re-posted from the old blog.
Where does one's photographic style come from?
Good question and truth to tell not one I have spent much time worrying about in the past believing that one either has or has not the ability to see images. Everything else then falls in place. Somewhat simplistic I know but there you have it :)
August Sander , Don McCullin, David Bailey, Terence Donovan, & Eve Arnold, to name a few, have all influenced me in one way or another, some in my earlier years and some like Norman Parkinson, much later. My fairly reasonable collection of books includes titles by most of these photographers.
"The Photo Essay" (ISBN# 0 500 54026 8 ) in spite the dog-eared, tattered and pencil-marked pages has, without question, been my most treasured of them all... until I became the very proud owner of a copy of RFK signed by the photographer, Paul Fusco whom I had the absolute pleasure of meeting. Our conversation was brief however I came away as impressed by the man himself as much as I have been by his work over the years. Journalism departments in many universities regard Mr. Fusco's photo essay "George's Branch - Kentucky" as a modern classic.
I'm sometimes asked what I was thinking about when I shot a particular image. Oftentimes the answer is something like "Good grief, I'm thinking of oh so many things that I can barely begin to list them all- light, emotion, motion, feeling or a sense of the place, what I'm seeing and want to show as a final image, to say nothing of the technical aspects. I do know however that when I shot this image
I was thinking in particular of one shot of Mr.
Fusco's, a miner coming home with a lunch bucket under his arm and an
incredible expression, determination?, on his face. That is one of the
rare occasions when I can recall thinking of another image as I shot.
As for style here's a few more favorites of mine, some older, some weddings and some personal projects.
This one, shot in Edinburgh, has long been a favorite of mine, it
hangs in my gallery. I believe that it's important to respect one's
subjects and this shot reminds me of the implied consent that many
people give when noticing that a camera is pointed at them.
When asked to critique the work of others one of the most common things I notice is that I'm often seeking more information about where, i.e. I want to see more about the space, or what's going on around the main event.
Step back a little-tell me more about what's going on.
Removing oneself both mentally and physically is another little piece of photo advice I offer.
Henri Cartier-Bresson said "The image is good or not from the moment
it was created", that's constantly in my mind as I edit images, the
image is simply good or not, no two ways about it. I won't hang on to
an image thinking I can save it in the post-production. That being said
I'm also a big believer in emotion beating sharpness, or technical
perfection every, well almost, every, time.
Nope, it's not terribly sharp and neither is the one below, however I think the motion & the emotion work in both cases.
