How to cultivate your own photography style?
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- Опубликовано: 12 сен 2024
- Developing your own photography style is a goal for many of us. As photography is getting more and more generic, and as AI is copying all of us, having your own voice is even more critical.
Here, I present one idea -- and that's digging into you own past and finding you style from there.
I have no idea what it is like, or what I want it to be, much less what the style of my photos should be. I take photos when something fascinates me or arouses some emotion in me. Later, I look at my photos and notice a similar way of looking and framing expressed in the composition of the image. Returning to your idea that we first absorb something in childhood that later resonates in us: I was born in the center of Warsaw "between the tram tracks" and for over 40 years I was exclusively a Warsaw resident, but 25 years ago I built a house and moved to the countryside, which now, it is becoming more and more a suburb of Warsaw. Since the beginning of my return to photography on film, I mainly photograph the area around my current place of residence. This is the Masovian landscape, the village and the suburbs and the Kampinos Forest (national park) and, less often, my hometown. I don't feel torn about it. During holidays or summer weekends, I also photograph other things, e.g. the boats I sail, and in a different way. I'm not looking for my own style. I don't know if that's bad. Regards
Maybe your style is the freedom of any style?
@@ShootOnFilm Hoping yes, but not sure 😁
I always enjoy your videos but this one was exceptional. You played your beautiful piano in the video and the music you produce is always so soothing. I think this may be th4 first video of yours in which you did not pick up a camera! I gather you took your Rollei to Mexico. I have been shooting with my Mamiya C-330. Forme, shooting with a Twin Lens Reflex really makes me feel like a Photographer. Your videos and photographs continue to inspire me. Thank You!
Thanks thanks!! This time, I took my Rolleicord Vb with me. It is a bit lighter than my Rolleiflex, so I thought it was easier to carry around. Probably made no difference, though :-)
Saturday psychology sessions with Ari. Keep ‘em comin’ sir!
You wanna tell me about your childhood? ;-)
When I was growing up my brother had the messy room and mine was always tidy without being (too) obsessive.There is no mess in our house which visitors sometimes comment on. With my photography I like minimal uncluttered pictures with order and balance. The child within... Cheers!
So here we go, then :-)
I was just talking to my American wife about connotation in the Ukrainian language as opposed to English. I agree with you and appreciate that you always have something thoughtful to say.
Thanks, thanks. Different cultures and backgrounds are such a richness in our lives!
As someone who picked up photography later in life, I would adjust your idea to say that the area where you start learning to see the world in this way is what influences you. Because I lived most of my life in more densely populated areas while I have been living in a smaller city surrounded by mountains and desert since starting to take pictures. And I feel more at home here where I am with my camera.
Also, are you playing La Bamba or Come a Little Bit Closer? I heard the former first, but then I started singing the latter. They are similar tunes.
Yeah, we may also have very influential phases later in life!
I tried to play La Bamba, then after the Finnish pics, a very well-known Finnish composition by Kaj Chydenius -- and then behind the "better Mexico" pics, an improvised merge of these two. Pointless, but fun :-)
any understanding and making of art is a question of awareness...it is a continious big change in life.
Ari, when you travel you clearly need to look for beaches and Deserts or prairies that echo the minimalist landscapes you know so well from Finland. Another great topic to get me thinking!
That is pretty much my conclusion, too!! Thanks for watching!
Without a doubt, my childhood experiences have shaped my artistic journey and the type of photography that pleases me now as I approach the end of my seventh decade. So thanks for your video … lots to think about today including the legacy of Canada’s 18th Prime Minister whose state funeral was held today in Montreal. It’s nice in this day and age to reflect on the life of a politician who cared so deeply for his family, the common man and his country … rest in peace Brian Mulroney. PS: Very much enjoyed your piano intro … and … that reminds me, my piano is due for a tuneup! 📷🎹🎼🙂
I think our older age gives us a lot of perspective. In life and in photography. …. And piano… it always sounds better when tuned 😊
A great exploration of why we create images. I'll recommend this to a group I'm in to broaden their horizons away from techniques and gear. Always a refreshing delight to hear your thoughts.
Thanks, thanks -- and thanks for watching!
Another great story to think about. Thanks Ari!
Never thought about the relation between geography and photography style before. After watched this video, I realized that although I like taking landscape photos, in general my architecture photos are better than my landscape photos (according to my eyes so it is subjective). But I am not sure whether this is because I was grown up in city area or because I live in the city so I have more opportunities to practice taking architecture photos. On the other side, once I have talked to a taxi driver at the seaside and he said he never understood why so many people fly to his city just to look at the sea. Also a shop owner whose shop is right at the foot of a famous cliff, who said he had not visited the hill for decades (last time was when he was still a child).
Those first few minutes of piano playing sounded amazing, I thought you could probably sing something on it in your own mother language ( I imagined maybe something of a Tom Waits poetic style in Finnish would work)... thanks for another great video... I am completely reverse in the sense that my best photos are taken in the environments that were totally new and uncomfortable to me... everyone is different... keep up the good work, we love your videos
Thanks thanks. Well .. I'm not sure if people would appreciate my singing :-)
I really enjoy your insights, Ari. I have been taking photos for several decades and I have yet to pin down a style. I guess I have never sought a style. Well, not entirely anyway. I DID have a style when I was doing band photography, unfortunately the club where I was the photographer went under in 2009 and in this small town it was the only venue. Sad too because it was an All Ages club. No alcohol. And we booked three to five bands a night fridays and saturdays so I took a ton of pictures. Now I once again struggle with a style. I really love the minimalist approach of your style. I do like the style of old noir b/w horror films, tho. Who knows? Thanks again for giving us food for ponderance and for sharing your LOVELY art!!
Thanks, thanks. I know what it means to lose a spot. We used to have an old factory building in my home time that had an "open access" (if you knew the trick). I loved to photograph there. Now they build apartment buildings there...
I daresay I pinpointed in my mind one of your main longing in art. While you were showing images in conclusion, they invoke in me the mood of one short story by H.G. Wells which I read in Russian in my youth. I hope you've read "The door in the wall".
Thank you, an excellent presentation!! Also good advice on finding your own voice. But it Does make you wonder about the phrase "Life is a series of unintended consequences".
Yeah. This is probably not the whole story anyway. :-)
I love your channel. Your musings are quite inspiring. As are your photos.
Thanks! Much appeciated!
Thank you Ari, great video
I have to add that as long as you photograph what you want & like, not what other people tell is good photography, you will be where you should be.
I 100% agree. One should photograph for him/herself only! (... here we go again, the pronouns :-) )
Hey Ari, love both your piano playing and your analogies 😎 I was lucky to grow up in New Orleans that certainly influenced my ear and eyes, and had the benefit of meeting some awesome artists there who I think may have informed whatever style I might have as a photographer today. Haven’t quite figured out what that is yet, though. Cheers Stephen
Take your time. We have the entire life time to learn :-)
Wonderful and very thought provoking. I grew up problem solving and the album covers I make reflect that often using non-traditional photography, cameras, lidars, thermal etc. "Looks weird" said a friend. Me: That's the point.
Yeah. Problem solving, I believe, is one of those fundamental ways to approach life that we learn (or do not learn) early on.
Another enjoyable video Ari, very perceptive!
Thanks thanks!!
Eight and a half thousand subscribers, wow you're doing really well :)
I'm about to give a talk for a conference at my university on how perception of individuals by others is fundamentally altered by the labels assigned to them, by themselves or by others. I have the basic presentation written and I'm trying to refine it. Being a subject so close to home for me it isn't easy, I took a while to even decide I'd do it in the first place.
On photography I've recently come to the conclusion that 35mm just isn't working for me in terms of creating satisfying images. I'm not getting rid of my Nikon or anything stupid like that but I decided to finally buy the Shen Hao 6x17 field camera so I can start taking the medium format panoramics I've wanted to using my Large Format lenses. I'll use 35mm for fun stuff, but I want to move towards exhibiting my work now, so primarily Hasselblad, 6x17 and 4x5.
Sounds like an interesting talk!!! Yeah, me too. Hardly any 35mm
Having grown up in the West of England and then lived in Scotland I feel my visual background is very mushy. Everything green year round. Many, many grey days. Oh for the clean lines of snow or the interesting clouds of more continental climates! Even a good fog more often would be nice.
:-) Fog is photographers' best friend!
Fascinating theory. I'll try to consider what makes my images special to me
Yeah. I don’t think this is the full story… but I bet there is some truth in it!
Interesting discussion, and I believe not without some merit. The connection between the photos you liked most from Mexico and you photos from Finland images is clear. This is perhaps made easier in that they the same genre of photography. It makes me wonder how you can use your early life experience in other genres of photography, like say portraiture or sports photography. How does your family experience translate into how you relate to and photograph people. It is not unreasonable to consider that someone who grew up in a close knit family with several siblings and lots of close family ties would approach portraiture differently than an only child who didn’t have that level of interaction with uncles, aunts and cousins etc. And then the next step is how to make our life experience work to our advantage in creating photographs, regardless of the subject. Thanks Ari, lots of fun as usual!
Excellent questions. I've shot not that many portraits. But, the ones I shoot seem to gravitate towards casual and laid back. Like this: instagram.com/p/C09RQiLgNOI/?igsh=MzRlODBiNWFlZA==
I think you've hit on one thread that influences artistic interest and development. There are others, I think. We introverts make very bad street photographers--so our intrinsic nature is probably involved. Also, our artistic models--not just other photographers, but artists in other mediums as well. ( If you love Edward Hopper, won't you always be moved by the play of light on people, buildings, interiors? ) Thanks again for the thoughtful vids.
I fully agree -- this is not the whole story. But maybe something that we often forget about -- the early influences...
Wow! What an interesting video.
Thanks, thanks!
I enjoyed this very much. Thank you, sir.
Thank you for watching!
Great picture of the man at the piano.
He was always pretty theatrical with his playing 😊
What you said resonates for me. I grew up in a small village with mixed deciduous woodland. I explored and photographed the countryside and coast alone on my bicycle.I'm old now but that's still where I feel most at home, where photography comes most naturally. I've never been comfortable in a city, I get very anxious if I try street photography. Photographing people is hard for me. But I think it is important to have photography projects that take me away from my comfort zone, to try new things, even if I then decide not to do them again!
I agree. You cannot and you shouldn’t stay in your comfort zone only. But even if you venture out to somewhere new, I bet some of the fundamentals of what makes you you will follow!
I grew up in a very boring middle class suburb. I was drawn to the sea and have lived next to it for 25 years of my life . If I went back to where I grew up I would take terrible photos !
The ones you like in the video are lovely BTW
:-) Give it a try, maybe .... ?
600 mile round trip ( I am going to Brighton this weekend ) Thats part of my old self @@ShootOnFilm
Growing up I practiced and took lessons on my great grandmothers full upright that somehow ended up in our home. As I became more proficient and began experimenting I found it was possible to disassemble the front cover(s) and "open" the thing up. As you point out, It looked great but, more importantly, the sound it produced was a thousand fold better. But I digress - - - Is it too pedestrian of me to say that I dont know that I have a "style"? The emotions and feelings I find myself drawn to over and over and over . . . . are those of my subjects. . . . smiling, laughing, crying, contemplating, reading, arguing - and yeah - posing. Events. Time together. A study of my daughters' hands setting a volleyball. A son's first time riding on two wheels. I DO look for the creative opportunity. Where is the sun? Do I open up and relegate the background to a soft "cream" of bokeh or do I keep it all in sharp focus? Close up or wide? But beyond those few "chords" the rest of it feels like it belongs to my subjects - - - IF, that is, - - - *I* am any good. It's an interesting and thought provoking discussion (not to mention the piano playing) that keeps me coming back, Ari. Thank you, thank you, thank you - - -
Thanks you, thank you!! So, I'm reading from your comment that this is not only one way, from an artist to the viewer but also from the subject to the artist. Very interesting!!!
@@ShootOnFilmYeah - - - - - It is different to be sure. And I'm not confident I have yet thought it through but you've certainly gotten into my head this weekend. . . . If I understand, your approach is to consciously curate a style which allows you to create a feeling which you as the photographer communicate to your audience. My approach is to capture a feeling which belongs to my subject. It is THEIRS to own in a moment and my role is to capture that moment for posterity. The "art" (if there is any at all) is to be there, to make use of the environment as it presents itself and (most importantly) to try to avoid the camera influencing the situation. Many times, the subject will be their own audience. Perhaps a small group of people who know that subject. In any case, I dont see it as my story or feeling at all. And please - I hope not to appear critical - - there is no better or worse here. I'm fascinated to see your work and the work of other artists. I've learned a great deal from listening, studying your work and that of others - - but also - - those works while amazing in their creativity and technical competency - frequently wax cold for me - at an emotional level. Here is another thought . . . . your piano playing seems quite instinctive and, as a result, is wonderfully rich. MY piano playing is quite technical. I am very good at reading and interpreting the compositions of others (I had a thing for Chopin and Joplin while I was studying formally) but try as I might I could NEVER sit down and begin to play something purely from having heard it, no matter how well I know that tune. I imagine that there's a bit of left-brain/right-brain stuff in this, Ari. No better or worse. Just . . . different. I am honored to share a passion for this craft with so many fine and brilliant people
Figured it out. . . I'm not the performer or the artist. I'm just the recording engineer.
Another fascinating video. I have heard Ralf Gibson, talking about how the way we see, gives our photographs, a visual infrastructure. He postulates that this infrastructure is the key to our “style”.
What fascinates me, based on this video, is how our formative experiences may have shaped this infrastructure. I think perhaps your lake and Mexico pictures, may support this idea. 🤔🧐
Extremely interesting. I firmly believe our early experiences shape our thinking and perception. But how, that I don't know. But I like the idea of an "infrastructure". Something we can use as the basis to build on. I need to take a look at Gibson's ideas! Thanks!
@@ShootOnFilm His books Refractions 1 & 2 and Self-Exposure, are a good starting point, I think.
Amazing pictures and interesting videos . For someone who is searching for my style, it’s a nice point of view that make me think a lot. By the way, what do you use to meter? Your shot are always so nicely metered .
Thanks thanks -- I meter with my phone and an app called Light Meter Pro.
Well said Ali 🙂
🙂
"sometimes a good story is better than the truth" -- that's basically a summary of all of photography, no? 😃
yes, I think so!
☑️
You said you didn’t capture the true essence of the city. I cannot remember your exact words, I apologize, but you captured the essence of what you saw. Maybe you felt disappointed because you compared the pictures from an unknown place to places you have known since childhood. Wouldn’t that be an unfair comparison? Just wondering, because I catch myself doing the same thing and always saying to myself, it could have been better.
What you said about going back to the basics, sorry I cannot remember your exact wording again, would that be also considered your shooting style, if that is what you are familiar with?
I am sorry if this didn’t make sense, I just had a cup of coffee at the start of the video so I wasn’t fully awake yet haha. Thank you for another great and thought provoking video!
Yeah, I said that because I felt something and experienced something while in the city. Now, when I look at my pictures afterwards, I don't feel the same. I feel .... well, nothing....
@@ShootOnFilm oh, that is not what thought you would say. Why do you not feel anything about your pictures now? Has this happened before or is this something new?
@@ejorbe It happens more often when I go to a new place and do not know what I am photographing.
I'm a street photographer that is out of my comfort zone shooting landscape, maybe because I was born & raised in a city environment 🤔
I bet it had some influences ....
Ok. Challenge accepted. I'll try to channel the hard rock and strip malls of the 80s into my old-dude-with-a-camera photos. Let's see if my style emerges. It can only help.
Excellent. Show us the results, then!! :-)
I have internal preferences. I like things God made better than the things man has made. I especially like images that give me an emotion. I like nostalgic things, so old cars better than new cars, old trains better than new trains, etc. I like bright, colorful things, but also black and white moody images. I was born in a rural area that didn't even have a hospital; I was born in a house. So maybe there is something to the early experiences theory. BTW, some of your images were la bomba.
Matt Osborne must have been one lucky little lad then. Growing up around all those beautiful semi clad sexy ladies.
Don't know his mom, though .....
@@ShootOnFilmhaha.good point.
🎊 Promo SM