Feb 21 2010
The Style?
After the weekend on 13-14th of Feb my head was full of thoughts related to photography. And I have to write about one question in particular. Whats my image? Whats my style? This came up after shooting few frames at the studio and shooting along with Janne at the sprint rally event.
Its being said that photography is the easiest artform to learn but the hardest to delevope your own unique style. I do not have my own style yet, but its getting there.
Two things I have to mention that should go without saying. One: Lack of skill is not a style! One does not have a style if one does not know how to shoot differently or does not have a clue what to do in the first place. Two: Copying others is not a style. I can not shoot like DaveHill and say ‘well, thats my style too.’ Its not, its just lame and in Daves case its almost a copyright offense.
I started to think of the style when looking at the images shot in the studio. They did not feel or look like mine. I knew how I did them and I could easily repeat them if asked (with similar gear I might ad.) I just shot with Mikas studio lights and made few adjustments to his setup. The pics did not feel right.
In the rally event I shamelessly took a almost indentical pic with Janne. Needles to say I will not show it here just like I woun’t showthe studio pic. I looked what he was doing and repeated it knowing what he was after. Ironicly my D200 literaly froze and I did not get the movement nor the one wheel up in the air like he. The point remains. The image has nothing to do with me, its a copy of someone elses photo.
The gear plays a funny part when building or trying to find your own personal style. The gear is here for us to use, not to define us. Do I prefer small softboxes and location shoots because I do not have a big octa and a studio? No, I do not think so. I’d have a beatydish and strip lights at the studio anyways. Im not going to buy the gear that I know I do not need for the images I want to create. Still right now my gear is too limited for me to claim ‘I have my own style!’ How can I say that ring flash fill is not a part of my style if I’ve never tested one properly? And no, I do have to test every single peace of a equipment out there. But ringflash is very intresting and could suite me fine as a very low power and cotrolable fill.
As a conjuction to the money for the photographs post the style issue has its own twist. As I said, a lack of skill is not a style. I can’t go to a client with a underexposed b&w images and say ’my style,period’, when the client wants a colorfull highkey images. Same goes for the gear. Client does not care if you only have a ezybox and they want images have to be lit with 6ft octa. ‘My style…’ right, and the client goes to another photog who can deliver.
So whats my style?
I don’t have one yet but I know what I don’t want it to be. I’m on my way..
I’ve said this before, but I’ll say it again. I can see your own style in some of your pics, not all of them, but it is there. I don’t know if it is what you want your “own style” to be, but it’s there. I’m not skilled enough to explain what it is or how I see it, but I see it. Maybe it is good that it is not present in all your pics, just goes to show that you are not limited by it.