Too Much Style

[bill schwab]

I've been left pretty speechless by where everyone has taken this thread. So many excellent, excellent contributions. At times I have had to fight back tears... the good kind. And not simply because people have been so kind. It has been like lifting the veil off the big Elephant in the room. I get the feeling we have all been in need of cutting ourselves some slack. I have had some of the most thoughtful and heartfelt PM's throughout this as well. One that pretty much reduced me to a blubbering idiot. (thanks a lot Matt!)

Many of us have given more of ourselves to the chase of this crazy carrot than anything else in our lives. We've sacrificed financial security, personal relationships... it has in many ways guided our lives. It is of utmost importance not because it is what we do or because it is how some of us make our living, but because it is what we have to do. I don't know about others, but I am lost without it. Like I said to Matt, sometimes being so close to something, you lose perspective. Reading other's can help. In this case a great deal. It's good to know you're not floating alone out there in the big sea.

I didn't start this thread to be about me, only to draw from my experience and make it about all of us. But, I would be remiss in not acknowledging the extremely kind sentiments that have come my way here and in PM's. I had no idea such things could hit the emotional chord they have. I'm also very happy with the "starfleet" (as my wife would say) attitude everyone has taken. Such a nice, calm thread. Many of us are our own, worst enemies and there is no point to making more.

Best to everyone,

Bill

 

[MattKing]

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.

In this context, it is equally important to say "how could any of those who look at our work not be influenced by what they have seen before".

It is just natural for us to attempt to draw parallels with other work. Strictly speaking, a photograph is meaningless to an observer if they don't have anything in their past experience to compare it to.

Gallery owners and critics may suffer because they are familiar with too much.

Matt

 

[Struan Gray]

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?

There are plenty of photographers with a wide and inclusive sense of what it means to make or experience art, but photography as a body, and particularly enthusiast amateur photography, is frustratingly ready to put the blinkers on and look at art through a sort of Readers' Digest version of Romanticism. Artists should follow their unique vision. They should innovate, and while doing so should express their inner emotions. Art should be spontaneous, should avoid logic and analytical thought, and most of all should speak directly to the viewer's intrinisic sense of feeling.

This is no so bad in itself, but is has a habit of hardening into an exclusive dogma. Forms of photography that do not conform to this narrow view are rejected as 'not photography', or are simply rubbished with playground jeers. The idea that there might be other approaches to art, and to photography in particular, is buried in a dark hole and the earth stamped down.

Such photography rejects much of the last hundred and fifty years of art history, and most of the millenia before that. Quite apart from ignoring the pictorial traditions of vast parts of the world that are not derived from the self-examination of C19th European newly-urbanised men. The irony of the way modernist photographers are fetished while the central tenets of modernism are vigorously repulsed would be amusing were it not so prevelant.

So I think the whole idea that we should consciously avoid influence is suspect. It presupposes that we are making photographs - art - for the sole purpose of advancing the medium, or for engaging a public audience, or with the valuation of posterity as our main consideration. Just as many people derive great joy from hacking their way through the Goldberg variations in the privacy of their own homes I see no reason why photographers should not adopt accepted, even clichéd styles, to document and examine their own lives. It is possible, rewarding and enriching even, to climb a mountain that many others have climbed before you, especially if you are doing so only to satisfy yourself.

 

[Ian Leake]

In this context, it is equally important to say "how could any of those who look at our work not be influenced by what they have seen before".

This is an important insight. I suppose it should also be expected that viewers are likely to be less aware of the nuances of a photographer's style than the photographer is themselves. Food for thought...

 

[patrickjames]

This has been a thought provoking thread, in a good way of course. I want to thank everyone for their ideas, and thank Bill for starting it. I hope people continue to contribute to it in a positive way.

Patrick

 

[Struan Gray]

....Lars Tunbjörk? I really like his work.

Me too, although his latest stuff has more of Martin Parr's sour observations than Friedlanders wry affection. Tunbjörk cites Friedlander as a major inspiration though.

I was thinking of Gerry Johansson:

http://www.gerryjohansson.com/

Click on the yellow squares after following the 'exhibition' link. His sense of composition and quiet, unjudgemental composure strikes me as very like Friedlander, especially F's more recent work, but also going back to my personal favourite: the dog behind the lampost.

 

[David Brown]

Just as many people derive great joy from hacking their way through the Goldberg variations in the privacy of their own homes I see no reason why photographers should not adopt accepted, even clichéd styles, to document and examine their own lives. It is possible, rewarding and enriching even, to climb a mountain that many others have climbed before you, especially if you are doing so only to satisfy yourself.

Hear, hear!

 

[patrickjames]

This is an important insight. I suppose it should also be expected that viewers are likely to be less aware of the nuances of a photographer's style than the photographer is themselves. Food for thought...

I have been thinking about the relativity aspect of style. If you shoot square black and white landscapes the average person will say your work looks like Adams, a person with a more sophisticated compartmentalization and knowledge of photography will say your work looks like Kenna's, and to those that can see the nuances of similar works, you will stand on your own. The more familiar you become with any given world, the less you will generalize, after all, Eskimos have a bajillion words for snow since they are intimately familiar with it, and we have but one.

I have a related thought for you as well. I have always believed that the only people that will truly know if you are good at something are the people who are better than you at it. If you get frustrated by comments of an average person about your work just repeat this to yourself. If someone says your work looks like Adams' or Kenna's just say thanks for the compliment. It is way easier that way. Don't waste your time trying to teach them the difference, or insist that it is different. The best compliments you will ever get are from an Adams or Kenna if they appreciate what you do because it is you who has done it.

Patrick

 

[TheFlyingCamera]

So I think the whole idea that we should consciously avoid influence is suspect. It presupposes that we are making photographs - art - for the sole purpose of advancing the medium, or for engaging a public audience, or with the valuation of posterity as our main consideration. Just as many people derive great joy from hacking their way through the Goldberg variations in the privacy of their own homes I see no reason why photographers should not adopt accepted, even clichéd styles, to document and examine their own lives. It is possible, rewarding and enriching even, to climb a mountain that many others have climbed before you, especially if you are doing so only to satisfy yourself.

I don't think we can, even if we truly wanted to. In order to do something different, you have to have something to be different from. Therefore, you have influences, even if they are "negative" influences. While I agree with you that there is no harm to the individual who practices in a cliched style for the sole purpose of their own pleasure, I think we're addressing those who aspire to something more than "Painting Lessons by Morty" on sunday afternoons at 2 on public access cable.

 

[papagene]

I wrote a nice long (for me) thread late last night, but instead of hitting "Post Quick Reply" I clicked on something else... way too tired! So I am not going to recreate what I wrote, just gonna start over with similar thoughts.

I know that I am influenced by the work of others, photographers, painters, sculptors etc. But my style, if any, is based on my art background. I have a MFA in sculpture and taught it along with 3D Design and drawing. The realization of my working methods came about on a rather cloudy day up at the Quabbin Reservoir when I was photographing a rock split into sections by the cycle of water freezing, thawing, freezing and so on. Composing on the ground glass I noticed I set up a composition similar to some of my old paintings. Hmmmmm I said. Later on I went and looked at many of my older photos and saw that I indeed use many of the compositional skills learned in art school.
When it was bright and sunny, I concerned myself with form, texture and scale... sculptural elements. On overcast days, line, shape, tone and other elements from 2D design filled my thoughts. This had been going on from the beginning of my photographic pursuits.
Another thing that I knew I was doing was in my still life work (I really haven't posted much of that, probably out of laziness or absentmindedness) I used the same conceptual themes that I had been working on in my sculpture right up to the point when I no longer did sculpture and painting and switched to photography (think caring for a daughter full-time during the day, teaching part-time and working in a camera store six nights a week!).

So what I am saying is that there are reasons why I take the photographs the way I do and they are deeply rooted in my experience. But I also know that I have been and am still influenced by others. To me, if you stop being influenced by the work of others (in any medium) you will also stop growing as an artist.

gene

 

[scootermm]

This has been an exceedingly enlightening thread to read. I’ve found I have to sit down and truly allot time to attempt to mentally digest the amount of diverse responses.
I continue to have many personal thoughts… so I will attempt to be concise, but I make not promises of brevity.

KJSphoto: "Every artist dips his brush in his own soul, and paints his own nature into his pictures."
- Henry Ward Beecher

I don’t think people are born artists; I think it comes from a mixture of your surroundings, the people you meet, and luck.
Francis Bacon

Those who do not want to imitate anything, produce nothing
Salvador Dali

The two above quotes seemed fitting given the implied meaning behind the above quoted post.
Thomas Moore, in Care for the Soul, speaks volumes about the concept of soul and nurturing and growing a relationship and dialogue with it. The concept of growth through the details of everyday life, from the perversity’s of human nature, to the mundane details of daily stressors. That each of these societally labeled “wrongs” are not meant to be fixed, cured, or extracted, but communicated with and welcomed, meant to be given respect and acknowledgement. That even the things that seem to hurt us, the things we wish to fix or completely eradicate, these things serve a purpose, and a healthy and positive purpose at that.
The reason I mention this is that I believe there is a semblance of this in regards to art and creative pursuits (the arts and creativity play a large role in the book Care of the Soul, by the way). There has always been a implied aspect to art that it MUST in fact be entirely original and unique, perhaps this is some societally subconscious panoptic of a concept.
Personally, I feel originality in any art form, to be simultaneously impossible and accomplishable.
Instead of True and False the possibility exist for True and True.
Jung stated that human nature has two shadows, one is the dark shadow that is based on the opposite of the choices we make in life, the balance of the “right” choices we have made, this shadow represent our darker half, the half that made the “wrong” choices what those choices mean and signify in our human experience. The second shadow is that of The truly wrong in life, the evil in human nature and in our heart/soul. These two shadows should in fact, be one in the same, yet recognizing that your personal shadow is not the same as the “evil” shadow proves that these “two truths” can in fact coexist.
It has been proved to me on countless times in my mere 29yrs on this earth that these inexplicable “two truths”, do in fact, coexist and they even grow and flourish.
On one hand, unless we force ourselves to be cut off from the peers in our chosen photographic realm (as Cheryl mentioned doing), we will inevitably be effected by the work of other photogs that we encounter, these experiences will shape our path of continually growing OUR work. Personally we can only know if the work we produce is work that is our own. But my faith in my fellow artists affords me the trust that we each are walking that path.
Now on the other hand, originality from a purely measurable and practical sense is completely inevitable in my mind when contemplating photography. We can try our damndest to capture the exact same image that someone prior to us captured, we can locate with GPS the exact coordinates and photograph the exact same scene, at the same time of year, on the same day, at the same hour. Inherently, because of the reality of time and physics that very moment will be entirely unique and original in the purest definition of word. Photography inherently captures a moment in time (or a series or multiple moments) but I feel these moments are unique and if we are truly connected to what we choose to capture, inherently it will contain originality.
The duality of unoriginality coexisting with pure unique originality is, I feel, a powerful concept

MurrayMinchin: 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.

Among the exceedingly long list of wonderful thoughts expressed in this thread this comment resounded with me. I couldn’t agree more with what you said Murray, but I also know that deep down inside me, conceptually, I hope that I never reach that moment… mainly because the path of walking towards that moment is the part where growth and learning occurs. An artists life of perpetually navigating a path towards my work, but never actually reaching any form of finality or destination.

I just finished reading “Framing the Frontier” a book about the work of William Henry Jackson and the growth of the “American” west (I use that term loosely, as it was well established before the US “discovered” it)
Near the end of the book the author expresses the pure drive of Jackson to always continue to grow and never stop. Jackson even was quoted as saying (roughly) “I lived this long because I never stopped to take time”. I find this to be an amazingly inspiring thing, he was continually walking his path and as he stated near his death…
“I was one of the fortunate ones”

As artists and/or photographers I believe we are as well, one of the fortunate ones.

 

[Curt]

but what's in an artist's soul?

I have part of the answer for that one. I went to the dr. today and passed a McD's restaurant where the billboard said, "Have a Latte, it's good for the Soul"

Is an artist's soul filled with Latte's? Mine is regular coffee, what about you?


Great thread by the way.

 

[Struan Gray]

I don't think we can, even if we truly wanted to. In order to do something different, you have to have something to be different from. Therefore, you have influences, even if they are "negative" influences.

I agree entirely.

While I agree with you that there is no harm to the individual who practices in a cliched style for the sole purpose of their own pleasure, I think we're addressing those who aspire to something more than "Painting Lessons by Morty" on sunday afternoons at 2 on public access cable.

I think that in this thread I have been reacting to the idea that there is one single thing that is 'photography' and that any other way of using a camera is somehow less worthy. I prefer to see spectra of intent and originally (not necessarily coincident) and I see no unbiased way of determining an inherent value for any given point on those spectra.

There are no rules. Even if you do aspire to more than a mechanical hobby, there is no ultimate arbiter except the false one of tawdry popularity - and that usually leads to a slavish devotion to fossilised styles.

My own personal quest does indeed follow a standard humanist, rationalist path, and it does aspire to originality, or at least a definite personality. But when I see that aspiration advanced as a universal goal I get itchy and remember the potters who try and recreate Silla Celadon, or the concerts I have loved on period instruments, or the icons, mandalas and raked gravel gardens of religions where the continuence of artistic tradition is more highly valued. As a free artist, I have a choice, and I find it useful to explicitly face that choice from time to time, rather than use the crutch of an imaginary absolute to deny its existence.

 

[MurrayMinchin]

Among the exceedingly long list of wonderful thoughts expressed in this thread this comment resounded with me...

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.

I couldn’t agree more with what you said Murray, but I also know that deep down inside me, conceptually, I hope that I never reach that moment… mainly because the path of walking towards that moment is the part where growth and learning occurs. An artists life of perpetually navigating a path towards my work, but never actually reaching any form of finality or destination.

And I absolutely agree with your last comment. I was talking of young artists shedding their influences and finally finding their own voices, but I didn't mean they wouldn't grow from that point! I've often said that any artist who's comfortable with what they do and aren't seeking to grow are dead in the water as artists.

Life is way too chaotic (in a good way ) right now for me read and appreciate all these good replies to Bills OP, but I'll come back to this thread later to soak it all in.

Murray

 

[Steve Smith]

but what's in an artist's soul?

I think Homer Simpson answered this one (in an episode I saw last week).

"I don't know, its like a third sense or something"



Steve.

 

[keithwms]

"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.

A seldom appreciated fact is that with this statement Newton was actually insulting Hooke directly. Hooke was a hunchback and very small in stature.

By most accounts, Newton was an acerbic asshole. Brilliant though.

 

[Jim Chinn]

I think people get way to hung up about copying another persons style or suject matter. If you enjoy making images make them. I made Kennaesque images long before I knew who he was. Funny thing is no one comes into my home, sees the kenna like print on the wall and says, "wow, that looks just like a Michael Kenna print." Except for Ansel Adams, I don't think any of my non-phtography friends could name another well known photograper. I don't think my friends who are artists in other media would recognize the work of more then a handfull. For 1% of the folks on APUG who sell and show their work professionally a personal unique style migh be important. But then again look through enough back issues of View Camera, Lenswork and B&W magazines and you would find a couple of dozen Adams emultors that are bought, collected and reprsented by galleries.

Photograph what moves you and catches your eye. Photograph what interests you and makes you smile. Use what ever tools and techniques that feel right. It is just that simple.

 

[TheFlyingCamera]

I don't see why we need to popularize a discussion about personal style (in the sense of populist, lowest-common-denominator popularize). The subject of this discussion really does only apply directly to a 1% of this forum who do aspire to an artistic career. Yes, I think we should all shoot what we want how we want, and if our sole reason for practicing photography is the exercise and discipline of executing a well-made photograph to look at and provide pleasure to ourselves, there is nothing at all wrong with that as a goal. But just as we should not cast aspersions toward the sunday afternoon hobbyist, neither should we denigrate those who aim for more. That aiming for more, rising above mediocrity, exceeding expectations was a fundamental quality taught in my education and upbringing, across all disciplines, be it art, music, math, science or even sports. I don't understand why this concept is not more widely taught and more widely embraced.

Trying to achieve a personal style, through whatever means, is an interesting topic and bears more discussion, far more than it gets here. There is a real process to this, and I think we can outline some commonalities to this process through discussing our own experiences, and this will be very educational to newer/younger members, like Marko, who was asking this very question (how do I change my style?) in another thread.

 

[scootermm]

Scott Im curious about your post.... these are merely questions and NONE are meant in a manner of judgement or criticism... just curiousity.

I don't see why we need to popularize a discussion about personal style (in the sense of populist, lowest-common-denominator popularize). The subject of this discussion really does only apply directly to a 1% of this forum who do aspire to an artistic career.

While this has the possibility of being true... why do you feel this particular discussion only pertains to the 1% that strive towards "artistic"?

And for that matter how are you defining "aspire to an artistic career"? that seems like it could lend itself to a pretty broad definition, and given that, this may in fact be quite pertinent to a broad populous of people on here, etc.

Yes, I think we should all shoot what we want how we want, and if our sole reason for practicing photography is the exercise and discipline of executing a well-made photograph to look at and provide pleasure to ourselves, there is nothing at all wrong with that as a goal. But just as we should not cast aspersions toward the sunday afternoon hobbyist, neither should we denigrate those who aim for more. That aiming for more, rising above mediocrity, exceeding expectations was a fundamental quality taught in my education and upbringing, across all disciplines, be it art, music, math, science or even sports. I don't understand why this concept is not more widely taught and more widely embraced.

Trying to achieve a personal style, through whatever means, is an interesting topic and bears more discussion, far more than it gets here.

do you mean that it hasnt, thus far, received the discussion it deserves? or the depth etc?

There is a real process to this, and I think we can outline some commonalities to this process through discussing our own experiences, and this will be very educational to newer/younger members, like Marko, who was asking this very question (how do I change my style?) in another thread.

is this what you are hoping can occur in threads such as this? that we should each give examples of "walking our paths, respectively?

just curious, your post brought some questions....

 

[Ian Leake]

Trying to achieve a personal style, through whatever means, is an interesting topic and bears more discussion, far more than it gets here. There is a real process to this, and I think we can outline some commonalities to this process through discussing our own experiences, and this will be very educational to newer/younger members, like Marko, who was asking this very question (how do I change my style?) in another thread.

It does bear more discussion, so at the risk of going OT I'd like to ask a follow up question.

For those here who believe they have a style, when did you discover you had a style? For me it was when I realised that I could look at the work of another photographer but be content to enjoy their work without feeling the slightest urge to mimic it because I was quite happy creating what I was already creating. Does that make sense?

 

[wfe]

It does bear more discussion, so at the risk of going OT I'd like to ask a follow up question.

For those here who believe they have a style, when did you discover you had a style? For me it was when I realised that I could look at the work of another photographer but be content to enjoy their work without feeling the slightest urge to mimic it because I was quite happy creating what I was already creating. Does that make sense?

Great question Ian !!!
If I even have a style and I really don't if I do it is something that has not been consciously created. I don't really think about it, I just make the pictures that I enjoy making. Sometimes they are influenced by other's work and sometimes not. There does seem to be a bit of a style to my work but I don't try to label it with anything.

Cheers,
Bill

 

[Ian Leake]

I certainly didn't consciously create a style, and it's certainly continually developing. But looking back at older prints, the ones that satisfied me the most back then (and now for that matter) have stylistic elements that I'd recognise as "me" today, even though I didn't recognise them when I made the negs/prints.

 

[catem]

Interesting discussion. I'm thinking, though, I'm personally not altogether happy using the word 'style', or thinking about it as something you either have or you don't, or that you discover in yourself one day. I know that it is not meant that way here, but the word itself seems to carry almost superficial connotations to me.

Thinking of my own work, where I'm at etc., and thinking about whole range of artists and photographers and writers whom I admire, I think I prefer the word 'purpose'.

The 'style' is a part of it, but it is secondary. Like the suit of clothes you wrap around your ideas, and your intent.

 

[Ian Leake]

To me purpose is another dimension - the reason I get up in the morning and make a photo rather than read a book. Style, again in my personal opinion, is the visual glue that links a photographer's pictures to one another. While most people have a style to some degree, I would argue that many people lack a coherent style: one day shooting trannies, another B&W; one day using a soft focus lens, another going for maximum sharpness; always experimenting, never consolidating. But I'd also argue that lack of a coherent style is not necessarily bad nor good, it depends on what your purpose is...

 

[Chuck_P]

For me it was when I realised that I could look at the work of another photographer but be content to enjoy their work without feeling the slightest urge to mimic it because I was quite happy creating what I was already creating. Does that make sense?

I think it does make sense and I also think it is a good question but I don't care for the word "mimic". I for one don't care to be photographing people or anything else that moves about and can talk back and be inpatient with me. So, being a forester I have access to property (with permission of course) and thus, it is the natural scene the I most enjoy trying to capture, mostly intimate details, abadoned homes, etc...My point is that when I photograph a tree or decayed stump, or some grouping of leaves, am I "mimicing" becuase it has been done many times before or am I doing what makes me happy. By seeing photographs from those that I am inspired by, I have become better at "seeing" when it relates to the image on the ground glass. I don't ever think of myself as mimicing because I'm trying to photograph in my own way (i.e., through my own eyes) in my own territory with what I have available to me.

I hope that doesn't sound too much like splitting a frog hair, just wanted to clarify.

Chuck