PHOTOGRAPHER’S JOURNEY.com

I’ve been away on vacation so I apologize for the lack of posts the last week or so. But I’m back, energized, and ready to go.

Some time back I brought up the issue of individual style when it comes to photography. I pointed out the advantages of developing a style of your own, including marketability. But, I confessed, I am not certain I have ever quite been able to develop what I would call a style (although friends and family disagree).

What’s interesting is just how many of you feel that a photographic style is a must. In a poll I posted, results showed that half of you feel style is essential to a photographer. A little more than a third of you “never worry about it.” And 15% say style is only important if you’re a professional photographer (presumably for the marketing issue I described).

There are several articles about photographic style on the web. One I found interesting was at Luminous Landscape, which includes an interesting quote from the late, great Ernst Haas.

“Style has no formula, but it has a secret key. It is the extension of your personality,” Haas said.

Until I read that quote, it hadn’t actually occurred to me that I may have a style after all. As a journalist for nearly twenty five years, I’ve found that I tend to gravitate toward photographs that tell a story. I certainly don’t limit my shooting to that, but the attraction is there nonetheless.

Is that a style? I think it is.

Certainly I am constantly reminded by viewing the work of other photographers that style can be a very personal expression. Sometimes it is achieved through the medium - perhaps the method of printing such as Cibachrome or some other. Perhaps it is defined by the lens we prefer. Or the camera itself. More often, real style comes through the lens every time a we pick up a camera and points the lens. The basic choice of where we point that camera helps define our style, whether we are aware of it or not.

And that touches on an interesting point made by reader Roger Kingston during my last post on this subject. Roger wrote “the idea of developing a personal style is putting the cart before the horse. We don’t develop a style; we discover it (or not) in the process of making photographs and carefully looking at and thinking about them, and living our life. A personal style comes much more out of who we are than what we do.”

Pretty interesting idea, and I think Roger is right. Although I do think it would be a mistake to think that style emerges solely out of a pristine zen-like state (and Roger certainly doesn’t argue that). There is at least some element of personal choice involved.

And to me… that choice is one more reason I love picking up my camera.

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