D-I-F-Y

There’s nothing wrong with shooting for your own joy…

Photography, like all art forms, is subjective. What pleases the eye of one person creates disinterest in another. And we are certainly subjected to a lot of imagery on a regular basis - our eyes bombarded from dawn till dusk. Although the exact figures are widely disputed, we can see hundreds every day. If you are an avid scroller on social media, this could be high hundreds or even thousands at the extreme end.

Those who spend time on Instagram, Flicker, Irys etc. will see lots of photographs and assume, quite incorrectly, that everyone is taking much better photos than them. Pop over to YouTube and see thousands of videos about how we are doing photography wrong, 10 tips to take the perfect [insert genre here] photo, why you should only shoot at ‘golden hour’, or why you should never shoot at ‘golden hour’ and so on. All of this can have a negative impact on us as photographers. We can find ourselves chasing someone else’s idea of perfection, shooting in ways/styles in which we are not comfortable, seeking validation to tell us we are doing it properly and making ‘bangers’ for the old Instagram or whatever your platform of choice may be. I know - I’ve been there and worn the t-shirt.

Well, here’s a motto I encourage you to embrace regarding your photography - DO IT FOR YOURSELF! Shoot whatever gives YOU pleasure. Pick subjects that interest YOU. Go out when YOU want to shoot. Use the equipment, lenses etc. that YOU want to use. Consider an image you have taken to be good if it makes YOU happy and/or proud.

Quick caveat - If you are shooting commercially to a brief, you may well be photographing something that you do not enjoy. This is something very different - we all have done jobs purely for the money and not for the enjoyment!

It is important not to chase the ‘likes’ on social media platforms. Lack of engagement on such platforms such as Instagram doesn’t mean you have posted poor images. There are many reasons why your images do not gain traction and many of them are completely out of your control. It is vital we don’t judge our abilities purely on gaining ‘likes’ or whether we win a competition we’ve entered. If you have submitted images for an ‘open call’ exhibition and your image(s) are not selected, this does not mean you are a terrible photographer. There are many reasons why these things could happen, not least the sheer weight of possible entries. Remember, we are engaging in a subjective art form.

I like the colours and shapes - and that is enough for me

When you think of the number of genres and sub-genres there are in photography, and the number of photographers to have ever lived, it is unrealistic to assume you can be the greatest to have existed in any of them. Just off the top of my head I can think of 15 or so sub-genres of portrait photography alone. I can think of a similar figure in landscape photography too. Now multiply these by the amount of styles you could implement, variety of equipment you could use, the random environmental factors that may be at play at any given time, and you quickly see that chasing something that everyone will rave about is very slim indeed.

So stop thinking about what you should shoot, the images you should make, the ‘likes’ you should chase, the methods and ‘rules’ others say you should use. Bollocks to all that. DO IT FOR YOURSELF! Let your creative juices liberally spray anywhere and everywhere and do what interests you. Shoot whatever you like, in your own way. It is only by doing this can you ever find your ‘style’ and understand what inflames your photographic passions. There are so many examples of people who ploughed their own furrow for no other reason that they wanted to follow their own creative voice. A great example you may have come across is William Eggleston.

William Eggleston, Untitled, c.1983-1986 © Eggleston Artistic Trust. Courtesy Eggleston Artistic Trust and David Zwirner

In the above image, he saw shapes and colours which he found interesting. The shadow on the table made by the condiments almost looks like a hand. I find it interesting, you may find it mediocre. It makes me ask a few questions about the scene and why he took this photo. You may have already disengaged from it and are thinking about something else entirely, like the laundry that needs doing. That’s the beauty of a subjective art form, you see. It is also why many people won’t find your images to their taste. We should not all like the same thing. How tedious would that be?! You want an even more unusual example? Next up on the rank is John Darwell.

John Darwell, Untitled, c.2007-2009 from his series '“DDSB” © John Darwell

Darwell has shot at Chernobyl, created superb work around mental health and celebrated the work of German artist, Kurt Schwitters through photography. Yet here he has turned his camera onto discarded dog shit bags (DDSB). Many people complain about them, Darwell used photography to highlight the issue. It is certainly an unique form of social documentary photography. But why not? He wanted to turn the camera on these bags and just got on with it. It fascinated/annoyed him enough to shoot these bags of canine fecal matter. This may be an example where you are perfectly entitled to say this is a ‘shit’ photograph. I’ll get my coat…

Olga Karlovac, Untitled, c.2018 © Olga Karlovac

I adore Karlovac’s work. There is an ethereal, and unsettling, feel to her images. Using deliberate camera movement creates these blurry photographs. Using film adds the grain which increases the feeling in her photographs. But I doubt Karlovac just obtained a camera, went outside and started shooting in this way. Over time, she will have tried multiple methods of image making - some more successful than others in her view. Eventually, it coalesced into creating work like that shown above. You may love it too. You may not. Either way, that’s perfectly fine. And this is how you need to approach your photography. Do you like it? Does it bring you joy? Does it matter if someone else isn’t as enamoured with it as you are?

One key point you must acknowledge - you will take a stack of images you do not like. That is completely normal. Even the most successful photographers ever to grace this lump of rock we call home have shot thousands of photographs they did not like. I’ve got thousands of the bloody things on hard drives. And I will take thousands more. And sometimes that will frustrate me. Then I will take an image I really like and I will forget about them for a while. For every image you take which fills you with pride, there’ll be a bucketful that do not. The sooner we all give less of a toss about what others think and more about what we think, we will not only take better photos, we will enjoy the process a lot more too!

So next time you grab your camera, remember that whatever you shoot you are doing it for yourself… and screw everybody else with a rusty pole.

I like the colours together, nothing more than that!