Michael Gregory, no relation, wrote an excellent article for Aperture in 1961 about the nature of photographic style and idea for how to define and use style in photography. I was recently rereading the article and used it as the foundation for this week’s podcast. One the most common topics I hear about that is related to creating great photography is that you need to have a style, but the definition of style is both ambiguous and misapplied. This week, using the insights from this 55-year-old article, we talk about what style is and how to understand how it appears in our photography and what it matters. 

In this week’s podcast, we are talking about how to go about applying some of the basic concepts from minimalism and getting organized to make it easier to work and edit our photographs. At times it is very easy to get overwhelmed with the work required to make a good photograph. However, by learning to focus on a few key things that have been tried and tested to work in keeping organized, you might find that you can make better photographs more efficiently and faster. 

I was flipping through Netflix looking at movies and got to thinking about how many movies follow the same basic formula. For example, in most romantic comedies, the couple gets together, and something happens that drives them apart. After some conflict, they are somehow pushed together and end up happily ever after. 

In our photography, we can quickly end up following the same formula over and over again. In some cases, this might be ok, but I other cases this could cause us to fall short of our expectations and needs as a creative person. In my own work, I think that it is easy to fall into a formulaic rut. You learn what works and you just do it over and over again. The challenge this creates is that it the more you do the same thing, the more it becomes harder to change. The habit builds a deeper rut.

Sometimes our creativity is at the edges of our experiences. So finding ways to push our boundaries by doing something outside the norm is critical. Now, this doesn’t mean giving up good habits like morning pages, walks in the woods or daily images, but what I encourage you to do is to not write the exact same thing every day. The habit is not the formula. You might find that by sitting in the woods and listening to the birds, trees and wind might be better for you then just walking.

So as you approach your photography this week, I encourage you to look at what is the formula you are following that you picked up from others or isn’t working and apply a twist to the formula. What if your romantic comedy went dark or some other direction. What would it look like if your story was really your story and not the formula that we have all accepted?