What I find silly is the need for people to label themselves with meaningless titles.
Do you have a name for your portfolio? Do you bottleneck yourself into one particular type of shoot? Or do consider yourself a well rounded photographer that can cater to many types of clients? If you had to name your "style", what would it be? Could you pin it down to one? Or would you have to use many descriptions to cover your talents, making labeling yourself with one "style" useless?
IIIIIIIIIII... kind of disagree too.
(Which is shocking... and makes me a little uncomfortable, because I can't remember a time where we WEREN'T on the same page... :lmao
What I find silly is the need for people to label themselves with meaningless titles.
I find it entirely necessary. Just yesterday, I was at the bank and the teller asked me what kind of photography I do. After hearing a certain New Zelander accent in my head saying, ("WHERE'S YOUR IPHONE PORTFOLIO? WHERE ARE YOUR CARDS? YOU SHOULD ALWAYS HAVE CARDS ON YOU!") I stated, "I do fashion-style senior portraiture, fashion-style women's portraiture, and bands."
That gave him a pretty clear idea that distinguishes me from this:
[source:
http://www.ltprestigesocal.com/schoolinfo/Tux_Boa_Vertical_Head_Shoulder.jpg ]
And leans him more towards the idea of this:
"Senior portraits" itself is not a "style", but tacking on the "fashion" part of the descriptor is. Then my style can be further broken down into the actual aesthetic of the images I create vs. another senior portrait photographer doing the same type of senior session, but that's the part I can't clearly define, nor feel that I have a need to define, because *that's* the part that's constantly evolving anyway.
So to answer:
Do you bottleneck yourself into one particular type of shoot?
Yup. Well... maybe 3 different types of shoots... but yes. I make it a point to try and "specialize" in a few things. This doesn't mean I WON'T go outside of that if a special circumstance arises (I did a family shoot last year, and I second shoot for weddings), but I don't advertise myself publicly as anything different that what I've defined for myself. I tell other photographers I second shoot weddings, but I RERUSE to shoot weddings as a lead. Certain clients will ask about head shots, or family shoots, and I'll do those things, but I don't put those images in my portfolio on my website, because that's not what I want to spend every day of my life doing. -- But those things I don't consider "styles" anyway... they're "genres" in my opinion.
Or do you consider yourself a well rounded photographer that can cater to many types of clients?
No. There are people that want certain things that I can't do. Or I can do and I just don't want to. I have a particular type of client I'm after, and I'm okay with not being able to cater to everyone.
So... I don't think having a style is pointless at all... I think trying to verbally DEFINE it forcefully is pointless. If you don't know what it is yet... then you need to keep shooting, working, and learning, and not worry about forcing a "style" on yourself, because like I said in a previous post, it will just come out.
And when it comes out... I really don't care to have to try to verbalize it... I sit and look at my images. I see a certain consistency in the way that I shoot and process... I can see it... I don't know what the hell you'd call it though. I've heard various descriptors from other people, and that's fine, but if people want to really know the aesthetic of my work... I just send them to my website to see for themselves, haha.
:hug:: :heart:
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