Style, Voice, and Formula

<p>Recently, Charles questioned whether Karsh and Salgado, who seem to have developed very consistent individual styles (obvioulsy very different from each other's), are formulaic. Though I answered saying I think Karsh is formulaic and Salgado is not, I've been thinking about this stuff since then.</p>

<p>So many really good photographers have a noticeable style. I would say a strong or distinct voice goes deeper than style, which can at times be just superficial (although it obviously can go deeper with some artists).</p>

<p>I think sometimes there's a significant aspect to consistency. Let's take Mapplethorpe, who actually often leaves me cold even as I recognize the importance of his body of work as well as its groundbreaking nature. In treating flowers similarly to the way he treats depictions of sado-masochistic or simply homoerotic scenes and naked male bodies, is he not democratizing photography and beauty to some extent? Are we allowed, through his eyes, to see the beauty in something that up to a point had remained marginalized? Well, that's the good side of his consistent style and strong voice. The style and voice comment, through his body of work, on his subject matter.</p>

<p>At the same time, I tend to prefer bodies of work that attempt an array of styles, especially where technique seems tied to content and seems to vary based on the nature of the content and expressive output.</p>

<p>So, help me answer this question, which I'm grappling with. For you, when does consistency work and when does it become formulaic and less effective?</p>

<p>Seems like authenticity would be a key here.</p>

<p>"So many really good photographers have a noticeable <a id="itxthook1" href="/philosophy-of-photography-forum/00d1KE" rel="nofollow">style<img id="itxthook1icon" src="http://images.intellitxt.com/ast/adTypes/lb_icon1.png" alt="" /></a>. I would say a strong or distinct voice goes deeper than style, which can at times be just superficial (although it obviously can go deeper with some <a id="itxthook2" href="/philosophy-of-photography-forum/00d1KE" rel="nofollow">artists<img id="itxthook2icon" src="http://images.intellitxt.com/ast/adTypes/lb_icon1.png" alt="" /></a>)"<br>

They all do rarely without exception. Success equals a notable style...the real world of photography.</p>

<p>"For you, when does consistency work and when does it become formulaic and less effective?"</p>

<p>For me I try to escape from a formulaic style and move on no matter how successful I have been or otherwise. I do my photography for me and experimenting is very important to my enjoyment of photography ....going to different places trying different styles is the fun of it all. However, in the real world it is all about developing a consistent style and technique. The chaos of moving to different genera, styles, techniques, is a big no..no in the world of successful recognized photographers. </p>

<p>.</p>

<p>Do you mean in our own work, or in the work of other photographers? I think that for most people a style is simply something that grows out of a person when he/she has spent much trial and error to find a method that works best for them. When they find it, it just fits like a well worn shoe. Winogrands tilted frame, Cindy Shermans theatrical bent, Avedons white backdrop, Moriyamas high contrast pictures, and so on...they all arrived at these points due to their own unique personalities and their need to render their subject matter in a way that works for them. What works for them may not work for others however. We know this of course but I still see some photographers trying to imitate the work of other, well known photographers. I don't just mean beginners, but seasoned photographers who should know better and should have moved beyond this stage a long time ago. Change is difficult however, I understand that, and it's scary at times too. Yet, in the right mindset it can really be a great way to keep things fresh, to open new doors that one might have passed by otherwise. I never thought I'd shoot 35mm again after going to 6x7. Yet here I am shooting more 35mm then 120 these days. I did so because I wanted to explore 35mm further then I was able to as a beginner and because I knew that I would get different results - I would get pictures that I wouldn't attempt with the medium format camera. By changing my approach between the two formats as I do, it has really lead me into some unexpected and surprising places and by that I mean places in me that result in a difference of viewpoint and output. It's a wonderful journey. I don't know if any of this has resulted in a recognizable style for me in any way, and at this point it's not a concern either. Ultimately, we just have to get down to the task of doing our work in the way that most feels right to us.</p>

Humans are creatures of habit. Everyone falls into a manner of working and thinking ,and for photographers that habit

manifests itsel seeing light and subjects in certain ways. Whether that becomes a dead end rut or a wave you can ride

forever through different genres of subject matter, is a question unanswerable by anyone but you.

Karsh: Very formulaic, weighty, little context, leaves me wanting more. Seems he is many photographers'

first introduction to a well-known portrait photographer (probably due to the Churchill and cigar story), similar to how

Ansel Adams is with respect to landscape photographers. With regards to portrait photographers, I much

prefer the context and life Arnold Newman adds to his portraits, and without all the added gravitas that

elevates Karsh. Speaking of Arnold Newman, photographers in the San Francisco Bay Area should check

out an exhibition of his work now running at the Contemporary Jewish Museum in SF. As an aside, the CJM has

been killing it lately on photography exhibitions: The NYC Photo League ‘30s—50s exhibition two years

ago, The Photographs of Allen Ginsberg last year, and currently, the Newman exhibition.

 

Salgado: Respect what he does. But… For me, his photographs are so laden with gravitas they take on a

ponderous quality that in the end pushes me away from what they try to communicate.

<p><blockquote>Do you mean in our own work, or in the work of other photographers?</blockquote></p>

 

<p>Either or both.</p>

<blockquote>

<p>I still see some photographers trying to imitate the work of other, well known photographers. I don't just mean beginners, but seasoned photographers who should know better and should have moved beyond this stage a long time ago.</p>

</blockquote>

<p>Interesting point, Mark. I agree there are potential pitfalls to imitation. At the same time, I think it's also an important ingredient in much art that even seasoned artists practice. To paraphrase Picasso, one can steal and still make it their own! Homage, copying, and tributes all have imitative qualities and are all important parts of art as a dialog through the ages, one artist to another. </p>

<p>I recently saw the Cubism exhibit at the Met and the incredible and often intentional similarity between Picasso’s and Braque’s work can be very enlightening, given what Braque has to say about it. Feeding off one another, including some degree of imitation, can be an important step, even for experienced artists.</p>

<blockquote>

<p><em>"When we were so friendly with Picasso, there was a time when we had difficulty in recognizing our own pictures. Later, when the revelation went deeper, differences appeared. Revelation is the one thing that cannot be taken from you. But before the revelation took place, there was still a marked intention of carrying painting in a direction that could re-establish the bond between Picasso and ourselves."</em> —Georges Braque </p>

</blockquote>

<p>Very interesting what you say about using 35 mm as opposed to medium format. Do you have an example of a 35 mm photo you wouldn't attempt with a medium format camera as an illustration of this difference and discovery you've talked about? I'd love to understand that a little more, so anything you could say about a particular photo in that regard would really be nice.</p>

<blockquote>

<p>Whether that becomes a dead end rut or a wave you can ride forever through different genres of subject matter, is a question unanswerable by anyone but you.</p>

</blockquote>

<p>I was hoping it would be answerable by you and others, Ellis, whether about your own photography or your perception of the photography of others. Naturally, I wasn't asking anyone to answer for me.</p>

<p><br /> .</p>

<p>"Salgado: Respect what he does. But… For me, his photographs are so laden with gravitas they take on a ponderous quality that in the end pushes me away from what they try to communicate"</p>

<p>His strength is using photography as a real world view...the power of photography to express the photographers art in a base of hard world cold truths.</p>

<p>The brush of the photographic art entwined with photographic truths....</p>

<p>For me Fred, I like to portray aspects of humanity in my photography. </p><div></div>

<p>There is consistency of approach and also consistency of style, which can be different qualities of a photographer. We can become overexposed to both, but when either is invoked continuously but with an originality of content in each image it is not I think a handicap. I guess the problem is that the more a certain style or approach is consistent the more likely it may be that the element of originality is missing. This is not exclusive to the case of consistent approaches or styles, as originality is difficult to achieve whether the consistency is a characteristic or not.</p>

<p>I don't think many well-known photographers or artists work to a formula or fixed style, with possible exceptions like David Hamilton or Norman Rockwell, whose formulae are really just consistent styles of image presentation. One might say that the hyper realist artists have a consistent formula, but that again is more style or approach than formula I think. The subject matter treated and how it is treated (as a function of the nature of the subject matter) is probably part of the key to making original statements within the "constraints" of consistent approaches or styles. </p>

 

<p>Allen, nice capture of a little girl's questioning expression and her dependence on an adult companion.</p>

<p>It's hard to describe Fred because I just have different mindsets based on the camera I decide to use on any given day. For one, the 6x7 and the 35mm negatives while both being rectangles, the 35mm is much longer on two sides then the 6x7 which is closer to a square. That alone forces me to consider my picture field in different ways. Then there are technical concerns too. For example, it's much easier to shoot indoors with 35mm cameras then with medium format. That's not to say it cannot be done because I've done plenty of street style shooing indoors with my RZ67. It's just that the slow lenses common to medium format requires fast iso which means Delta 3200 the fastest film in 120. Even then, shutter speeds get dangerously low for hand holding the camera. Furthermore, Delta 3200 has gotten pretty expensive and the developer I used didn't have a very long shelf life so I would have to devote blocks of time for just indoor shooting. With 35mm I can use Tri-X loaded in a separate body that I keep in my bag while my other body has slow/medium speed film. This is because 35mm lenses tend to be faster. The first picture below was taken last week with my 50mm f1.4 lens. This was taken in Grand Central Market, a place I've used my Mamiya in many times. In fact my picture at the bottom of this page of the man at the counter with all the bottles is one such shot. The 2nd picture was taken at Sacramento airport with my 35mm f2 lens. If all I had in each of these cases was my Mamiya and Delta 3200 I can bet that I would looked at things differently and as such would have taken very different pictures then these. </p><div></div>

<p>2nd picture.</p><div></div>

<p><strong>Arthur</strong>, thanks. Your post helps me clarify the difference between consistent and formulaic. Formulae often seem to come from outside and therefore seem less internalized than either a genuine style or a voice. The reason a photographer's having a voice is, to me, moving and admirable, is that it feels internalized and authentic. A formula, on the other hand, seems more objective and distanced. That's why Karsh, to me, is problematic. His style just doesn't seem integrated to the subject matter itself. So the style seems external to the work or at least to the content. Salgado's style, for me, while it may well be distracting from his intended message and may be too melodramatic for the realities he's confronting, at least seems pertinent to the subject matter, even if over the top. There certainly is drama in what Salgado is presenting. It's just he takes it a bit too far and it starts to get in the way. But I can see and feel the authenticity of the connection he's making and the fact that his style seems to have percolated from the intensity of his subject matter.</p>

 

<p>The emphasis on originality is a bit trickier, and there I probably part ways with you, Arthur. I think one can have a strong voice and a consistent style without devolving into formulaic maneuverings and without necessarily being original. A lot of art is not original. A lot of it builds quite transparently on what came before. Most art represents what I would consider baby steps in the evolution or progression of the arc of history. There are few Beethovens and Picassos, few genuine rifts with what came before. We can say Chopin was "original" especially if we restrict his predecessors to Mozart, Haydn, and Beethoven. But familiarity with the Irish pianist and composer John Field will show great similarities and will also show Field inventing the nocturne prior to Chopin and just how much influence Field’s music had on Chopin. Chopin may well have been the better composer and may have taken the Romantic piano much further than Field, but how "original" Chopin was would be a very arguable thing. Nevertheless, his music has such a genuinely integrated, personal, and harmonious consistency that one would be hard-pressed to claim Chopin was formulaic in his composing.</p>

<p>I think one of the reasons we have art movements and historical "schools" of photography is that originality is not always at the forefront of concerns of art. A vision is often shared among contemporaries, studied from all angles, visually discussed and debated. While Pictorialism, Cubism, Expressionism themselves may have been "original", most of the artists participating were not the originators of the style. But each was fleshing it out in their own way. I'd put it more in terms of internalization or personalization than I would originality. And even then, it is as contemporaneously shared as it is individualized. This is why I often reject the notion that art is a subjective matter. It is shared, it is public, and it is a dialogue as much as it is personal. It is also building new wings onto a foundation as much as it is pouring a new foundation itself.</p>

<p><strong>Marc</strong>, thanks for posting the examples and your further thoughts. Though I certainly accept that you would shoot differently with each camera, it’s a little hard to understand just what those differences are and how they might affect your development of a style in your shooting. Not being familiar with the gear and film you’re talking about, it’s a bit beyond my comprehension, but I appreciate that something is definitely at play for you.<br />.</p>

<p>Fred, thanks for your well presented and supported thoughts and examples about style (approach, movements) and originality and the fact that the latter is not so common and we have to consider the internalization or personalisation aspects, albeit shared with a greater audience. I agree with that but feel that the originality is something more related to the way the artist treats his subject matter and not that he has developed an original style (like the nocturne example) as he may be working with an established style or movement. I think that whereas Rockwell's artistic style was specific and original it was to my mind overdone as well as being essentially formulic, it lost its originality as it did not display anything very new to the viewer. Of course he was illustrating popular media and perhaps if I was American and more absorbed in the culture I would have more appreciation of his style, content and and message. Adams had a very distinct style and technical and aesthetic approach that transcended however the cultural envelope and can be appreciated by a wider audience, although some of his beautiful pictures are not very original or tell us something new about his subject matter (although I think most do, and I would guess especially at the time of their making). These are simply personal (subjective) views which do not ignore at all the talent of the artists (Karsh too was quite talented at what he did, even though his style did not always provide very original interpretations of his subjects).</p>

<p>What I think as original is often the way the artist has interpreted his subject matter and not so much whether he has developed some new movement or style rather than just embracing the latter. Alex Colville is a Candian hyper realist who, like his possibly more famous American fellow artists of that movement, did not invent the artistic approach, but I feel that his subjects are what count for him and the viewer and how he interprets them. The originality is in the individual interpretatiions and not in the movement he espoused. His voice is louder than that of the style adopted or some formulic or technically oft repeated approach.</p>

<p>Funny you should mention Rockwell. My brother has a country house a few towns away from the Norman Rockwell museum in Stockbridge, Mass. I visit my brother often and recently visited the museum for the first time. I think you may be right not necessarily about being an American <em>per se</em> as much as about seeing his work in the context of the town he worked in for so many years and putting it into the context of the lives he was surrounded by, etc. For what he was doing, I think his style was perfect and the consistency (formula?) he brought to bear was just recognizable enough to be engaging and familiar, which was what his work was all about. Though I like challenging art and art that surprises and even sometimes upsets me, I think there's an important aspect to some art becoming so familiar that it feels like a best friend. Neil Young was never as challenging a musician as Eric Clapton or Jimi Hendrix and James Taylor not as transcendent or biting as Bob Dylan or Leonard Cohen. Yet there's an important place for both Young and Taylor . . . and I think Rockwell.</p>

<p>The whole formula thing is confusing, because I think it depends on what use it may be put to. Rockwell demands, IMO, a look beyond the superficiality of his palatable and recognizable style. That look can be rewarded with a very multi-dimensional feeling for a very real and diverse America. Why would <a href="http://www.scottmcd.net/artanalysis/wp-content/uploads/2010/03/Rockwell-Large.jpg">THIS PAINTING</a>, entitled <em>The Problem We All Live With</em>, be given any less socio-political and artistic importance than <a href="http://corsodifotografiabase.files.wordpress.com/2011/10/elliott_erwitt_photo11.jpg">THE PHOTO</a> we recently discussed by Elliott Erwitt showing segregated drinking fountains? And did not Erwitt have a very consistent and recognizable, even rather simple style as well? Rockwell had an almost pastel-like light touch and easygoing penmanship when it came to his paintings and magazine covers but that shouldn't gloss over the humanity he expressed and the significance of the social understanding he showed.</p>

<p>In any case, I came away from the Rockwell show moved by one main quality I felt throughout his work, something I've long considered very significant to art, at least as important as challenge, complexity, mystique, and even beauty in many cases: <em>Intimacy</em>. I felt a part of his families, of his neighborhoods, of his soldier's lives, of his holiday celebrations and cultural events. No matter how iconic some of his scenes may have seemed, they also felt personal. His was the art of an <em>insider</em> and, for my taste, you just can't beat that.</p>

<p>I suggest reading this <a href="http://www.vanityfair.com/culture/features/2009/11/norman-rockwell-200911">VANITY FAIR ARTICLE</a> about him.</p>

<p>Arthur, I did want to acknowledge your point about originality not necessarily pertaining to style but also being about a photographer's or artist's sensibility toward their content and subject matter. That adds some important texture to the discussion. Thanks. Though I appreciate originality when it occurs, I also think it's often over-emphasized as a necessary ingredient of art. Art often goes over very similar territory, the same moral dilemmas in film, the same loves and losses in plays and books and the salient feature is often the artist's personal connection to it rather than the exploration of something new about it, unless we take it to be than any individual's unique connection to a subject is automatically original (which could easily be argued and accepted, though I would probably resist that).</p>

<blockquote>

<p>"...the salient feature is often the artist's personal connection to it rather than the exploration of something new about it, unless we take it to be than any individual's unique connection to a subject is automatically original (which could easily be argued and accepted, though I would probably resist that)."</p>

 

</blockquote>

<p>You opened my mind a little toward Norman Rockwell in regard to his intimate home town and community connection, which I can appreciate in his approach and work. Idealising certain aspects of the human condition and human behaviour as Rockwell did is perhaps missing today. If I get to Stockbridge someday (which I must as someone interested in colonial heritage which is another feature of Stockbridge), I will try to see the museum. In regard to the last phrase, I agree completely with you. Personal connection alone is not an automatic guarantee of originality.</p>

<p>I visited the Rockwell Museum. It's fascinating to see the original paintings of images you only saw before on magazine covers or on the internet. His was pure Americana, simple, good, uncomplicated, often humorous and ironic. While we were there, my wife, being from Brooklyn, insisted on "Bottom of the Sixth" - the poster. Its important to know that most of his illustrations were for the Saturday Evening Post. So his style and formula and content fit their readers to a tee. He did 321 covers for them.<br>

http://www.art.com/products/p9388043817-sa-i5447015/norman-rockwell-bottom-of-the-sixth-three-umpires-april-23-1949.htm</p>

<p> </p>

<p>I suppose there are many ways that styling can be used to have an effect. And I think Karsh aimed to create a portrait to achieve the same effect in the viewer regardless of his subject. I noticed with Salgado's photo journalism the effect on the viewer (me!) was also predictable. Karsh, Salgado: both were mostly predictable with respect to the effect their work would have on the viewer. And in part that would be because, I assume, they were doing a particular job. Now Karsh had been criticized for being unchanging for most of his career, I forgot by which writer; so it seemed fair to at least consider if the same could be said of Salgado.<br>

<br /> One difference between Karsh and Salgado may have to do with the amount of information (content) packed into their work. Karsh very little, where often with Salgado there's an overwhelming amount of detail in his shots. Even so, both of them at some point wear me out. And I think that is largely because of my viewing their photos by the lot.</p>

I said in another thread that Salgado has an easier

time showing feeling due to the intense content he

photographs. So to that extent it's unfair to

compare Karsh. It's harder to pull feeling doing

portraiture.

 

 

But in the end, isn't it fruitless to compare one style with another as to which is better? Would you argue that a musician who always does jazz is better than a musician who always does Spanish guitar? Also as listeners (and viewers) we can switch artists and enjoy the talents of all of them.

<p>Alan maybe it's like comparing BB King to Otis Rush, both have an identifiable style and I appreciate both and having an identifiable style is an achievement. And I'm starting to think that faulting Karsh just for his style probably isn't fair, is kind of like faulting him for his manner of expression alone. I see in Karsh a style that works toward expressing his tendency to fawn all over his subjects. That he expresses in his work a sort of fawning over his subjects can be fairly criticized. I like his style though. And I like Otis Rush but his isn't really dance music either, is dense with musical ideas.</p>

<blockquote>

<p>isn't it fruitless to compare one style with another as to which is better</p>

</blockquote>

<p>No, it's discriminating, educational, and constructive. Besides which, most of the comments about the two styles have been insightful comparisons about how they each work and what they each accomplish. They have not been simplistic comparisons about which is better.</p>

<blockquote>

<p>Would you argue that a musician who always does jazz is better than a musician who always does Spanish guitar?</p>

</blockquote>

<p>I would only if one were consistently better than the other. But then I wouldn't be arguing that jazz is better than Spanish guitar. What I might be saying is that the jazz guitarist, in this case, happens to do a better job at jazz than the Spanish guitarist does at playing Spanish guitar. I'd leave room for the fact that, with two other musicians, a different Spanish guitarist might be better at his chosen style than another jazz guitarist. In other words, I might like portraits equally as well as photojournalism, which I do. And yet I might think Salgado is a good photojournalist and Karsh is not such a good portraitist.</p>

<blockquote>

<p>Also as listeners (and viewers) we can switch artists and enjoy the talents of all of them.</p>

</blockquote>

<p>Of course! And as a mature listener and viewer, I can also be critical in assessing those talents and in saying where some talents fall short and others shine. I don't have to be indiscriminate or uncritical in order to appreciate photography or music.<br /> <br /> __________________________________________<br /> <br /> <strong>Charles</strong>, I'd question whether that was Karsh's aim. I think it was the <em>effect</em> his work had or the <em>result</em> of his style. But many of his statements suggest he was not aiming to get the viewer to feel the same way about each portrait he made or about the subject of each of those portraits. His writing on the subject suggests that he was hoping, and probably thought he was achieving this, to bring out something very special and unique about each person he photographed. I think he failed in that respect, as well as others.</p>

<p>Like many well known photographers and other artists who have developed a specific style and have remained consistent with it, Rockwell, Hamilton and Karsh (to name but a few) can "wear you out", as Charles says, upon repeated exposure. Each country also seems to have its icons, as Rockwell is to the USA, or HCB or Brassai or Lartigue are to France in depicting everyday French life.</p>

<p>The oft-criticized Karsh produced a book entitled "Canadians" which is a very good archival and to some degree artistic record of local notables of his period, photographed in a manner that to some degree relates to the subjects. Those who have some familiarity with his subjects recognize some of their qualities and specificities in Karsh's images (examples include economist John K. Galbraith, humorist Stephen Leacock, politicians Pierre Trudeau, Peter Lougheed of Alberta and John Diefenbacker, pianist Glenn Gould, the Brit A. Belaney converted to the apparently indigenous Grey Owl, writer Margaret Atwood, ethnologist Marius Barbeau, cinematographer Norman McLaren, phsician Hans Selye, writers Morley Callaghan and Margaret Lawrence, sovereignist leader René Levesque, communications specialist Marshall McLuhan, and others), albeit with his usual rather heavy penchant for dramatic and sometimes too flattering lighting.</p>

<p>I can fatigue a bit of of his approach after multiple viewings, but do not get the impression he is trying to provide a formula or a sort of "Canadiana" in his work, but merely concentrating on his subject, at least some aspects of his presentation of whom seem to be true to the person. This latter quality or attribute is at least what the viewer may wish, despite the exaggeration (which can also apply to Rockwell and in some ways to the B&W abstractions of Adams). I think that the "albatross" of portraits, unless undertaken in an artistic manner and then usually of unknown persons, is the quest for reality (of visible features and the relevance of any symbolic features).</p>

<blockquote>

<p>I think that the "albatross" of portraits</p>

</blockquote>

<p>Albatross? I'm not getting that part. The fact that we point our cameras at something "real", to me, is one of the salient and exciting features of photography, all kinds of photography. The balance we achieve between conveying that reality (in portraiture, the reality, at least as we perceive it, of who that person is or what that person looks like at the moment) and adding imaginative, expressive, and aesthetic ingredients to that to come up with an effective photo is, to me, a major part of photography. It's done with landscapes, with architecture, with street scenes, with still lifes, and with so many other photographic genres.</p>

<p>Style, IMO, can be a key ingredient we add to the reality at which our camera has been pointed, which allows us to personalize and individualize that very reality, if we so choose.</p>