I’ve been giving this alot of thought lately. Looking at photos on Facebook, Flickr… everywhere really. What am I drawn to? What sparks something in me that “moves” me in a way to study the photo? What makes it “real” to me. I’ve been in the Photography Business for over 8 years now. I’ve seen trends come and go. Remember selective coloring? I did it, you probably did too. Then it wasnt cool, then it was, then it wasnt. I remember trying to make photographs so colorful, it didnt look real – neon green grass, overtoned skin colors. It was cool at one point, then it wasnt…. I will admit I’ve done both those trendy things in the past. I’ve photographed a certain way because it was the thing to do or because thats what my clients wanted or because even though it wasnt really “me” I knew I could sell it or (and this is the worse reason) because I wanted to be popular among my photography peers. But looking back, do those images speak? Is it about the clothes, the hair? What makes a good photograph become GREAT?
I recently did a session for a very good client of mine. The little girls came in in her favorite ET tshirt and big heart shaped sunglasses and her mom said, this is who she is everyday – This is what I want photographed. It was though a spark went off in my head.
What makes me go back to photos on Flickr, that I “liked” 5,6,7 years ago? The common thread was “simplicity”. They were simply about who was being photographed. No bells and whistles, no extraordinary props, no games or gimmicks. The subject, the location, the mood, the moment.
Hans Hofmann, a famous painter, once said – “The ability to simplify means to eliminate the unnecessary so that the necessary may speak.”
This is what I love.
Polaroid 600SE with bw film, scanned.
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