Is 'Having A Style' The Holy Grail Of Photography?

Right. Hello. Hello. Hello. Style in photography is not what I think a lot of people think it is. I have in my grubby little hands here a book. Urban pen a centennial. Urban pen. One of the greatest photographers ever to walk this earth. And if I were to show you a bunch of his photographs, you might say, unless you knew that these were definitely urban pen photographs, that they had come from a different photographer completely. Certainly, if you hung them all together, they don't look like a style. So, what is a style in photography? What is it we're actually chasing after here? Well, style is not a process. It's not black and white or color. It's not I'm using a 35 mil lens, whatever. It's not a process. It's not a preset. It is rather something that comes from within us. Sounds a bit hippie dippy there. I always say it's hippie dippy when it says come from within us. But a lot of photography is it's a gut feeling. It's something that is in here. I wanted to share with you problem when I was going chasing a style. So when I had my studio and I was wanting to get clients, I thought, you know, I need a style. I need to look like everybody else because clearly that's what the style is. There's all that kind of those, you know, the highkey backgrounds and everybody in little triangular poses falling over themselves, things of that nature. that's what was popular and so I went okay that's what I'll do. I would use that as a start and of course I felt very very uh uncomfortable doing that because it wasn't natural for me. So I was wearing style as a costume. I was pretending to be something I wasn't. I was playing dress up with my photography and and that just it was a dead end. So where is this idea of style coming from? Where does it actually begin? Now it's not in my case I feel a a thing where we just blatantly copy somebody. Taking inspiration from somebody. Yes, that is the basis of building up a style that sit there and you bring inspiration. People like Irvin Penn, people like Anton Cobbain, all the photographers who I drew inspiration from when I was younger, they were inspired by somebody else that gave them their unique take on photography. And it was the same with me. I started off going what is it that I like whose photography is like is like energizing and of course because I was a young art student you know I'm into music I'm into like you know punk and alternative gothic and all sort of stuff I'm naturally drawn towards those types of photographers so I start looking at the work and it starts leeching into my images because that's what I'm seeing now I'm not purposefully chasing ing a star. I'm just shooting in a way that I enjoy. There needs to be, I think, a a difference, at least an understanding where we are like making difference between blatantly copying somebody because it's popular and we are trying to be popular, the high key stuff, and it's going to I'm going to use the word copying again. copying a photographer because we like that particular photograph that we there's something about that picture I really it resonates with me. I'd like to do something similar. I'm going to use it as a basis as an understanding to make sense of what it is that I'm doing with my camera. Right? So, we we have that. So, all those people I'm getting inspiration from. They're feeding into my memory back. I think Annie Leit said she's got like a little hard drive in her head, right, that she stores pictures. And I think we all do this. We all find images that we love and we draw on them. We put them into a blender, mix it all up, and then out comes our style. So I am fertilizing, if you will, the seeds in my head, the creative seeds in my head with the work of other people. It's not just springing forth naturally from me with with no help whatsoever. But instead, I am feeding it piece by piece over time with images that I like. Now, throughout all of this, I wasn't again chasing to have a particular style. I have a feeling, and I'm going to go out on a limb here, that chasing after a style, I must be this, I must be that, I have to do this. I It feels like that is a product of the internet cuz I don't ever recall being a photo school or in the early days of the internet and people talking about having a a particular style. Now I will make a caveat with all of that because there is obviously there is a time and a place where you do need a style. Very important to have get on to that towards the end of the video. But there's definitely there's there's more pressure these days I think to say well I want to I want to define myself as a successful photographer. Somebody's taking good photographs. Whatever good photographs, photographs, good photographs, whatever good photographs are, whatever that means. And to do that, I need to have a start. I need people to recognize my work. What's interesting about that is I feel from looking at the work of people in the TP tribe that a great number of them would never think about having a label like a style that they go oh I can't really what is my style I'm looking for my style and stuff and yet it's there it is absolutely there I look at the work and I go ah okay actually this feels like so and so's work this feels like that person's work this feels like that person's work I recognize a style you may recognize a style in somebody else's photographs I think that's the crux of the of of this why looking for a style is so [laughter] about say so fruitless so difficult got so frustrating is because it's not up to us to decide when we have the style. We don't get to like pin a badge or I've now achieved style level one. It comes from somebody else looking. I remember when I was working with the portrait studios that I'd known some people within that mentoring group for, you know, about two years or so. Then one day we're sitting down and Paul, guy called Paul, he he turns to me, he says, "Yeah, that that dude, he takes very Alex type photographs, doesn't he?" And I was like, "What what do you mean, Paul?" And he goes, "Well, his his all his pictures, they feel like they come from you." And I was like, "Oh, well, thank you. That's that's nice of you to say so." But it was only then that I realized that somebody had actually not necessarily named that I had had me a style but recognized within my work that there was a consistent idea a feeling of vibe not not a processing look but just the way that something felt about those photographs. And it's very difficult to quantify and say, "Hey, this is exactly what we're looking for." Because it isn't that thing. It's just that feeling that you get. You listen to music. At least I hope you listen to music. And you've had that moment. You say, "I don't know this bad. This this band, it feels like it's so and so." Oh, yes, it is so and so. Because it has that feeling. And photography is very much the same. And I just wanted to say that, you know, it's like people kind like, okay, well, if Alex, okay, clearly we need to work on this somehow. Clearly, we need to do something with that. Photographs to to improve to actually get this voice out. It's I always kind of sit there and go like this is easy because I'm sitting at the back of 30 odd years of taking photographs but there's that thing of like you have it within you that styles within you it is it's instinct it's not something that that we do deliberately right I'm sitting here and I'm talking to you and and all and I'm breathing I don't need to think about breathing I just I just do it if I ask you Which do you prefer? Mint chocolate chip, salted caramel, or bubble gum? You're going to have a preference for something. You don't really think about it. You say, "Well, you know, I prefer the the umami taste of whatever or you know, the sweetness of you. You you don't do that. It's just an instinct. It's something that comes from outside. You didn't work at liking bubble gum or salty caramel or mint. It just developed over time. And it's the same with with the photography. I I would sit there, you know, obviously look at the work of people whose whose photographs I enjoy and then I would go, do you know what? I like that particular look. I like this particular look. I'm not necessarily filing it away, saying I'm going to draw on that later on, but I'm exposing myself, if you excuse the pun. This is this is a family show after all, right? Nobody, nobody wants that, right? I'm sitting there exposing myself to all those in those those those inspirations and over time unknowingly and this is why I said it's always difficult because I'm sitting over like it's 30 years it just happens. Uh and it's it I sort of think it just happens overnight. doesn't necessarily just happen overnight, but you can make it happen quicker by looking at work, but by seeing what's out there and just getting inspired by things and stuff because it's going to give you a clue as to where your own instincts lie. Right? So I I did mention earlier that there is a big caveat to all of this and when it is important to have a style when it is important to have a consistent look and that's of course when you're when you're a professional photographer right if you have a portfolio you need to have a consistent look people need to be able to recognize this is definitively your work you need to stand out this is if you're doing a competition or something you need to be the purple cow. Seth gotten the thing of like he's driving along in France and then there's, you know, field of cows and they go, "Look at the cow. Look at that cow. It's amazing." And then there's another field and another field and another field and all the same cows. And eventually they're like, they just ignore the cows now. So if you need to stand out, then yes, you need to definitively work on a visual [snorts] style that stands out. But I think for most of you who are watching this, you're never going to need that. What we're actually looking for is a voice. Not a look, not an approach, but just the accent. The accent of our photographs. The same way that I have an accent, the same way that you have an accent and the person next to you. That's what we're looking for in our voices. So that even if we're doing crazy silly voices, they make like a thing and kind of hard. You don't still you still know it's me, right? He says with ridiculous silly voice, but just remember that you don't find your style. You don't go off searching for it. Just keep photographing. You take keep taking pictures until that style finds you. Thank you ever so much for watching. Hope you've enjoyed that. Check you later.