Photographers that taunt you

[soufiej]

I don't know if this will provide some assistance or not.

I always remember though the conflicts between Ibsen - the ultimate realist - and Strindberg - the famous expressionist who wrote one of the first surrealist plays. Ibsen kept a photo of Strindberg above his writing desk. His comment was he needed "the eyes of that madman" to keep him going.

A somewhat well known TV show of the '60's - Twilight Zone, I think - was a story of an Army Sargent and his foot soldiers. One man was sent out on a suicide mission, the man the Sargent hated the most. Later that night, as a figure waked towards the soldiers in near darkness. The men saw it was their peer walking back from the mission, he had made it back and they were relieved and grateful as the silent figure drew near and his uniform was identified. Then the Sargent shot and killed the man. They were horrified and angry the Sarge had shot him dead until they reached the body only to discover the man inside the uniform was an enemy soldier dressed in the attire of another. The Sargent explained he hated the man so much he knew it wasn't him by his walk.

You can find what drives you in many ways. The point is, find the drive and then act on it.

 

[table1349]

Why study photographers when there is so much to study and learn about photography.

because you can learn from them?

As a photographer I am interested in learning about photography, not about a particular photographer. A few years back I attended the Monte Zucker's workshops. Not because he was the father of modern wedding photography and a brilliant wedding photographer. Hell I hate shooting wedding, I don't shoot weddings and had no interest in learning Monte's or anyone elses vision of shooting weddings.

I went because Monte Zucker was a genius with the use of light and I wanted to learn more about they uses of light and lighting. The things I learned aren't Monte Zucker or wedding photography specific, they were things that are usefull for photography and creating my vision.

If you have a good working grasp of photography you can produce the kinds of images you wish to acheive. Refining your vision is up to you.

 

[soufiej]

"You are the one getting angsty ... "

No, I'm not angry. Why are you?

You've already dismissed anything I've said because you don't like what I've said.

 

[table1349]

Oh god I know! Not a day goes by where a famous photographer doesn't drive by my house shouting obscenities.

Nice of you to think of me as 'famous', but that's really a bit of an exaggeration!

Not famous.... Infamous!!!

You know why and some of us know why so there is no reason to bring up the reasons. Besides there are people under the age of 18 that read this forum, and we wouldn't want to corupt them.

 

[rexbobcat]

There's actually a psychological diagnosis for people who are successful but experience severe feelings of self-doubt.

Impostor syndrome - Wikipedia the free encyclopedia

 

[fjrabon]

"You are the one getting angsty ... "

No, I'm not angry. Why are you?

You've already dismissed anything I've said because you don't like what I've said.

No, I didn't dismiss what you said because I don't like it, I dismissed what you have said because it flies in the face of my own experience, and the experience of super talented individuals I have personally met and talked to about the issue.

I said you were angsty because you, for some reason, felt compelled to make judgments about who I am as a person on a deep psychological level because I simply disagreed with you.

also, I'm not angry, though I do think it's a bit insulting to go around trying to say someone is riddled with self doubt and can never achieve success until they listen to what you are saying based on things they write on an internet message board.

 

[fjrabon]

There's actually a psychological diagnosis for people who are successful but experience severe feelings of self-doubt.

Impostor syndrome - Wikipedia the free encyclopedia

there's also a well known psychological diagnosis for the reverse: unskilled individuals who have no self doubt: Dunning Kruger effect

It also includes a scientifically supported explanation for why the talented may be more likely to doubt themselves, it's their very talent and artistic sensitivity that makes them more hyper aware of things they don't do perfectly and their empathy leads them to see more good in their peers.

 

[rexbobcat]

Honestly, I've kind of stopped looking to other photographers' work for deliberate inspiration. I have the a bad habit (more like a curse) of being a people pleaser, so more often than not, I end up trying to emulate some part of a photographer's work because I like their work, and I want others to like my work in the same way. However, failure is almost imminent because I don't have their eye. I don't have their sensibilities.

Knowing this about myself, I try to look to other places for inspiration: music, painting, illustrations, short stories, other people, etc...

 

[fjrabon]

Why study photographers when there is so much to study and learn about photography.

because you can learn from them?

As a photographer I am interested in learning about photography, not about a particular photographer. A few years back I attended the Monte Zucker's workshops. Not because he was the father of modern wedding photography and a brilliant wedding photographer. Hell I hate shooting wedding, I don't shoot weddings and had no interest in learning Monte's or anyone elses vision of shooting weddings.

I went because Monte Zucker was a genius with the use of light and I wanted to learn more about they uses of light and lighting. The things I learned aren't Monte Zucker or wedding photography specific, they were things that are usefull for photography and creating my vision.

If you have a good working grasp of photography you can produce the kinds of images you wish to acheive. Refining your vision is up to you.

I think I mostly agree with this, and feel similarly. I never really try to copy any photographer no matter how much I love their work, and I never really dismiss any photographer no matter how much I hate their work. I feel like you can learn something from almost every person who has put genuine effort and emotion into photography.

A lot of times when I study photographers it's not to cop their style, or even to pick up technical tips (although sometimes it is instructive to look at a lighting diagram and compare it to the results it achieved, to better understand how to build a light field). A lot of times it's to discover what bits and pieces I like. I'll look at several images I really love and try to pick out what it is about each of them, any common threads in why I personally like them. Often times it's some very minor thing. Rarely is it that I'm copying the key to the photographer's personal style.

This will sometimes illuminate things in my personal style that I can further develop.

I remember reading a story that Michael Freeman once told about somebody looking over his images and remarking on his stylistic signature of "almost touching." Freeman hadn't even noticed that before, but once brought to his attention he even further refined it and made it his own. A lot of times finding your style doesn't just happen, you have to hunt it down, I think, or at least I feel like I do.

I think you can discover yourself and discover your own style through studying your own work, but also studying the work of others and seeing what it is that appeals to you in their work on a raw emotional level. I like to mix the two approaches of self reflection and viewing others' work. I feel like in studying Webb's work (as just one example of many), I can find some bits and pieces that I'd like to pull off, that ideally I'd like to be a part of my style. I don't think Webb's work made that stuff a part of what I hope my style to be, I think viewing Webb's work helped clarify some feelings that I had deep down somewhere about my own work.

 

[fjrabon]

Honestly, I've kind of stopped looking to other photographers' work for deliberate inspiration. I have the a bad habit (more like a curse) of being a people pleaser, so more often than not, I end up trying to emulate some part of a photographer's work because I like their work, and I want others to like my work in the same way. However, failure is almost imminent because I don't have their eye. I don't have their sensibilities.

Knowing this about myself, I try to look to other places for inspiration: music, painting, illustrations, short stories, other people, etc...

Luckily, I think personally even if I ever set out to try to copy someone's work, it would still come out differently enough that it would be mine (partly through lack of skill in being able to pull it off, partly in stylistic habits so strongly engrained that I can't break them even if I want to). I'm sort of reminded of Willie Nelson admitting that as a guitarist he tried to copy Django Reinhardt's guitar work, but he couldn't play like Django, so it created what most consider to be a very distinctive personal style.

 

[soufiej]

" ... I do think it's a bit insulting to go around trying to say someone is riddled with self doubt and can never achieve success until they listen to what you are saying based on things they write on an internet message board."


I never said that. You asked for opinions and personal experience. You said what I posted wasn't the case because you could think of many performers who had self doubt. Then you did, you pulled out every basket case to prove your point without ever stopping to think these are performers who simply did something. IMO, you have no idea what Clapton's, Brown's or Hendrix's self doubt means when you say it. Apparently, you want to wallow in self doubt. You're offended by that statement. Fine. The performers you mentioned didn't care. They went out on stage and did what they could do and did it with a tremendous amount of confidence they were doing their best. Did they question their decisions afterward? Yes, anyone seeking progress must. Did they learn to work from their fears and toward their confidence? Surely. If you don't want to do the same, that's your decision. If you do not wish to develop the basic freedom an eight year old experiences, that's your decision. Actors are constantly frozen in fear of embarrassing themself. Until they can learn to behave as though they were eight years old, they get nowhere. I'll repeat; if you're constantly looking back, then you cannot prepare for what is about to smack you in the face.

I simply gave my own opinion and experience based on working with a lot of students who are dealing with self doubt. I don't think you understand the concept or how to use it to your advantage. You take that as an insult. Like you're the only person who has ever had self doubt. The difference between you and anyone you've mentioned is confidence in what they are doing at the time. And they obviously "did".

At this point, I would say you don't want an answer, you want someone to say they totally agree with your self pity. They have people who taunt them. They have people who hold them back. If I said I agreed with you and you should have self pity because you will never be them, you wouldn't like that either. You're rather impossible to please.

 

[Dave442]

If they are "taunting you" then go study/practice/learn more and then go back and look at their work again. When I was first learning Spanish I was handed Gabriel Garcia Marquez book, "100 Years of Solitude", it was too much and I gave up after a month. A few years later I was able to go back and enjoy that and a number of his other books in Spanish.

I bring this up as I recently received a quote from his autobiography, "Living to Tell the Tale", where he talks about what formed him as a writer and I think it relates to what you call taunting:

1. 
   "One day Jorge Álvaro Espinosa, a law student who had taught me to navigate the Bible and made me learn by heart the complete names of Job’s companions, placed an awesome tome on the table in front of me and declared with his bishop’s authority:
   
   “This is the other Bible.”
   
   It was, of course, James Joyce’s Ulysses, which I read in bits and pieces and fits and starts until I lost all patience. It was premature brashness. Years later, as a docile adult, I set myself the task of reading it again in a serious way, and it not only was the discovery of a genuine world that I never suspected inside me, but it also provided invaluable technical help to me in freeing language and in handling time and structures in my books."
   

 

[gsgary]

Also to clarify the original post, I'm not talking about wanting to copy a photographer's style, per se, more about being able to pull off some of the stuff they do. Like I don't want to ape Alex Webb, but it would be nice to be able to pull off a picture with this much going on, and have it still hold up compositionally and not descend into chaos.

that shot could have been set up

 

[gsgary]

I think to produce great work, it is necessary but not sufficient that you be painfully self aware. This has the unfortunate side effect of near constant self doubt.

If you truly, deep down, never doubted your work, you probably wouldn't be very good, IMHO.

FWIW, I think your work is very good. And I know for a fact that the way your friend (unintentionally) makes you feel is the same way you (unintentionally) make a lot of photographers here feel.

Also there wasn't an appropriate response icon, "like" and "agree" didn't seem right. I wanted to give you a "know How you feel" haha.

IMO, the difference between the successful and the student is confidence. If you are concerned about self doubt, you are concerned about doing something in the manner of someone else. Of being judged by their work and not your own. Basically, you are digging in the same garden someone else already cleared.

You are not someone else in some other situation. Listen to any musician you feel is "great". They take command of the stage as they walk out without a shred of self doubt. I often think of the three member group The Cream. Composed of three absolutely fabulous musicians, the group created a new musical direction for rock music. When they first began they say they knew about six songs they could play together but they were expected to play concerts. So they improvised and in the process created extended solos where they had never existed before. The 18 bar blues became the 18 minute solo. They used musical forms which had never been put together in the same way before. They listened and they communicated their ideas and their direction for every song while, in the beginning at least, they admired each other's talents. What they created came from within their own individual head. From their lead many imitators have made lots of money.

Not every player can be a Clapton, Bruce or Baker. Such players are hearing things you and I don't understand and wouldn't comprehend if we were confronted with them. Now, though, comprehending how Clapton structures his solos is second nature and many players try to imitate his playing technique. The one thing I find most annoying in an Elvis imitator. They have a formula from which they dare not stray.

I have a good friend who is a fabulous guitarist IMO. He simply plays with confidence that what he is about to do is right. He's not concerned about what others are doing. He's fully cognizant of what has come before and uses his knowledge of the past to create something new and free. He hears music in his mind I can only hope to understand. He has his own style and I have my own. He doesn't haunt me or taunt me. We play differently. But I can easily say, he has far more confidence in what he can accomplish than I do. One day I hope to have that same level of confidence.

Until you develop confidence in your own abilities and that your decisions are right, you will never develop your own style and you will never develop the greatest extent of confidence required to simply do the job. If you are always looking back, you don't have time to look forward. If you aren't looking forward, then you are only doing what others have already accomplished. That's OK, I suppose, if all you ever want to be in another in a long line of Elvis impersonators.

Beyond that, be open to what you find today and be willing to change course at a moment's notice. Times change. Situations change. If you are so convinced you are always right, you will miss what comes next.

But Jimi Hendrix confessed to being constantly riddled with self doubt, despite being the greatest guitarist in the world. I've talked to Al Di Meola before and he said that he doubts himself all the time. Heck, James Brown was the most insanely self-confident individual I had ever met, and he still fell well short of your "complete self-confidence" paragon. Michael Jackson, constantly doubted himself. Christina Aguilera often doubts her abilities. Sean Costello had so many doubts and demons about his playing that he committed suicide, despite being recognized as one of the best, most original contemporary blues guitarists in the world. Kurt Cobain had all sorts of self doubts. Keith Jarret, despite being a mostly pompous jerk still only thinks he has produced one very good album, despite being widely considered the greatest improvisational musician in the world.

Self-confidence is surely a great thing, but I think if you also don't have some measure of self-doubt, you either aren't being honest about yourself, or you aren't pushing yourself hard enough. People who are supremely self-confident always are usually more of a dunning-kruger effect than actually ultra-talented. Often the most talented individuals got there by being the most self-aware and the harshest self critics.[/QUOTE]


Smoke dope for a few years and you will be very insecure

 

[rexbobcat]

Honestly, I've kind of stopped looking to other photographers' work for deliberate inspiration. I have the a bad habit (more like a curse) of being a people pleaser, so more often than not, I end up trying to emulate some part of a photographer's work because I like their work, and I want others to like my work in the same way. However, failure is almost imminent because I don't have their eye. I don't have their sensibilities.

Knowing this about myself, I try to look to other places for inspiration: music, painting, illustrations, short stories, other people, etc...

Luckily, I think personally even if I ever set out to try to copy someone's work, it would still come out differently enough that it would be mine (partly through lack of skill in being able to pull it off, partly in stylistic habits so strongly engrained that I can't break them even if I want to). I'm sort of reminded of Willie Nelson admitting that as a guitarist he tried to copy Django Reinhardt's guitar work, but he couldn't play like Django, so it created what most consider to be a very distinctive personal style.

That's the thing though. Although what I create might be different, I rarely find it to be better because it's derivative at its core. I'm subconsciously creating to the standard of the other photographer's work even when I think I'm doing something different, so I prefer to take photos without a direct and recognizable influence, because then I'm more likely to synthesize all of my acquired skills and preferences from all the works that I enjoy into something that is truly unique to me (even if it's not anything groundbreaking in the photographic world).

That's not to say I don't study other work to figure out how to do new things. I still like to study lighting and add stuff like that to my toolbox.

But if someone asked me whose work has influenced me the most, I probably shrug and give a neutral "I don't know. All of them."