Genres of photograpy you like to work in and early influences

<p>Following my last post in this forum about clichés and genres in photography, I thought it might be interesting to ask the question: what genres of photography do you like working in and who are your influences? I started out taking pictures as a teenager in the 1960’s. I remember being fascinated by the black and white photo essays that Life and Look magazines would do. For example, even though it was published in 1948, before I was even born, I remember seeing at some point the photo essay on the country doctor by W. Eugene Smith: <a href="http://life.time.com/history/life-classic-eugene-smiths-country-doctor/#1">http://life.time.com/history/life-classic-eugene-smiths-country-doctor/#1</a> Looking at it today I still find it both powerful and inspirational. I think my first choice of camera, film, and style of shooting (35mm,Tri-X, and natural light documentary) was a direct influence from these types of essays. As I got more into portraits, I was struck by the work of Arnold Newman. Even though he did use some lighting, his portraits were “environmental” and had that documentary feel: <a href="http://arnoldnewman.com/gallery-collections/archive-gallery">http://arnoldnewman.com/gallery-collections/archive-gallery</a> Later I fell in love with the work of Jim Marshall, who is famous for photographing rock musicians using black and white 35mm and a documentary approach: <a href="http://www.jimmarshallphotographyllc.com/">http://www.jimmarshallphotographyllc.com/</a> and Linda McCartney, who did shoot primarily color, but again did more of an environmental/documentary style: <a href="http://lindamccartneyphotography.tumblr.com/page/2">http://lindamccartneyphotography.tumblr.com/page/2</a> As I learned to do studio lighting I was impressed by the simple portrait style of Franceso Scavullo: <a href="http://www.scavulloeditions.com/retrospective">http://www.scavulloeditions.com/retrospective</a> who did many Cosmopolitan magazine covers, but he also did numerous black and white portraits of famous people: actors, musicians, etc. He usually used a simple gray background and one umbrella for lighting, which is much like window light. I admire his ability to capture the unique personality of his subjects. <br /> If you peruse through my folders here you will see unmistakable signs of these influences. I have never tried to copy anybody’s style directly, but I certainly have been influenced by the “look and feel” of these artists. I have no doubt that it’s these photographers I mentioned above, and others, who inspired me to even pick up a camera. I think we all add our own creativity and personality into our own style despite being influence by others. Strangely, I was never interested in art class and I can’t draw anything, but using a camera opened up a creative door in my mind that has remained open all these years and has been a lasting source of creative expression and joy for me.</p>

<p>Robert Frank - Eugene Richards - Leonard Freed - Daido Moriyama - Antione D'Aagata - Jacob Aue Sobol and a few cinematographers/film directors/painters...</p>

<p>But everything I see/hear influences me, especially my travels. </p>

<p>Journalism and to a lesser degree documentary are my favorites to work in. Early influences were two local photographers named Brad Ashmore and Claude Woodall. Working with these two it was amazing that we could see anything in the darkroom for all of the cigar smoke. Learned a lot about a lot of things from them. Better know influences have been Eddie Adams, Karsh, Eisensteadt, Avedon and a few others. The biggest thing I learned and the hardest lesson was that I can't do what they do no matter how much I like it. I can only do what I do.</p>

<p>Rick H.</p>

<p>No one in particular. But I think Hollywood films I've seen since a kid in the way they frame a scene has influenced the way I frame a photo.</p>

<p>At the very beginning I wasn't influenced by anyone, I just seemed to gravitate toward the street. I cannot put my finger on why. It wasn't until I took my first photography course as a means to learn to develop and print my film (I never liked the results I got back from the labs) that I discovered that there were many previous photographers that shot in a similar manner. I greatly admire names such as those mentioned by Leslie Cheung above but I think once I became familiar with their work, my own approach and habits were already formed and I don't seem to have deviated too much from them other then switching back and fourth between formats. So it's hard for me to say how much if any of an influence they might have on me. If I had to pick one, I might pick W. Eugene Smith for his unmatched dedication to photography as a means to promote social change. If I had gotten started in photography when I was younger, I probably would have used him as a role model to pursue a similar career as a photojournalist.</p>

<p>Asking me what genre I like working in is, for me, sort of like asking a cat what genre it likes to hunt. We're not particular.</p>

<p>I think my "influences" are more the 'prey' rather than the other cats, though I study the other felines very closely -- not so much for leadership, I think, as for territory that I have missed.</p>

<p>Steve, more than a particular genre, painting has been an influence on me . . . especially in terms of achieving depth and texture in my photos. Whenever I go to a museum, I seem to be influenced by whatever exhibition I see.</p>

<p>Early on, and to this day, Annie Leibovitz has had influence on me, as much for what I want to do as for what I don't or am unable to do (for lack of access to stars and a preference for a different population). For me, she achieves a fascinating kind of truth in the artifice of persona.</p>

<p>I've out-and-out mimicked certain photographers and painters and learned a lot by doing that, later taking what I learned from doing that and applying it in my own ways to my own visual sense.</p>

<p>Music has also had much influence on my aesthetic, offering rhythm and the less tangible to work with.</p>

<p>Philosophy has been influential, more for its questions and wonderment than for any specific answers or resolution.</p>

<p>I've been influenced by a very close friend/mentor, not in terms of my personal style or vision but in terms of ways to develop my individuality and sense of photographic self.</p>

<p>One genre that's had a strong impact on me over the years is the movie Western. The Hollywood Western is often rich with environmental portraits and great storytelling. Honorable mention goes to German Expressionism for its expressive and often blatant play with light and shadow.</p>

<blockquote>

<p>Steve J. Murray -- <em>I have never tried to copy anybody’s style directly, but I certainly have been influenced by the “look and feel” of these artists.</em></p>

</blockquote>

<p>Overall, I think this statement of yours best summarizes how other photographers "influence" me at this point in my "career". Before taking up photogaphy with serious intent (meaning, back when I took the same family snapshots that most people take, and with no knowledge of composition, dof, etc.), I did love viewing some of the same types of black and white documentary photos one would see in Life and Look. </p>

<p>I came across flickr in 2003 or 2004 and just started putting up a few humble family photos. I started looking through other photographs and came across some that had a "look" that just startled me and blew me away at the time. My appreciation of this "look" led me to try and find out how it was done and to try and do it myself. This unique (to me at the time) "look" was, in fact, HDR. The much despised and hated HDR (at least in some circles). So my influences became people like Trey Ratcliff ("Stuck in Customs"), Sky Shaper, and particularly Kris Kross whose HDR photos were the first ones I came across. </p>

<p>It was also in my "early" flickr days that I started coming across street and documentary photos that captured my attention and admiration. I started looking into people like Frank, Arbus, Winogrand, Eugene Smith, and a whole different world opened up. I soon abandoned HDR altogether. It was like going from being entertained by popular pot-boilers (Dan Brown, for example) to suddenly discovering the depth, subtlety, and artistry of James Joyce. </p>

<p>More recent influences have been Josef Koudelka, William Klien, Louis Faurer, though again, I seek to transmit in my own work, the feeling that I derive from certain of theirs. I don't want to "look" like any of them. </p>

<p>I am also influenced by many of my peers here on PN, though I may not say so directly. That influence can also come from your words and your approaches to photography. </p>

<p>An area that I do not dabble in, but enjoy looking at, is fashion photography. I haven't done an in depth study of fashion photographers, but I find I consistently enjoy the work of Patrick Demarchelier, and am least impressed by Mario Testino. But that may not be fair, since my viewing is cursory at best. </p>

Avedon, Moriyama, Frank, Disfarmer, Arbus, Klein, Kawada.

<p>I'm influenced primarily by writers and musicians, and to some extent by live theatrical performance arts.</p>

<p>Usually I hear music or passages from plays or novels running through my head as I'm out walking around, often many simultaneously. I see something, and instantly associate it with something else - an instrumental musical passage, a song lyric, a phrase from a book, the way a girl's breath smelled when I was a teenager and she was babbling happily about some nonsense and I think "She reminds me of Luna Lovegood only Luna Lovegood doesn't exist yet and won't for another 30 years", the way a hospital smelled last week, the echoes of a Chinese couple chattering animatedly inside the Serra Vortex sculpture while a young woman stands silhouetted against the exit and I remember the same girl again in 1986 in a fake teepee near Dallas but that couldn't be possible because Luna Lovegood still doesn't exist yet and I hear Cat Power singing "the moon is so... hollow" in my head, over and over until a dragon rises from the mist and recites Lavinia's lament from Titus Andronicus in the voice of archy the cockroach from Don Marquis' stories.</p>

<p>And then I'm out of film or the memory card is filled up and I go home.</p>

<p>Steve, I'm pretty sure, from your OP that what you're talking about is style and not genre, just from the way you describe what you took from each of those whom you reference. It seems to be more about the "look" of their work than of the category that they worked within.</p>

<p>Nevertheless, I'm curious about even the possibility of 'genre' in photography as well as how -- in what way -- we can be influenced by the work of those we admire (as we clearly believe that we are).</p>

<p>Unlike painting or writing, in which 'genre' is an easily recognized and accepted idea, we photographers can't sit on our couch or in our studio and 'do' a particular genre. We have to be living 'in' it to 'do' it. How does one live in a genre? We don't make the light; we work with what's there or what can be made to be there. We don't make the things; they are what they are, they arrive with their own history/attitude, for their own 'reasons,' not ours. How does this light which we did not make and these things with their own reasons and histories get conformed to a genre; how is it made to submit to categorization?</p>

<p>We photographers deal in, make, find (whatever term you prefer) relations, arrangements, interactions, configurations. Unlike light and objects, those are 'ours.' Can you get 'genre' out of relations, arrangements, interactions and configurations? Are those purely responsive (interpretive, conceptual readings) able to be categorized into different genres?</p>

<p>Influence. Given that I can't do Weston's California landscapes in Virginia, how does Weston influence me? Given that Steve and all the commenters above do not live in the light, with the objects of those whom have influenced them, how are they influenced by those that they have mentioned? If, for example, you say "By what I pay attention to," or "By how I pay attention to it," or "The manner of its presentation," this seems to assume that the 'it' is almost generic. Where, in fact, we all (should) know that the 'it' is not only not generic, it is very much alive, kicking and making demands. I would suggest (given the above about genres) that the 'influence' would be in the nature of the kinds of relations/arrangements; much more heavily weighted to 'where' (configuration) than to 'how' or 'what' -- which latter two are what genre and influence seem to me to be about in the other arts.</p>

<p>In photography, we deal with an awful lot of stuff that is not 'ours.' This makes us different (in an exciting way) from other arts, and from how we can talk about things like genre and influence. In my opinion.</p>

<p>Portraiture is a genre. If we make portraits, we delve into that genre.</p>

<p>I can't do Weston landscapes in San Francisco and my painter friends are not in the French countryside that Monet lived in. So?</p>

<p>Influence happens through openness, and a willingness to share and empathize. It's a special sort of <em>connection</em> to and with others.</p>

<p>what genres of photography do you like working in?</p>

<ul>

<li>Landscape</li>

<li>Cityscape</li>

<li>Travel</li>

<li>City Life/Street Photography</li>

<li>Event Photography</li>

<li>Sports (when I get the opportunity)</li>

<li>Portrait/Fashion</li>

<li>Table top/Product photography</li>

</ul>

<p>who are your influences?</p>

<ul>

<li>Initially: Galen Rowell, Bruce Dale, Life Magazine</li>

<li>Lately: Ernst Haas, Robert Doisneau, anyone who creates interesting images with their cameras</li>

</ul>

<p> </p>

<p>Thinking about it a bit I don't feel I shoot or seek out to shoot genre's. I seek to react to what I see and where ever I may find myself which lately has been waking up from a nap in my apartment and taking note of puddles of light coming in through an open window and becoming mesmerized by the moment and shooting it. What genre is that? Urban surrealism/abstract? I have no idea.</p>

<p>The new apartment complex I moved to in the past year has the strangest layout not only with its floorplan but the two story units are arranged together so the sun pops in and out throughout the day from the most unexpected angles and places. Light oysters will project on to a dark wall in the morning from a thin beam of light peeking through closed curtains. Strange but quiet light shows abound.</p>

<p>Influences?...<br>

<br /> I've learned from my early days as a cartoonist being influenced by Mad magazine artists Jack Davis and Mort Drucker to the point I could produce cartoons in their exact style that I don't want any influences in my head when I photograph. All my work looked contrived. Don't want to do that anymore. So I guess it's me that influences me. I clear my mind and I just react. Makes for a more fulfilling creative experience.</p>

<p>But I do love cinematographer Gordon Willis' work but I don't keep that in my mind when I shoot.</p>

<p>O'kay. The Investigatory Pictography. EI: Muybridge J. Eadwarde and Hr. Sammallahti of Finland. May not seem to be very obvious but it's true. Musicaly: Indian Ragas. I think there architectural aspect to it because of seeing perspectives is unescapable in the city and very restricting too. Then beauty of nature in general and probably the light on sub-photonic level as well.</p>

<p>Tim: I found this interesting thing on Gordon Willis.<br>

<a href="http://www.indiewire.com/article/5-tips-from-cinematographer-gordon-willis">http://www.indiewire.com/article/5-tips-from-cinematographer-gordon-willis</a></p>

<p>Three name photographers that I see as influencers: Clarence John Laughlin, Manuel Alvarez Bravo, Ralph Eugene Meatyard, Ellen von Unwerth. </p>

<p>One name photographer I see as an influence: Disfarmer.</p>

<p>Genres: Portraits that look like they were taken at Burning Man but weren't, very loud musicians.</p>

<p>Thanks for the link to the Gordon Willis article, Alan.</p>

<p>The Craft Truck YouTube interview mentions even more nuggets of cinematography including how Willis had to pretest Kodak stock film which was predictable at the time of shooting the Godfather to explain why some scenes were WAY too dark than he intended. 3 strip Technicolor didn't survive the long wait to get transferred digitally to Blu-Ray for some reason.</p>

<p>Willis said flat out as the years went by Kodak just didn't want to make film any more. Might have to give that YouTube interview a second watch to gleam from within the context exactly what he meant by that.</p>

<p>Thanks for the link.</p>

<p>Film for cinematography was Kodak's last big film money maker. So it's surprising they said that. On the other hand, I think Kodak was getting involved in printing and other areas in a big way and saw the inevitable end to film. Sometimes you have to let go of the past totally to move on to the future. I think Kodak saw that with film but was too late in their willingness to change.</p>

<p>Interesting mix of influences. I have been looking up some of the photographers/artists mentioned that I was not familiar with. I'm not surprised many of us have been inspired by some of the early photographers, as well as artists. I was somewhat surprised by the mention of movies, music and writing as influences to photographic style. This did remind me that I was "influenced" in a way by the movie<em> Blow Up</em> by Michelangelo Antonioni (1967). It centers around an edgy fashion photographer brilliantly played by a young David Hemmings. I was a teenager at the time and the whole idea of running around with a camera and photographing people just stuck with me as a cool thing to do. The black and white photography in Fellini's <em>8 1/2</em> (1963) just blew me away too. <br /> <br /> I believe we are all influenced consciously, and unconsciously too. Throw that into the mix of individual personality, life experiences, and innate creative abilities and you get the great variety of images we see. </p>