Your style? Or the Forums style?

How much influence do you think the forum you belong to, and in a wider sense, the photographic comunity you are involved in, influences your work?


I have an Uncle who has in the last 18months taken a real serious interest in photography. He's got him self a 20D some nice glass and has a real natural talent for it. Looking through his portfolio on friday night I noticed he has a very strong style that comes through in all his photos, whether they are landscapes or portraits there are elements in common between all his photographs.
Most of these often very strong elements appear to come through in his post proccessing, and I figured it was just part of his style, a reflection of who he is as a person.

Then I had a look at the gallery host/forum he belongs to and noticed that rather a lot of the members there all encompassed many of the same elements my Uncle used.
Its very obvious all the members there have a strong influence over each others style, especialy when it comes to post processing.


I wonder if its a result of people with similar styles meeting in the same place, or the forum developing its own style, and this infecting the members?
And more importantly, I wonder what effect POTN is having on my style, and the style of other memebers?
In 10 years will I be taking perfectly exposed photographs of Ducks backsides being kissed by a moose, using 2 soft boxs for lighting and adding a subtle glow while correcting minnor skin imperfections in photoshop?

Wow, difficult question....
One thing I like about this forum is its diversity. There are some very strong styles, but as far as I can make out, it is not dominated by the stronger styles - probably because of the large contributing membership......
I think we are all affected by what we see - and that taints the 'window' we look through.

Maybe I'm not looking at it right but I agree that I haven't seen a specific style in this forum. Having said that I probably do spend more time on the technical side than the photo side, and there I just tend to stick to people, nature, and landscapes.

However, I hope this does have some influence on me. There have been lots of examples of work very well done, and plenty of other examples of complete crud. Hopefully they sink in so that if at some point in my future I decide a photo would look really good if I made it b/w but left the eyes and lips in color I'd remember how much that sucks.

Not sure if I got a specific style from the community. I try my best to be innovative and have my own style. You can say if I have been influenced in any way by the community it's that I have pushed to become more unique in the sense that I don't want to be the same as everyone else in terms of both style and final look.

I can definitely give credit to the community for showing me the some tricks and teaching me how to develop my own style. If you look at the majority of my work it is either very contrasty/cool(colour temp) abstracts or black and whites with unique look.

One thing they don't teach us in school is style, that's something you need to develop on your own, and influence from others can play a large role, whether it be you mimicking others or doing what I have done and rebelling.

Interesting question. I certainly think that since arriving here I have considered different aspects of composition etc when out taking pics. But I tend to agree with music that there is such diversity (long may it continue) and lack of peer pressure here that we can all develop as we want.

Citizensmith wrote:
Hopefully they sink in so that if at some point in my future I decide a photo would look really good if I made it b/w but left the eyes and lips in color I'd remember how much that sucks.

Hey, thanks for the slam, I really appreciate it! I also noticed you didn't bother making and constructive critisism on that particular piece.....

On to the subject at hand....

In the past I have seen a forum "exert" influence onto members. Usually in the form of comments like the one posted above. I however, haven't really seen that to be the case here (Exception noted). Most of the people here seem to be open to a wide variety of subjects and styles, and there's alot of great general advice being given. I've only been a member for a week or two, but I'm glad to have found a place that is as (mostly) open as this one.

L8r,

This almost sounds like the "nature vs. nurture" discussion with a photographic basis. I think that everyone's style is a combination of heriditary influences and environmental (including the input of people on this site) influences.

So, what is "style?" A similarity between one shot and the next? A certain angle always appearing? Or something in pp which gives it away?

I don't know how to describe style; it's the way I see things, whether it be something appropriate for "group" or 'peer' review, duck backsides or whatever, or color preferences. I have a good sense of style regarding clothes; I mean I wear what looks good on me regardless of trends or brand names. My writing is very much in a particular style: first person, present tense...except when it can't be, as in articles and/or shorts for publications. I have a style of car I prefer to drive: sports cars, although I can drive pretty much any car (although I drive them like they were sports cars...).

But what's style in photography? What preference a person uses in shooting, choosing subjects, or post processing? I don't have enough experience to know if I have a style, or to know if others have a style...some shots are good, some aren't, but that's not a style, is it?

So what's a style in photography?

Best-
Noni

Rigrider wrote:
Hey, thanks for the slam, I really appreciate it! I also noticed you didn't bother making and constructive critisism on that particular piece.....

I wasn't specifically targetting any one person, but here is the deal. I think the 'all b/w but the eyes' technique is one of the first people figure out when learning photoshop/paintshop, etc. Consequently its often done pretty poorly and can look really crappy. Sure it can be done well, but most often its just an average shot of someones GF with eyes bluer than a Pepsi can.

I see it as a kind of 'forum style' as I'm sure seeing one, lots of other folks think they can do the same technique and suddenly we have a whole rash of 'em.

Anyway, nuff said.