing.) I didn't want to do what someone else was already doing.

When I finally found my own way of working and my photographic voice, I landed a show in a Denver gallery. During the opening reception, I can't tell you how many people I heard say, "She's obviously quite influenced by Sally Mann." I had no idea who Sally Mann was.

During my first real portfolio critique, I was told that several of my images were "more Rodney Smith than Rodney Smith." Had to go home and google him.

I was a little frustrated by those experiences. Here I'd gone to all the trouble not to mimic others, and all I was hearing was how much like so-and-so my work looked. It made me realize, though, that just because someone's work looks similar to someone else's, it doesn't necessarily mean there was any direct influence. They may have gotten to similar places via very different paths. And, as has already been mentioned several times in this thread, we are all unconsciously influenced by what we see and hear everyday. Similarities will happen.

I don't think it's right or wrong to imitate others work, whether it's music, photography, whatever. I do think that different approaches are right for different people. I wouldn't enjoy photography if I was consciously imitating someone else. Others may be happiest using someone else's work as a jumping-off point. In the end, we'll all work the way we like to work, and "shoulds" and "shouldn'ts" are irrelevant.

- CJ

I don't think it is a matter of imitation as limitation; we all have to do it at some point in order to learn. Your examples of learning languages and music that way are prime examples. It is how we all learn to speak our native language, and to a great extent, any other language we speak as well. When we depart from imitation and move on to originality is when poetry occurs. The same is true for any form of expression. Where imitation degrades to mimicry happens when someone has no personal vision or refuses to express it. When that happens is hard to say, as in your example of people feeling you were like Sally Mann or Rodney Smith. But, I'm sure that your work has diverged from their examples since then, and not just out of a desire to distinguish yourself from them, but out of the genuine impulse to explore and stretch your own boundaries, and to express ideas that neither one of them have had. Stagnation as an artist is perhaps the worst artistic sin possible. Then you're no longer an artist, you're a poster factory.

When that happens is hard to say, as in your example of people feeling you were like Sally Mann or Rodney Smith. But, I'm sure that your work has diverged from their examples since then, and not just out of a desire to distinguish yourself from them, but out of the genuine impulse to explore and stretch your own boundaries, and to express ideas that neither one of them have had.

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Scott, that misses the point. The point I was making was that I had never seen Sally Mann's or Rodney Smith's work, so I could not possibly have imitated in any way, therefore there was/is no need to distinguish myself from them. I did discover bits of similarity between my work and Mann's/Smith's after the fact, but my work was my own. Their work was not a starting point for me.

I am not an artist nor will I ever claim to be, but I have been following this and the other thread (what a train wreck that one turned out to be)with a lot of interest. All this talk about style here, and once you weed through the BS in the other, all seem to be saying the same thing. Go shoot what you want and don't worry about it. Our style revolves around what we like to take pictures of and what the final image should look like.

I am not a big Kenna fan but I really like Bill's images. For me there is a serious difference. Maybe it is the jaundiced feeling of Kenna's, I don't know, but I see two different styles within the same camp. Another in this camp would be Fokos. There is no comparison outside of the general aesthetic camp.

If you are shooting, writing, painting, etc...and you are happy with what you do who the hell cares who you are compared too. Those who scream "I am an Artist and you are not" are going to be everywhere. Hell I spent 5 years with them in writing school. The only difference between them and those of us who did not scream this was they tended to be more full of shit. SOme people imagine they have found a way to set themselves a part and be MORE of an artist than others, never quite realizing that many many have done the same thing in the past. Often times these people were ardent supporters of what they scream so loud against. They also tend to change their minds a lot.

Do what you like, the way you like and like what you end up with.

Cheryl Jacobs said:

Scott, that misses the point. The point I was making was that I had never seen Sally Mann's or Rodney Smith's work, so I could not possibly have imitated in any way, therefore there was/is no need to distinguish myself from them. I did discover bits of similarity between my work and Mann's/Smith's after the fact, but my work was my own. Their work was not a starting point for me.

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I was speaking in a more general sense. I did not mean that you consciously imitated them. I think that goes back to something (I think it was John Voss, or else Suzanne Revy) said about how people working in isolation can still end up being similar to other people they have not been exposed to who are working at the same time. My point was more that having seen the similarity, you did not rush out to break away from it, nor did you slavishly preserve that similarity.

Scott, yes, I would agree with that.

There's always someone who will make a reference to somebody else's work in looking at yours, because they are more known to that individual. What pisses me off is the sometimes assumption that you are copying or emulating if that similarity exists. As CJ said about hers, she had no idea what Mann and Smith's work was about.

In any event, how could any of us not be influenced by what precedes us? What's important I feel is how we allow that influence to interject itself in our own work, whatever medium.