Shoot in the style of ??

[John Bragg]

Today I shot some portraits of my 90 year old mother. I had Jane Bown very much in mind, as I shot on Black and White film, with a simple slr and 85mm lens in available window light. I am a huge fan of Jane's work, and I made a concious effort to work as she would have done. A tribute to simplicity and quality. Have any of you made a concious effort to shoot in the style of someone you admired ?

 

[zuikologist]

Would love to see your work when ready.

As for me, aspiring to Ernst Haas and Saul Leiter, but not getting there any time soon.

 

[Roger Hicks]

Dear John,

Brilliant idea. Made even better by the fact that exact replication is impossible. Starting with your heroes/heroines is one of the best ways to evolve a personal style, which is unlikely to be the same as theirs. Except perhaps for slavish, uninspired 3rd rate imitators of Ansel Adams and Henri Cartier-Bresson. Then it'll be a slavish, uninspired 3rd rate imitation. This is probably more difficult, if you have the slightest spark of originality, than evolving a personal style.

Alternatively: have a wide range of great pictures in mind, and shamelessly steal inspiration from all of them. That's part of what my AP back page column, Final Analysis, is about.

Cheers,

R.

 

[John Bragg]

Thanks Zuikologist, I will post some as soon as I can. Thanks also Roger. I consider my "style" to be constantly evolving, but I am always influenced by certain images and photographers that I admire. Borrowing from them is also part of learning, and in the case of the lovely Jane Bown, when someone is that consistently good, it is only right to learn from that, even if the lesson is how to distill things down to bare bones and still get amazing images !

 

[Keith]

I like Jane Bown's portraits and emulating her style is admirable for any photographer... but I can honestly say the last thing I'm thinking about when I take a photo is anyone elses work or style.

I did once think of Adams when I was shooting a landscape ... but I found the mental image of an old guy with a view camera quite distracting. 😀

I think the one photographer I would like to be able to channel would be Dianne Arbus! The edge all her work has is something I really aspire to.

 

[John Bragg]

Finally I developed the film. Here is an example......

My Mother at 90. by

johnbragg1, on Flickr