© 2-Consider | Style? + Perfectionism v/s Creativity + Personal Projects

Welcome to, 2-Consider. This section usually features 3 great articles that have contributed to my photography and vision during the past week. Here you will find links and comments about them.

I should probably blog about the creativeLIVE that David duChemin taught during the weekend, but I was not able to watch it myself because the Internet in Iraq doesn’t allow me to . Anyway, for the few of us who missed it, we can still buy it here.

Now, let’s start with the articles!

Where does style come from? How do I get some?

This is another great article from Kirk Tuck. If you have been following this section in my blog, you’ll understand what I’m saying. I’m a big “follower” of good/important content blogs, and Kirk’s is one of these. There are not many either, so you’d better make sure you have bookmarked this great source of information.

Kirk has an important question for the rest of us,“What does style mean in our photography? Have we asked ourselves about this issue before? Is it important to have a style at all?” These are just some of the questions going through my mind these days. Not that “style” is the most important thing in my life, or in my photography, but I think it deserves to be questioned by my vision. Do we care? Should we work towards the creation of our own style? Is it natural in our photographs? Does it need to be forced a little bit more? Is it part of a tendency among photographers? Is it the fruit of a long-term career?

I think we have to differentiate between style and what’s fashionable, because the latter are tendencies that arise every year, that people in general like to follow or fool around with, at least until the next takes its place. But Style, on the other hand, is what defines our craft, who we are as artists, and is the very end-product of our careers; so I’m not talking about the set of rules, presets, and layers that we create in Lightroom or Photoshop. I think style goes beyond the software (although post-processing is also another part of it). I think style is more about the aesthetics, maybe composition, the “eye” in our photos. Sometimes the way we portray our subjects, etc. In the end, I believe it’s what other people perceive as characteristics in most if not all of our photographs. I think we don’t realize that part of us until other people start to notice it. Who knows? That’s my opinion, at least for now .

Please give it a read and think about this issue. If you arrive at any conclusion, don’t hesitate to leave a comment in this post. I’d like to read it.

Perfectionism is creative death

I’m not a landscape photographer, not at all, and so I don’t usually follow photographers working in that field, at least not until I found the work of Bruce Percy a couple of years ago. If there’s one photographer in landscape that I’d like to attend his workshop, it’s Bruce. He has a very unique style and philosophy of work that calls my attention in every shot. (By the way, he has a fantastic series of Podcasts on the different locations were he usually works, including my own country Chile; plus a series of e-books that you can even now buy for your IPhone, IPad, etc. It’s worth it to buy them!)

Recently, he wrote about perfectionism in his blog, as something that he needs to deal with permanently as a creative artist. He talks about the “dangers” of being a perfectionist in our work, how this has “paralyzed” him as an artist at certain times because he didn’t feel was pulling off “perfect” work. This point is very important, because I believe many of us are perfectionists at our core, and I believe that sometimes, due to this perfectionism, we haven’t been able to keep experimenting with our craft. As a result, sometimes we have gotten stuck in a certain stage of our growing careers. I’m pretty sure I have missed many great shots, just because I have stopped/given up right before they happen.

Bruce’s way of thinking struck a nerve in me. I realized that many times this last year, I have stopped shooting because I thought it was not the perfect time, or situation to do so. He quotes Winston Churchill, saying: “If you’re going through Hell, keep going.” I have given up on so many occasions, and not because of difficulties, but because I thought it was not going to look that great. My question today is, “How in the world can I predict the results of something that I haven’t done yet?”

One of the saddest things that I recognized was that I have stopped photographing my own family, my tough and beautiful boys. Why? Because I don’t like the feeling of “snapping” shots. Terrible!
Next time, I’m going to keep going, I know the results will be worthy!

Note: there’s a new post at Bruce’s Blog, about perfectionism and the positive aspects of that.

The importance of Personal Work

I found Nick’s blog no more than two weeks ago, and it’s been fantastic reading since then. He is doing some humanitarian projects that are just amazing, and I’m looking forward to seeing them done. Because of his expertise in doing these types of projects, I think this blog post is really important for all of us especially the humanitarian and documentary photographers. Why? Because it shows you a path to follow in order to pursue those projects that you are passionate about. You are even given a really great PDF file!

Personally, I found this very useful because I’m currently working on a couple of personal projects, plus I have some others in mind, so this issue of how to carry out these initiatives is really important at this stage of my life. One thing that I learned from Nick is that I have to put all these thoughts in paper, and more than that, I have to be realistic with myself. Which of them are doable at this moment? Have I done a good research on this project? Do I have an elaborate budget for it? Do I know how long will take me to accomplish it? Have I found other organizations or individuals that I can partner with along the way?

Nick organizes projects into three categories: Dreams, Real, and Back-yard projects. The last one being the projects that you can start right now and that don’t require that much in the way of resources from you. You can keep doing them between other projects. The Dream, these are the Vision-driven projects, the ones that challenge you as photographer and at the end, are an adventure and a risk to take. Finally, the Realistic projects are the ones that you have done a lot of research and gathered info on, plus contacted organizations to partner with you on the cause. These projects were a Dream before, but because you have been working hard on them, and it’s your passion, now you are ready to work on them! They have become a Reality!

I like this type of layout for my projects. I think it will be a starting point for the development of these initiatives. There’s more to read in this article, so make sure to read it carefully, and take notes.

Are you working on a personal project? What is it about? I’d love to hear about them. I have my own and I can share them if you ask me to.

Thanks for following another 2-Consider. I have a Bonus for you this week, is coming from Wayne Rowe, a video call “Remembering Haiti” with fantastic images that Wayne have captured in his time over there.