Defining a Style for Photo Maker II

 Defining a Style for Photo Maker II

one of the questions I get asked the most often on social media is how do I define a style for my photography and I don't think I have a neat sixth synced and surf or you but I'd definitely be doing a lot of thinking about this I and I'm happy to Share with you what I've been thinking I mean in all the different sorts of photography I do whether it's street or portraiture or any other sort of photography I don't feel like I've yet locked down a style I'm happy to call my own it's all very much still in process and in flux and maybe it always is maybe that's the journey of a photographer I don't know I'm only where I'm at for the sake of example, I'm just gonna talk about street photography work that.

 I do and the stuff that I post on Instagram just to keep it sort of a narrower gambit and I've had a very difficult journey with street photography it kind of moves along and stumbling increments as I try work out you know what I want to do and what I definitely don't want to do and that's still happening as much as it ever did so it hasn't settled at all and I only work this stuff out as I go out and I shoot a lot as I try different things and realize what works and what doesn't work for me I'll give you an example so over the last two weeks, I've shot with two photographers on the streets just gone out because it's more social sometimes to shoot with friends and you know both these photographers. one is Joshua Jackson, he will have seen in the recent street photography video and the other is on the river hick who I did the video with and he went around doing documentary photography in Ukraine they're both good Street photographers and I met up with Joshua because I've been walking around the West End taking shots and me kind of came around at the st. James Park and there were a load of police vans parked along the side and me wonder what was going on I couldn't work out why there was this massive police presence and then around the corner into Westminster in front of the houses of parliament there was a huge demonstration going on with Pro supporters for Brexit and I thought wow you know this isn't something I normally shoot I don't shoot protests or crowds but let me get stuck in and let me try and I bumped into Joshua there and a few other photographers and watching Joshua work he really gets stuck in a walk up and moves around and and and and puts himself in the middle of that crowd and in people's faces and gets really compelling interesting shots and I really struggled I came away from shooting in that space with absolutely nothing to show for it a few days later I was out shooting with Andre and we went to Portobello Market and then we came back into the West End to shoot around there and we walked around the corner to Trafalgar Square and the place was just packed with people they were all wearing Sunderland football jerseys and then obviously just won their game and were out celebrating a huge crowd there and they were all pretty inebriated they had soccer balls and they were sorts of kicking them high into the air above the crowd and they come down and land on somebody all the kids were running around and you know pushing each other into the fountains it was a the really festive the atmosphere and in that kind of situations not one to kind of run into the middle of that crowd and start shooting I struggle with that kind of thing so I kind of skirt the edges admittedly scuffing down a salted caramel doughnut at the time which is very yummy but Andre dive right in the middle and he was taking shots at people and getting shots of kids playing with each other and he put himself so much in the way that he even got smacked in the face with a football at close range at one stage but you know a guy who goes into war zones that's not really a massive deal and he got some really cool shots because of it, it's not my comfort zone though and again I walked away probably because of my own cowardice and not wanting to get stuck in the middle of that crowd not knowing how to wrangle lots of subjects into a frame and compose that very well I hung out the edge and didn't get very much I think it's really important to pay attention to moments like that you know think about style as working out like what are the moments where we take photographs and the work and they sing but on the other side of it, we also need to listen to those times where it doesn't work for us I was out the week before as well at the people's vote March which had a million people right through the middle of London just because I feel like these protests these things that are happening no matter which side of the argument you fall on are history happening right in front of we and I want to be there to witness it but I have to be honest and say that I really struggle to photograph it I don't I'm not very good at it and that's not to say that we shouldn't push ourselves beyond our comfort zone but listening to those moments where we say wow this isn't clicking for me, there's something about this that doesn't work for me might be our style whispering that our the direction is perhaps down another path you've heard me say in other videos that I've had a very difficult journey with street photography and I'm not still even convinced that what I post on Instagram and put out in the books every year can be classified as street photography.

 I know some street photographers who would it's definitely not street photography for the street photography documenting a time in a place it needs to be featuring individuals it needs to be showing you movement within a space and my stuff is a lot more abstract often and single subjects in shadow not being able to identify who it is and the places a little bit of relevant it's almost documenting light and shadow that I find interesting more and to be honest I'm not that insecure about that I don't mind what label you put on it but the more that I shoot in this vein the more I shoot things that I'm attracted to like focusing a lens something is coming into focus, there is something that's becoming clearer for me as I keep moving forward by just shooting a lot and working out what I enjoy shooting or what clicks and what I don't enjoy shooting and what doesn't if you want to see what I'm talking about that if you shoot a lot over time a star will start to coalesce on its own almost go take a look at my Instagram I deliberately don't delete photographs from my Instagram so the very first photos I was posting on there years ago.

 I still there all the stuff I was shooting on a phone that I was over editing and shooting loads of different subjects there's some horrendous looking stuff on there but the more you scroll through and I do this for myself regularly if I'm ever feeling like I'm not really sure where I'm going if I scroll right back from the beginning of my Instagram all the way through I could see that style emerging almost on its own steam without me conceptualizing it's coming out on its own the more that I shoot and especially the last three years for me there's something emerging and I can see the direction it's going even though I can't neatly define it yet there is a movement so if you want to take a look at my horrendous Instagram from the start and see how my style is a move the more I've shot and then go back and look at your own work years ago and look at it and how it developed and look at it now and if you're just starting out don't be hard on yourself you're going to have to go through those years of shooting a lot of working out what your style is over time it will start to emerge and it's okay to do your own the thing I think me feeling conflicted about street photography is because I've always got a stereotype of what street photography should be I think of Joel Meyerowitz who shoots tableaus on the corners of sunlit Fifth Avenue and how he uses a lot of people intersecting with each other in light and shadow and it's beautiful beautiful work I love or brusque Eldon walking up and shooting Street portraits of people confrontationally on the streets and capturing single individuals as they go about their day unaware until the moment they're blinded by his flash or Fred Hertzog who shot his City of Vancouver in the 50s and 60s documenting a small the area where he lived to let it almost be a time capsule through a time of what was happening in that time of space my work doesn't fit into any of those categories of street photography but it is what it is on its own terms and some of you have really helped with that I made a video about 18 months ago where I shared that a lot of you be putting fan hos name in relation to some of my images in my comment sections and I didn't know who he was at the time and I went and looked him up and I loved his work in the 50s and 60s in Hong Kong and people criticize him for not being a genuine street photographer because he set up a lot of his shots or he faked a lot of his shadows in the darkroom but looking at his work, there's a direction in it the anesthetic in it that feels like the loose direction that I'm walking in and gave me permission to go in that direction and I found that incredibly helpful and there's another name that a lot of you been dropping in my comments sections on Instagram again an artist that I wasn't aware of and didn't know but after looking him up it's given me another step forward another way to look at the work that I'm doing and it's given me a loose direction to walk in for a while and that artist is Edward Hopper and a lot of you have mentioned specifically under some of my images probably his most famous painting Nighthawks and I have to say that as I've started to do a bit of research on this artist who I wasn't familiar with looking at his work looking at what he was doing with light and shadow and looking at how he was featuring individuals in spaces, I feel like this is probably a key which is gonna unlock the next stage of growth so that my own style can start to emerge this is our test Thakura describes his work and specifically Nighthawks for an image so associated with loneliness Edward Hopper's Nighthawks is strangely seductive solitary hunched figures perched on stools along the slender the countertop of an all-night diner bright overhead lighting casts a theatrical play of shadows on the deserted sidewalk outside with the sleek the curving form of the diner's long window intersecting with the grid of storefronts behind the famous painting offers a crucible of narrative potential capturing the melancholic the romance of the city live its endless possibilities and the inevitable failures for connection Nighthawks is in many ways emblematic of hoppers and wires cinematic style characterized by its voyeuristic perspectives dramatic interaction of light and shadow and emotionally isolated figures that inhabit anonymously urban spaces roadside diners gas stations and hotels philosopher Alain de Bont ah once wrote hopper is the father of a whole school of art that takes as its subject matter threshold spaces buildings that lie outside homes and offices places of transit where we're aware of a particular kind of alienated poetry and this is the reason I share my wine with you so often on this channel because I find it so inspiring to hear other artists why they produce the work of Arts, they did in the way that they did and it's not so that I can copy what they're doing it's so that I can listen to their why and then listen to my own way and if there's something in their work that resonates with me understand that there might be something in their work and in their reasoning that can be a loose way forward for me as I work out my own unique style I'm not for one minute suggesting that I'm gonna be the new Edward Hopper of photography that's not the point is as I look at his work there are specific things that resonate with me I love his use of hard light and hard shadow I love the way that he isolates his subjects and puts them in spaces on their own that there's a pensive thoughtfulness to a lot of what he does and that there's space and there's minimalism and there's a lack of clutter because that's already how I was shooting before I came across him and between fan hos work and his work and a lot of other artists I'm sure I'll come across it gives me permission to keep moving to keep working to keep defining what I'm doing overtime in that particular direction all this thinking about how our style develops got me thinking about where our style actually comes from and why it doesn't work just to copy somebody else's style why it has come out of us and I think it's because a genuine style in any art form comes out of our personality comes out of who we are I gave you a couple of examples at the beginning of this video where I went out and tried to shoot in crowds which I've done many times before and I just never seem to get anything I'm happy with and always feel uncomfortable and I think that comes out of who I am and my personality you've heard me saying videos before that that I'm an introvert so cities in general and crowded spaces aren't very comfortable spaces for me if I'm honest I prefer to live somewhere quiet out in the country it really just makes sense for me now that I would live in a city because it makes work easier and I'll be honest with you, I've struggled with London specifically since coming back from Africa to the UK I've learned that London if you want to socialize with people the way to do that is to go out to the pub and to drink a lot and I'm not a big drinker and I don't like loud crowded spaces I'm not comfortable in that place and I'm not a football fan you know I don't want to go to stadiums full of people who yell and sing songs with each other and get into fights it's not my personality so there's been a big part of me while living in cities that has felt very separate from everything because I don't fit in with the way that people want to hang out with each other I prefer a quiet corner table in a cafe where I can just sit and read a book or if I'm with somebody to have a chat where we can actually hear each other properly and dig deep on a conversation I prefer walking down a quiet street then a busy one, I like sitting in an open church or taking a walk around a graveyard I would prefer sitting on a park bench on a hill overlooking the city than actually being in the thick and the the throng of it that's just who I am and harm Wyatt and I'm not telling you that to feel sorry for me I don't feel sorry for myself, I like Who I am but I've realized something about myself and then about the art that I'm shooting in the style that's emerging because I'm being honest with who I am and that is that I shoot isolated subjects and maybe the reason that I shoot isolated subjects are because I see myself in them perhaps it's more than that perhaps it's shooting my own sense of feeling isolated within a city about feeling separate about always being on the periphery somehow about being the watch and the observer about always feeling like I'm moving in the liminal spaces between light and shadow or as my favorite author Richard Rohr says on the edge of the inside so I suppose in some the way I'm actually shooting myself and me gave me a hard time about that for a minute because I thought well if I'm doing that's just self-indulgent and that work is only relevant to me but I don't really believe that I believe if you express something honestly or truthfully that you the experience that it will be relevant to a lot of people and when I thought about that specific issue of isolation, it made sense because of so many of us even though our world is so interconnected more so than ever we feel more separate from each other especially here in the West then perhaps we ever have and I like the fact that all this has kind of snuck up on me that I was just shooting intuitively feeling a particular way in a city not being able to necessarily even articulate it that well but it started to come out in my work even before I defined it and the more I think about it it is relevant and I think that's the best way for a style to come out to emerge is to do it organically as we shoot a lot and we think a lot about ourselves and what we think about life and what we understand about who we are and how we see the world and us just slowly start to present it and it will be a process like.

 I said I'm not done with it now I know the temptation will be just a copy and paste my rationale or another artists rationale for your own work please don't do that I'm not saying that because I'm worried that you'll copy me particularly because of I personally believe that people can tell the difference in the art that is genuinely born of a struggle and a journey and honesty with yourself rises above the rest and people can smell the difference between that and imitation the reason I'm telling you to resist the temptation is because I don't want you to rob yourself of the journey it's worth taking I know it's difficult I know it takes a long time and it's a struggle and often you want to give up I get that but taking a shortcut is going to rob you one of developing yourself as a human being and to of having the chance to produce work which genuinely speaks that comes out of who you really are that's born of the pain of a journey where you had to struggle through to produce something that was worthwhile making your own journey means shooting thousands upon thousands of photographs paying attention to while you're shooting when does it just feel like things are clicking and they're effortless and when does it feel like you're just struggling or banging your head against a brick wall and taking a look at your work and how it's developing over time and seeing what emerges it's taking responsibility for looking at artists across all stripes from poets to writers to filmmakers to photographers to painters to musicians to see what are their why's why do they do what they do and what do you resonate with and what does it says about the direction you might need to go and it's paying attention to your personality to how you see the world to how you respond to the things around you and to show us your view of the way that things are because of I really believe it's only in the hours of shooting of looking back over your work overtime of bouncing your work of other people of immersing yourself in as many artists of as many different genres as you possibly can and doing deep honest self-work about who you are and how you see your world that your style will emerge.