The Power of Street Style

With social media and digital cameras, street style fashion photography has seen an explosion in interest and popularity.  But the very first fashion photography was actually a version of street style.  Three brothers at a Paris racetrack started taking pictures of society women in designer clothes, and thus began what grew into a cultural phenomenon of looking at photos to see what others were wearing.

No longer confined to society women, though, the current street style scene is both more democratic and even more personal.  No two people out on the street are dressed exactly alike.  Sometimes the uniqueness is big, sometimes more subtle.  Sometimes it’s torn jeans and tattoos; sometimes it’s a pair of vintage shoes complementing a minimalist look. 

The power of street style fashion photography today lies in both the power of individual style, and the power of digitally sharing it with the world.  It’s no longer solely about fashionistas in New York, London, Milan, or Paris.  Noteworthy style of all different kinds is everywhere--you just have to look.

 (my street style blog is: fashion vérité )

What Emotional F-Stop?

Everyone likes blurred, creamy, bokehlishus backgrounds.  Right?  It isolates the subject, vanquishes distractions, and tells the viewer exactly where to look. 

At least one photographer, Peter Zelewski, has become a current master of the excellent use of it (50mm @ f1.2):

 

The thing is, while I like the shallow depth of field sometimes, I definitely don’t like it ALL the time.  And often it’s just plain annoying to me.  Because I also like complex pictures, that fill the frame with lots of information—even for portraits sometimes.

So, how could I like two completely different approaches?  And, more importantly, when do I choose to use what?

I used to think it was a matter of how much “story” I wanted to include.  A bustling city in the background could be used to add to the story, or it could be suppressed to keep things simpler.  And things like that.

But then I saw a photo that made me think depth of field can also be about the implied emotion in the subject.  Similar to the post on low contrast lighting, an isolated subject creates a more intimate, pensive mood.  Like they’re thinking about something deep and emotional.

 

 

 

Clear backgrounds can imply thinking, too, but not the same kinds of thoughts.  This photo has a pretty similar pose, but I don’t get impression she has the same kinds of thoughts going on.  The two photos have very different emotional vibes.   

We actually don’t have all that many technical variables to work with, and it pays to get as much as possible out of every one. Choosing the right emotional f-stop might be one way.

Lefty Loosey, Righty Tighty

All art forms have “tight” and “loose” styles.  It’s the difference between classical music and jazz, sonnets and poetry slams, photo-realism and abstract expressionism.  

And of course photography does, too.  Tim Walker’s work is a lot more planned and orchestrated than, say, Annemarieke van Drimmelen's, and is done with a lot more attention to technical things like lighting and exposure and composition.

 (O’2ND Spring 2011 Campaign | Sigrid Agren, Julija & Molly by Tim Walker)

(The Libertine Magazine.Silver Angel.Dorothea Barth Jorgensen By Annemarieke Van Drimmelen For Lula Magazine #15.Fall 2012.8)

 

But the thing is, Walker’s work isn’t JUST about these technical things.  He’s not a musician on stage perfectly playing scales.  The technical quality supports a creative vision that’s far, far grander than nailing the exposure.  And van Drimmelen’s work isn’t merely about lack of technical “correctness.”  The loose, moody style supports a much grander creative vision, too.  What lurks in those “underexposed” shadows—wouldn’t we all like to know?

Today, technical execution is a creative element like any other, and needs to be chosen as such.  “Perfect” has no value in and of itself, and really has no meaning, anyway.  Doing something like lighting a 70s themed shoot in a way considered perfect in the 1950s makes no sense at all. 

“Perfect” is, today, a variable, not a constant. 

With this in mind, the most important bag of tricks you can have is a flexible bag that, like a screw, can turn left and right, to loosen or tighten your technique as required.  No more hammering a screw into a hole that doesn’t fit.

Shooting Beyond The Facts

Some photos are of someone, while others are about someone.  It's a crucial distinction

Of photos record facts and not much more.  In writing terms, they tell rather than show.  They are what they are, and may taste great but are certainly less filling.  They're the photos you want to show your friends, because they're safe and easy to appreciate.  Who doesn't like a nice sunset over the ocean or an Eiffel tower in the rain?

About photos convey things beyond fact--way far beyond, if they're good.  Things that can't be measured and recorded--like attitude or mystery or sorrow or inner strength.  But this kind of thing can certainly be felt in a photograph, and that's what makes them memorable and special and rare.  It's also what makes them harder to share.  People rarely like to expose their deep, inner feelings and emotions.  It's much safer to enjoy such things safely inside your own head.

Shooting facts is easy; all you need is solid technical ability and you're there.  Shooting beyond the facts is much harder, because it's elusive and fleeting and personal.   Recording the wind speed outside only takes a handheld mechanical device.  Recording how that windy day felt takes something much different.

That something much different is most likely empathy.  And lots of it.  But like Tom Cruise says in the old movie, Risky Business, "If you can't say it, you can't do it."  Similarly, with empathy in your photos, if you can't feel it, you can't shoot it.  So you have to be honest with yourself, and not confuse of and about.  But you'll know the different when you feel it.

New Normal Is No Normal

 When someone tells you it's not possible, often what they really mean is, they don't think it'll be very popular--with their boss, with their costumers, with whomever.  They're using a personal narrative of social norms rattling around in their head to assess how they think something new will get along with those norms.  Essentially, it's their opinion about how they think others will receive it.

But these days there is no one "normal."  There's not even only a handful.  There are hundreds or thousands or...who knows?  So if you're suffering rejection,  the real problem becomes, why are you showing your work or bouncing ideas off the wrong people?   Maybe it's because you don't even realize or know about all the other tribes out there.  If that's the case, you need to get out there and find the tribe that already digs what you have to say.

But maybe you like your current social tribe, and want to introduce them to your
"new" ideas.  That's worthy, too--cross-pollination often yields the best kind of new.  "Classic with a twist" as they say.  But you can't just hit someone with it all at once and expect them to jump aboard. 

People can't understand something until they know something about it. And you can't expect people to stick their necks out for something they don't understand.  You can, however, help them understand.  With..what else?  Story.

"Let's start doing a cross-processed look because it looks cool and I just saw that Mert & Marcus are doing it" won't cut it.  Better to try something like, "I get a retro feel from that dress. 1970s, right?  Well, back then they were doing this effect with photos, and if we tried that for the campaign, it might help sell the 70s era vibe.  Let me show you a few from back then, and you'll see what I mean."  Then you can name drop and mention M&M are using it now, too (but you have a better twist on it, right?).

The main reason you need story is, the client is thinking in story, too, and lots of it. That's what marketing is all about (and as a commercial photographer at least, you're part of the marketing team).  Their new calico print dress isn't just something different for a change, it probably has a story behind the artisans in India who make it and are using sustainable cotton and eco-friendly dyes to resurrect a design from 1000 years ago.

Of course, not everything works like this.  But you (hopefully) won't be getting asked to photograph the $5 shorts at Target anyway. 

Nothing's popular automatically or just because. New ideas take work--yours and theirs--so it's a good idea to be part of story process, bringing in your own contributions.  You can't just talk about technique.  You have to speak in story these days, too.  It's the only firm ground under the shifting sands of no normal.

Wheat From The Chaff

It's an old expression, but a goodie.  Separating the wheat from the chaff--the valuable from the worthless.

But with art, it's not always clear what's the valuable, and what's the worthless.  And for the sake of being extreme, I'm going to go so far as to say that it's the actual, physical work that is worthless--or nearly so--and that the value really lies in the story behind it.  The story about who created it, how they created it, the times they created it in, the story of the person in the work...

This notion hit me when I read a story about ocean treasure hunters recovering a huge cache of gold doubloons from a sunken galleon.  Turns out, to collectors, these little pieces of history are worth a lot more than their weight in gold.  And that only makes sense.  If someone just wanted gold, they would go buy some generic bars.  And Pieces of Eight were, at one point, just such generic gold.  But by now, those lumps of gold have been transformed into objects that magically hold within them romantic stories of pirates and navel battles and sunken ships.  People, for whatever reason, like their stories anchored in physical objects.

But we don't always need 300 years to pass before this story-into-value happens.  The dynamic, I think, comes into play in the here and now as well.  When a photographer--or any artist--really commands high prices, it's his or her story that people are paying for.  Dismiss it as hype or salesmanship or marketing instead of talent if you want, but maybe first consider some of your favorite artist, and why you like them.   You may merely like plenty of anonymous works, but I'll bet the ones that you truly love got that way mostly because of things outside of the actual piece of art.

So maybe it's not a matter of separating the wheat from the chaff, but of creating wheat while creating the chaff.  Or something like that.

RIP Bert Stern

There are many reasons to admire and mourn the loss of photographers who have come before us, and shaped the art of photography.  For me, it's often about their creative boldness, so often forgotten when, over time, what was once bold becomes commonplace.

As a way to remember Bert Stern, a quote about him I read in the NYT sums it up for me:

"In a statement considered provocative in its day, Mr. Stern told a panel of commercial artists in 1959, 'I like to put my feelings into my photographs.'"

So hard, if not impossible, to imagine how people once considered something like that provocative.   But just because today we all know about using our feelings, doesn't mean we try hard enough to actually do it.  It's good to be reminded to do so while we still can.