What three words?
How a book made me analyse my own photography
Hello, I’m Gill and I write a photography blog inspired by the landscapes of Suffolk and beyond. Please subscribe to read more of my writing and visit my website to view my images.
I haven’t been out with the camera at all this week instead I have been languishing at home fighting off a viral infection. Whilst I haven’t felt like going out I have found plenty of time to read which has been lovely. Three books I can recommend from this weeks reading include:
A Flat Place by Noreen Masud
Natures Ghosts by Sophie Yeo
And Photography in 100 words by David Clarke
It is the last book that has inspired my blog post for this week.
The book features 50 photographers and sets out to identify their philosophy and approach using two key words identified during the course of an interview. I liked the concept behind the book despite feeling that it was a tall order to describe someones approach to photography and their lifetimes work in two words. However there are some interesting photographers in the book, from all genres, and I enjoyed gaining an insight into their careers.
Having spent some time with the book I began to think about this concept in terms of my own photography and wondered what I would identify as my defining words if I were to pick 3 instead or 2. What words best describe my images and my approach to image making?
After some thought I came up with a shortlist of the following words:
Awareness, Connection, Nature, Beauty, Feminine, Dreamy, Calm, Painterly, Passion, Local and Immersion.
I felt these words all described a key aspect of my photography or my motivation for making images. I then picked the three that resonated with me the most. I thought it would be interesting to explain my choices.
Connection
I picked this word because I feel it is essential to my image making. I could not be a photographer without a connection to the things that I photograph, ie the landscape and the natural world. I really strongly believe (and I have said it before in other posts) that the most important thing any photographer can have, no matter what their genre, is a connection to their subject. It is this that gives us a voice and the image its soul.
Thinking about my connection to the natural world lead me to ponder what came first, my connection or my photography. Did my love of photography lead to my connection with the landscape and nature? Or conversely was my connection with the natural world the thing that made me choose landscape photography as a genre?
The answer to this question is definitely nature before photography. My connection to the outdoors goes back to my childhood, it was forged in the garden and the fields around my home and has grown stronger ever since. I now feel it is something I couldn’t live without.
So whilst nature definitely came first, my love of photography has given me an opportunity to revisit and explore that connection on a regular basis. It also allows me to share my knowledge and experiences with others which has become a big passion for me.
Beauty
I have been told many times that my photography has a certain style, one that is quite ‘feminine’ in its appearance. I think this is where my second word, beauty, comes in. I am drawn to express the beauty that I see in nature and I often do this by shooting in specific conditions - particularly dawn light.
I love photographing in the early morning, at sunrise or just after when the light is soft and low in the sky. Dawn is often associated with other conditions such as stillness, fog or mist and dew, that you don’t get at the other end of the day. These elements can all be used to create dreamy, ethereal and painterly images which I feel has become a key part of my photographic style.
However that is not to say that I don’t like photographing at other times of the day or in other conditions. I will often pick a still overcast day where the light is diffused to create floral images and I enjoy the two hours leading up to sunset, but once the light has gone from the land I tend to lose interest. It is the intersection between soft light and the landscape that I love.
Local
Despite being a landscape photographer, and loving travel and exploring new places, I would say 3/4 of my work is created in my local area. This is a conscious decision based on my love for the county I live in. I also feel that I do not need to travel vast distances to create meaningful work.
I often watch You Tube and follow plenty of landscape photographers who travel around the globe photographing different places, building stunning portfolios filled with inspiring landscapes, but I am never quite sure they do much more than scratch the surface of the places they visit. There is nothing wrong with travel and I have done plenty of it in my life but now I feel compelled to tell deeper stories that I can access closer to home. I feel that staying local gives me an authentic voice. It also allows me to see things that I might miss as a visitor and I think that is valuable.
Most of the book projects that I have undertaken have been created within a few miles from my home. I think they tell stories that have a personal element to them which comes from having a deep connection to this location.
Is there a value in finding your three words?
If I hadn’t have been reading ‘Photography in 100 words’ I would never have given this topic any consideration. At least not in the same way. However that doesn’t mean it wasn’t an interesting thing to do. But does it have any value as a wider exercise?
Looking at a collection of your own images and working out what they say about you as a photographer can be a rewarding and informative exercise. Your images are your voice, so if they are giving out the wrong message it can be useful to know.
Thinking about what message your photography gives others is always valuable. But it’s also valuable to learn from how we see ourselves. Often we have ideas of what we would like to say with our photography, but if our images don’t convey that then we know we have a disconnect somewhere. It would be like me saying I value local landscapes but then I spend all my time shooting in Scotland.
Finally I think it is always a useful exercise to look back at your work and see what common themes shine through - because there will definitely be some. Images will be linked by subject matter, or the time of day you prefer to shoot, or the processing style you have chosen to apply. These things all go to define your style and it is often interesting to see if you can identify this. It will be there, even if it’s not yet fully formed. Finding your three words might just help you see your style a little easier.
Who inspires me as a photographer.
Throughout my photographic journey I have been inspired by many people and I think our style and the way we see the world comes from an amalgamation of many influences.
Photographically I would say my influences are: Joe Cornish, Sandra Bartochta, Lizzie Shepherd, Niall Benvie, Simon Baxter and Theo Bosboom. More recently I have discovered the work of Kirsten Klein and I would encourage you to watch this video about her work. This film made a big impression on me and I feel her whole ethos on life and photography is very much aligned to my own.
Outside of photography my inspiration has come mainly from books from authors and adventurers including Ben Fogle, Alastair Humphreys, Raynor Winn, Kathleen Jamie and Robert Macfarlane.
These have all inspired me in different ways with lessons from their lives that I can apply to my own. They have also given me little sparks of inspiration for future projects.
I think its important to take your inspiration from multiple sources and there have been so many other people, books and articles that have resonated with me over the years. I get inspiration from Instagram, You Tube, magazines, and workshop clients who often have interesting stories to tell about their own lives or photographic journeys.
At the end of the day we are all different, and are all on different journeys. It’s important to be inspired, but also to stay true to yourself and the photography you want to make.
And if you want to think about your own three words that describe your photography I would be really interested to hear them. Please leave a comment below.
Thank you very much for reading and until next week enjoy your photography.
Gill
Firstly, beautiful photos Gil. I love the pastel tones. The word sublime comes to mind.
This is all very interesting. I have to say, your list is very closely aligned with my own.
I gave some thought to this recently as I listened to a Photowalk podcast episode which you can find at https://photowalk.show/episodes/sean-tucker-podcast-creative-thinking in which they discuss using a 5 point star to identify 5 aspects of your approach to photography. After some thought, I came up with beauty, natural light, local, fun and clever. Perhaps clever should be imaginative, but my best photographs often have some sort of hook or uniqueness to them which grabs the viewer's attention and makes these images stand out from the rest, so that's what I was thinking of, not that I think I'm particularly clever. I like your interpretation of the word connection. I tend to think of the audience or viewer when I think of that word, but you are right. Without a relationship to your photographic subject, there is nothing much to express, so it is by necessity, a primary element. Having two more words to work with might ease the burden of narrowing the list down so much.
Absolutely, lovely, Gill!! I adore fog and mist-filled mornings, especially! Your pictures are gorgeous and, yes, ethereal. I am an amateur photographer, at best, but the fun is in all the practice. And so, like you, its hard to imagine whether photography developed (no pun intended-hahaha) my love for nature or the Beauty inherent in nature and my desire to capture it in more than just my memory led me to photography. It may well be both, and that is wonderful!! Thanks for sharing!! XO