Photos you like but don't know why

Treasure those photos that you don't quite understand. I have a number of color landscapes that I shot over 40 years ago that were stylistically so unlike anything I was doing at the time that I almost didn't keep them. They just didn't seem to fit in anywhere. Nevertheless, there seemed to be something there...
Now, they are exactly in the style that I have evolved into over the past decades, to the point where it feels as though my future self went back in time to shoot them. I think your subconscious can be giving you a message, telling you where to go next with your work, if only you'll pay attention! I'm very glad I didn't discard those images, and now consider them some of my best. What I considered to be my best work, 40 years ago? Not so much!
 
Richard, it's your subconscious (= unconscious) mind at work. Mine goes on grinding and whirring 24/7/365 (+1 extra day every 4 years!).

I long ago gave up trying to figure out why I mentally function at so many levels. Either my brain is obsessed with order, or it runs its own computer. Too bad we can't buy one like it at a shop. Apple would have made a killing here, if The Late Mr Jobs hadn't instead opted to go for yuppy good looks, and now look at the dire situation they find themselves in.

Of late I've been browsing thru my archives, notably images I made in the 1970s and 1980s, when I ws younger and more impressionable and didn't really know what directions in my life would suit me best. And I see things (in my old photographs) I hadn't noticed at the time I made them. So many things. My mature mind has figured out a lot more that I didn't even consider when I was in my 20s-30s-40s-even 50s. TO this day I cannot work out why this is so. But it's just how it is.

Which makes a convincing argument, I think, for keeping all our old photographs. And revisiting them late in life to see what new ideas and thoughts pop out of them. As Retro-Grouch wrote in #2. Spot-on.

As for "style" I decided long ago to let that take care of itself. As a (now happily retired) architect I tend to think in grids, and I've always leaned to static images such as buildings, landscaped open areas and more "manicured" visuals. Correctly vertical verticals are my most petty obsession. Here again my brain thinks in lines (not linear, something I will never, ever be accused of by anyone who knows me!) and sees things with its own internal vision and viewpoints. Much later down the track I return to those images and I see many new things in them. That's how it is.

So for me so-called "style" takes care of itself. A few art-focused photographers I know tend to disagree with me, they believe in "style" and "technique" (almost aways copied from books and magazines and the internet, but I'm too diplomatic - or I can'tt be bothered - to say this directly to them - but the publishing clients who now and then buy my images like them. And that's good enough for me.
 
Last edited:
Retro-Grouch said:
Treasure those photos that you don't quite understand. I have a number of color landscapes that I shot over 40 years ago that were stylistically so unlike anything I was doing at the time that I almost didn't keep them. They just didn't seem to fit in anywhere. Nevertheless, there seemed to be something there...
Now, they are exactly in the style that I have evolved into over the past decades, to the point where it feels as though my future self went back in time to shoot them. I think your subconscious can be giving you a message, telling you where to go next with your work, if only you'll pay attention! I'm very glad I didn't discard those images, and now consider them some of my best. What I considered to be my best work, 40 years ago? Not so much!
Click to expand...

The mind likes order. In my early years in photography as a Rolleiflex TLR owner, I read many books by the then-masters of 6x6 image making - Fritz Henle and an English phohtograher-writer named Alex Pearlman among those - and I learned to compose my images in three separate planes, close-up, middle ground, and background. Your images most adequately covered all three. The verticals are also pleasant. The subjects fill their spaces in good ways. And of course the nice colors, as you wrote.

Having now architecturally dissected your image, may I compliment you on it - it's a good photo.
 
I have read lens's reviews since the internet was invented. I have way too many lenses (and bodies) in my China cabinet in search of the holy grail. Finally after many decades I've figured out that some gives me pictures I like and some I don't. Can't explain it or give a review but the results are in the pudding. I no longer feel I have to be artistic to describe a lens or why I like it.
 
Retro-Grouch said:
Treasure those photos that you don't quite understand. I have a number of color landscapes that I shot over 40 years ago that were stylistically so unlike anything I was doing at the time that I almost didn't keep them. They just didn't seem to fit in anywhere. Nevertheless, there seemed to be something there...
Now, they are exactly in the style that I have evolved into over the past decades, to the point where it feels as though my future self went back in time to shoot them. I think your subconscious can be giving you a message, telling you where to go next with your work, if only you'll pay attention! I'm very glad I didn't discard those images, and now consider them some of my best. What I considered to be my best work, 40 years ago? Not so much!
Click to expand...
It's nice to be able to surprise yourself once in a while :) I think one of the ways one can grow as an artist, in any field really, is by producing work that is outside of ones tried and tested boundaries. Consciously we can only make images as good as we are able to vision them. Tapping into the subconscious is hard though :)

DownUnder said:
As for "style" I decided long ago to let that take care of itself. As a (now happily retired) architect I tend to think in grids, and I've always leaned to static images such as buildings, landscaped open areas and more "manicured" visuals. Correctly vertical verticals are my most petty obsession. Here again my brain thinks in lines (not linear, something I will never, ever be accused of by anyone who knows me!) and sees things with its own internal vision and viewpoints. Much later down the track I return to those images and I see many new things in them. That's how it is.

So for me so-called "style" takes care of itself. A few art-focused photographers I know tend to disagree with me, they believe in "style" and "technique" (almost aways copied from books and magazines and the internet, but I'm too diplomatic - or I can'tt be bothered - to say this directly to them - but the publishing clients who now and then buy my images like them. And that's good enough for me.
Click to expand...
Style comes from a combination of process and mind I think. In the beginning we tend to learn the process, or craft from other photographers. Rule of thirds, golden light etc. Then we chose either to continue and excel in the craft, or to step away from the formulaic approaches and try something else. One benefit of being an amateur is that one can step as far away as one pleases, since selling the work is not a priority. Free to experiment, free to let the mind roam.
Some things are more or less hardwired in our brains I think. I have always like images which are fairly simple and not to busy. For instance, I like Michael Kenna for landscapes and Ralph Gibson for people. Lately I've been fascinated by images that make me feel in a certain way. An abstract shape or a portrait done is a specific way. Emotion in images is something I would like to explore.
 
I kind of think I know why I like this but am not sure. My hypothesis is that I like it because it is all about the power of suggestion - a mother leaning in attentively to a child. At least I think this may be what is going on but was of course never sure. And I do love images that force me to turn my imagination loose.


52466989476_b7978621e9_h.jpg
 
Erik van Straten said:
gelatin silver print (summicron 50mm f2 rigid) leica m3

Babruysk, 2005

View attachment 4843699
Click to expand...
Love this one.
I paint a bit, and have studied visual rhythm to some extent. The brain finds it pleasant when shapes/colours are repeated within an artwork. Here there is the top row of dark squares being repeated. But wait the third one is oriented differently. A break in rhythm and a continuation makes things interesting. Alternating rhythm. If the third one had been like the others it just would not be as good. Small things. Also, the dark rectangle shape is echoed in the larger structure to the right, with the staircase leading into it. These are some principles abstract art are founded upon. Mondrian typically liked those kind of constructions.
 
In the early days, I would take random photos of things and some of them I liked enough to post online. When I look back, they were a vital part of my development as a photographer, even though they weren't particularly good. Some of them were posted because they were whimsical or captured a feeling or sense of being there, rather than something aesthetically artistic.

The first image I ever posted on flickr was this. It's a very simple scene, it says nothing, isn't particularly interesting, but I still liked it enough to put it out for the world to see. It was taken with the Casio Z750 in 2006, my third digital camera, when I was still just having fun, taking photos of all and sundry.

Quirky WB by Archiver, on Flickr

This was a capture of whimsy. The woman's jacket looked like the paving she sat on at Fed Square. I wonder if she even knew?

Camouflage by Archiver, on Flickr

Then there's this image, which is the most boring and prosaic thing. Like, why would I like a photo of Coke with fish and chips enough to post it online? Maybe I enjoyed the food enough to think it memorable.

Lunch at Southbank by Archiver, on Flickr
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom