Your Favorite Photograhic Genre

[RML]

Genres. Hmmm, who needs to be pidgeon-holed? I have preferences, yes, but I will not pidgeon-hole myself nor let someone else do it for me. 🙂 I think it limits me too much to think I'm a "street" photographer, or a "landscape" shooter, or whathaveyou. I do all when and if the situation calls for it.

 

[RayPA]

Genres. Hmmm, who needs to be pidgeon-holed? I have preferences, yes, but I will not pidgeon-hole myself nor let someone else do it for me. 🙂 I think it limits me too much to think I'm a "street" photographer, or a "landscape" shooter, or whathaveyou. I do all when and if the situation calls for it.

Hmmm...the only one that can pidgeon-hole you is you--creatively speaking. 🙂 By you admitting a favorite genre only shows what might be your influence(s). I see this as two-sided: the photographer side which is open-ended and creative and the viewer side which views the work and seeks to understand by creating categories. Categorizing is human nature and is one way that we learn, understand and make sense of the world. You can't stop anyone from viewing your work and trying to make sense of it by categorizing it.

I find the aversion to categories and genres amusing. You're right creative people don't consider genres when they create. I shoot what I want when I want without regards to genres. However, I'm influenced by a type of photography that has lineage in what has become known (categorized) as street photogrphy. I also like landscapes. None of that has ever stopped me from making portraits, sports, macro or nudes.

🙂

 

[RML]

You can't stop anyone from viewing your work and trying to make sense of it by categorizing it.

100% agree with you, RayPa. But this is not a poll about how our viewers perceive our photography but what we consider ourselves to be. At least, that's how many respondents seem to interpret this poll.

I find the aversion to categories and genres amusing. You're right creative people don't consider genres when they create. I shoot what I want when I want without regards to genres. However, I'm influenced by a type of photography that has lineage in what has become known (categorized) as street photogrphy. I also like landscapes. None of that has ever stopped me from making portraits, sports, macro or nudes. 🙂

I don't mind genres. Like you say, they ease making sense of life. But with my photography I'm not ready to make sense of it. I shoot what tickles my fancy. Not putting myself in a genre makes it easier for me to indulge in that tickling. Too many people are forced in a genre simply because they happened to be "recognised" as that genre photographer (or actor, or artist, or employee, or whathaveyou). I don't intend on staying an IT specialist my whole life, even though it's what I've been doing for over 8 years now. And in that same vein I don't intend to just shoot IR, digital rf, etc. I do all of the above, and more, and hope to do other things to in the future. Not pidgeon-holing myself helps me to keep my mind open about other opportunities and possibilities.

 

[DougK]

Hmm, I understood the poll differently. I interpreted the poll in terms of what I like to view as well as what I generally shoot, which in my case happens to be landscapes (and which I define fairly broadly).

Either way, nothing is set in stone. I may get bored and decide to shoot mostly portraits or still life or something else.

 

[pvdhaar]

Hmm.. if it moves, I shoot. And if it doesn't move, I also shoot. Basically anything remarkable that catches the eye. It's something that even bothered me a while ago, thinking that it would block my development as a photographer if I didn't concentrate on a genre.. but in the end, I find I approach photography as if an observer. I see something nice, I snap a picture.. and some come out real fine.

 

[varjag]

I have two favorites: street (voted it), which I do most of the time, and still life, which I mostly enjoy from others' works. The latter I feel is the most underappreciated genere out there, and among the harder ones to shoot.

 

[steve garza]

I enjoy

I enjoy

I really enjoy suburban-middleclass-nude-housewife-photography...but since that wasn't a choice I chose street.

Todd

suburban-middle class-nude housewives.....

 

[Sparrow]

Abstracts!

Irony from Texas.. Yeeehaaaaa


😀

 

[Harry Lime]

Street, photojournalism and documentary work.

 

[sf]

I love street photography, but my favorite is really Landscapes and cityscapes.

 

[Magnus]

Theres this song from the 60-ties "Little Boxes" .... and apart from that all these polls are sooooo boring, .... but then most RFF users seem to love them ... so why not

 

[jan normandale]

Lately I don't know what I'm shooting so I selected 'other'

 

[RayPA]

Lately I don't know what I'm shooting ...

LOL! I know the feeling!

If we go by what we're shooting "lately," instead of favorite genre, then I guess "Holiday shots of over-fed and inebriated relatives" would be my selection ('Other').

🙂

.

 

[ErnestoJL]

I´ve got to support my vote
I do a lot of street photography, however this doesn´t reflect the real truth.
I shoot to landscapes, nature, architecture, and all this (and many other subjects) can be named "others", as I´m not tied to any fixed scheme.
In fact I´m bringing my camera with me all the time, allways loaded with B&W ISO 400, and I shoot to everything that I like.

Ernesto

 

[dostacos]

ah, streetscape😀

I have been known to grab the subjects of the word no word and go out and try to nail as many as I can in one day.

And that is what I intend to do on the all day shoot in March.

 

[BigSteveG]

Street....

 

[JonathanA]

Add another one to street.

 

[mattmills]

add my "other" vote as a vote for documentary, as it's what I do. I sometimes introduce myself as "Matt Mills, photographer to the invisble and unseen."

 

[ruben]

In my case I have to differentiate between the images I like to see and those I like to make.

For seeing, in general whatever good pic is there I enjoy to look at, no
matter what genre it belongs to. Special mention for Vogue fashion (they drive nuts) and street photography (I have token so much about Beniliam that I am afraid another single word and I would be expulsed from RFF...).

For making, the few years I practiced freelance Photojournalism, they have been a shaking experience. In the broadest sense photojournalism involves politics, history, philosophy, survival. If you are a politically minded person, you are breathing History in the making each morning you start thinking where to go.

These days: entry level amateur position at street photography.

 

[Björn Ylinenpää]

Documentary and photojournalism mostly, but i do love Imogen Cunninghams work any many other who aren't documentary photographers or photojournalists.

This feels more like a poll for favortie subject since most genres can contain all of those mentioned.