There’s no I in Art. But there is an eye.

It’s hard to know what will catch your eye on any given day.

Maybe you’ve seen it a thousand times in your life, and maybe never before.

Maybe you even sat on it.

Photography is in many ways unique among the visual arts in a way similar to jazz. Much in the same way that Jazz is freeform and improvised as opposed to the more rigid forms of classical music, so too photography can be improvised and freeform. Painting, while can certainly be done hastily, cannot be done nearly as quickly as a photograph in daylight (unless you can paint faster than 1/8000th of a second).

However, just as Jazz can be rehearsed and perfected to a certain style, so too can photography be planned out, and created in a very deliberate fashion with precise composition, controlled lighting, and subject matter.

The improvisation or deliberation of a photograph does not obviate the power of your style, however. While Jazz can be improvised, it is rare that you’ll hear a speed-metal solo in the middle. But it can be done. But generally speaking, in photography your style is dictated primarily not by what is in front of you, but rather by what you see in what is in front of you. The angle that nobody else spotted, or even if they did, the means and prowess to actually capture it effectively.

In the coming weeks I’ll start going through some of my favorite photos, and detailing specifically what it is that I love about them, and what I did to see and capture them. Perhaps that will give better insight into the photographic process than what I could perhaps accomplish otherwise.

This entry was posted on Friday, February 23rd, 2007 and is filed under art, essay, personal, style. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.