Next steps - Making photography intensely personal?

There are lots of good replies here and all I can add is, I shoot photos of what I see everyday .......I live in such a different part of the world that I was born in (U.S.A.) that I love to travel, learn about different cultures and photograph about the people that I meet..........it makes me happy that I have this opportunity to travel and go to so many interesting places and have such wonderful experiences.....


cheers, michael
 
I am all for wild, blurry, vulgar, intense, spontaneous, imperfect and more personal photography. I feel am slowly taking that direction myself too.
 
Pickett Wilson said:
I've been thinking lately (as is obvious from a previous thread) about where photography goes from here. Making sharp, clear, well exposed images is trivial now. Everyone is a photographer. We can tick all the boxes, reference all the photographers that came before. We can portray others, shoot some more rocks and trees. Turn another HDR trick with Photoshop.

But, for me, the portraits all look the same. The street photos are just more street photos (amazing stuff these days thanks to cameras with no ISO limits not withstanding). The landscapes? Some really amazing stuff technically; but, really, just another landscape. So, now what?

The one thing I don't see much of, and that includes in my own personal photography, is the world view of the person behind the camera. You would think we would see more of this in fine art photography, but what I'm seeing is mostly impersonal stuff in the art world. Commercial "art" photography, designed to sell. Or simply attempts to be radically different (which is very hard to do these days).

I think the challenge going forward to create images that are intensely personal, personal in the sense that they reveal the way we uniquely see the world, what we actually think (and feel) about the people, events and objects we point our cameras at.will be There is a challenge, there, because it means we are going to have to understand, ourselves, where we are coming from, to reveal it in our photos. And it makes us vulnerable to criticism. But I think this direction is the only one that will ultimately make our photos interesting, and unique, among the billions of photos produced each year.

What do you think? Legit, or just the ramblings of an old 60's model hippie?
Click to expand...


+1...that is what I have always done. Criticism is for someone else, I don't believe in it at all, either giving it or receiving it. It was good when I first started out with a Nikon N4004s but that was a couple of lifetimes ago.

Now, what I shoot is what I get and that is the way I like it. Personal.
 
Pickett Wilson said:
I've been thinking lately (as is obvious from a previous thread) about where photography goes from here. Making sharp, clear, well exposed images is trivial now. Everyone is a photographer. We can tick all the boxes, reference all the photographers that came before. We can portray others, shoot some more rocks and trees. Turn another HDR trick with Photoshop.

But, for me, the portraits all look the same. The street photos are just more street photos (amazing stuff these days thanks to cameras with no ISO limits not withstanding). The landscapes? Some really amazing stuff technically; but, really, just another landscape. So, now what?

The one thing I don't see much of, and that includes in my own personal photography, is the world view of the person behind the camera. You would think we would see more of this in fine art photography, but what I'm seeing is mostly impersonal stuff in the art world. Commercial "art" photography, designed to sell. Or simply attempts to be radically different (which is very hard to do these days).

I think the challenge going forward will be to create images that are intensely personal, personal in the sense that they reveal the way we uniquely see the world, what we actually think (and feel) about the people, events and objects we point our cameras at. There is a challenge, there, because it means we are going to have to understand, ourselves, where we are coming from, to reveal it in our photos. And it makes us vulnerable to criticism. But I think this direction is the only one that will ultimately make our photos interesting, and unique, among the billions of photos produced each year.

What do you think? Legit, or just the ramblings of an old 60's model hippie?
Click to expand...

110% legit mon ami
 
I've never looked on the basics of photography as having any single aspect of particular difficulty, and looked on most of it more as precise artisan work than art. Now computers take care of most of the difficult things and provide off-the-shelf ideas in photoshop et al for processing their images. This should free people but I don't see it has produced any more artists than before. It hasn't altered the inner spark.
 
Pickett Wilson said:
...I think the challenge going forward will be to create images that are intensely personal, personal in the sense that they reveal the way we uniquely see the world, what we actually think (and feel) about the people, events and objects we point our cameras at. There is a challenge, there, because it means we are going to have to understand, ourselves, where we are coming from, to reveal it in our photos. And it makes us vulnerable to criticism. But I think this direction is the only one that will ultimately make our photos interesting, and unique, among the billions of photos produced each year.

What do you think? Legit, or just the ramblings of an old 60's model hippie?
Click to expand...

I think you would really enjoy Bill Jay's essay on values-driven photography. Give it a read in this issue of Lenswork. It's certainly reflects my creative goals.

John
 
I think one of the unintended consequences of the information age is feeling like we are inconsequential given our expanded understanding of the breadth and depth of the World.

100 years ago fellow artisans could hollow out a small local niche in his or her chosen medium and do an honest life's work making beautiful and intelligent work that both impressed clients and satisifed the artist. Now we are flooded with the images of what EVERYONE, and I mean EVERYONE else is doing. Our little brains just can't quite grasp it, so it overwhelms and depresses us with a "what's the use?" reaction. Some of the happiest artists I know continue to deny this knowledge and to just focus on the local market. Course you never heard of them ;)

Damn internet-tree-of-the-knowledge-of-good-and-evil...
 
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