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Breaking The Limitations of Photography

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There is no such thing as vanilla photography, no forbidden zonrs other than what the law states, just vanilla minds. You like it, you don't like it, get over it and move on. Lifes too short to worry about crap like that.

A wise man once said.

Never sweat the petty stuff and never pet the sweaty stuff.
 
Labeling everything and attemping to constantly justify oneself and whatever it is you do is a definite sign of insecurity in yourself and the inability to have any confidence in whatever it is you do. Craving the constant reassurance from random people on the internet that you are somehow "different" and "special" and everyone else is just ordinary in whatever it is they find pleasure in. The fact is your photography is no more interesting than someone who creates classic amazing landscape photos or whatever style it is that works for you. People have been pushing the limits of photography since it's invention. It's a lot like music. There are only so many notes and chords and at some point they are repeated and songs sound alike. The fact is no one really cares what you or I or anyone else does. I enjoy pictures I like. It's about that simple.
 
searching .... your last Thread "My Classy Photography" now I know what we're talking about.

I like that post #2. It's something you find in a history book in a way (minus the feather). But I see what you are trying to do. I think you need to refine some of your techniques and such (as Tirediron mentioned in that last thread).

Compare to this person has really refined their techniques in about everything and the end result shows (I thought he had much more surrealism pictures then he does) ==> Flickr Modifeye s Photostream

My photos are just "generic" in a sense. but I'm trying to expand my creative side in certain things ... I'm a work in progress (probably forever) but I take critique in a positive way to expand my horizons and learn what I don't know.
 
To break the limitations you have to first understand and know the limitations. To think outside of the box you have to know how to think inside of the box, so you can differentiate. Photography has been around for over a century. What you think is new probably has already been done. Being "unique" alone is easy. Being unique and good at the same time is hard. :)

First, what the heck is vanilla photography? :o
 
When photographers/artists and people in general play it safe to avoid any friction in the communities. Some people limit themselves due to the popularity factor and wanting to be liked, this often shows in their artwork.
Do you REALLY think that is what motivates us?

Any of us?

If so, you need to re-think that. Seriously.

I only know most of these people from online chat, so why would I style my art to please them?

There might be some, but they can defend their position as they see fit.
 
See?

Joe can do Lam..thin..whats..it too!
 
Actually I will occasionally find myself swimming around in the vanilla of my mind, looking for the door to the chocolate.
 
Josh, Here are some thought I had, relating to your photography. I am being totally honest, and straight-forward with you, this is not a joke in any way.

Allegorical or story-telling photography with HEAVY manipulation was very popular in the 1850's to the end of the 1870's, as serious photographers hired actors or models dressed in costume, and tried to create allegorical/mythological/religious types of scenes, sort of reminiscent of classical paintings. But that trend passed eventually, morphing into basically, the pictorialst movement of the late 19th and very early 20th centuries, with more emphasis on outdoor and natural-world scenes.

The pictorialists did a lot of manipulation, on both their negatives, and/or on their prints, and were in general, less interested in composite images made from multiple negatives than the earlier workers.

Around 100-120 years after the first phases of allegorical photography, in the late 1970's and very early 1980's, the artist Cindy Sherman engaged in a very diligent, productive phase of allegorical/story-telling self portraiture in costume, which sort of presaged the entire "selfie craze" and its literally millions upon millions of self-absorbed young female practitioners by almost three decades. Sherman made herself up and dressed herself in amazing wardrobe items, and cast herself as many entirely different persons, of diverse ages, in hundreds of artistic self-portraits, set in real-world, custom-created sets. Your work, what I have seen, seems sort of in Sherman's shadow, only thirty-plus years later, and with almost self-deprecating results. What you are doing has been done before, twice, basically a full century apart each time, but both times with very,verrry SERIOUS intent, by the very best and most-educated practitioners of both the art and the craft of photography...but the level you're operating at,currently, is extremely unsophisticated.

If you worked at it harder, you might be able to get your stuff to raise to the level of "camp", but so far, as you can see by your YouTube hit counts, people just are not "getting on board" with the approach. I'll give you what I think is the best example of you now, and where you might end up: John Waters, the film maker from Baltimore, Maryland, USA. I think the the level you're operating at,currently, can be elevated. You **might be** able to move this up a long,long way.
 
Ummm... You are not a photographer. Your dad shoots all the photographs for you.

I do not agree with that contention, at all, in any way. This has been dealt with before, many times. His camera, his gear, his ideas, HIS photos. Same goes for husband and wife teams who have joint copyright; same with photographers who shoot TIMED, or intervalometer, or trigger/trap-focus images of wildlife and natural world events; coyote appears at a bait in the middle of the night, a trap-focused Canon starts shooting images while the photographer is at home or in camp, asleep; who took the photos and has copyright? The coyote? Uhhhh, no.
 
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