# Drawing the line between artistic identity and following the rules



## justingagephotostudio (Feb 26, 2016)

Hello friends co-creators, and artists,
New on this Forum, Originally from Southern California, currently living on the french riviera. 
My background in photography... I actually started on the fashion design and stylist side, started getting asked to shoot, took courses at NYIP, now it's my full time Job.
Some of you may or may not have dealt with the French, but the french do a few things well: Cheese, Wine, and complaining. (and I don't mean the constructive criticism kind)

When I was studying photography and working with my mentors one of the things I came to believe as that photography is a bunch of choices. Presented with the same subject many of you may chose to shoot it differently, different cropping, different focal lengths, different lighting... anyone with a tiny bit of technical knowledge knows out of that same subject study, an infinity of images can be produced. Making those choices and consistently being able to have that flavor is what gives that artistic signature.
That signature may not be to people's taste, it may even sometimes break "rules" but so long as there is a reason and the result can be reproduced isn't that what makes the artist world so limitless with infinite possibilities?

I was just hoping to get other people's and specifically creative people's input... Maybe I am out of my mind to think these things.

thanks guys,

J-
www.justingagephotostudio.com


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## table1349 (Feb 26, 2016)




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## KenC (Feb 26, 2016)

Rules?  What rules?  Yep, sounds good to me.


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## justingagephotostudio (Feb 26, 2016)

KenC said:


> Rules?  What rules?  Yep, sounds good to me.


 I knew I came to the right place! I'm home!


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## Designer (Feb 26, 2016)

I think I understand your premise, although I disagree.


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## imagemaker46 (Feb 26, 2016)

So what's the question?


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## Designer (Feb 26, 2016)

justingagephotostudio said:


> .. so long as there is a reason and the result can be reproduced isn't that what makes the artist world so limitless with infinite possibilities?


No.

The reason many artists think that is because they are undisciplined and uneducated. It would be a valid point of view if you're expecting only random perceptions.  The trick is to elicit the reaction you intend.


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## vintagesnaps (Feb 26, 2016)

justingagephotostudio said:


> Hello friends co-creators, and artists,
> New on this Forum, Originally from Southern California, currently living on the french riviera.
> Making those choices and consistently being able to have that flavor is what gives that artistic signature.
> That signature may not be to people's taste, it may even sometimes break "rules" but so long as there is a reason and the result can be reproduced isn't that what makes the artist world so limitless with infinite possibilities?
> ...



I think this is the question, which seems like too much thinking for a Friday to answer. I'd say I think you can break so-called rules and that some reason or thought should be behind that, but I'm not sure what being able to reproduce the result has to do with it, and I don't know that this is what makes the art world limitless, etc.


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## The_Traveler (Feb 26, 2016)

Designer said:


> elicit the reaction you intend.



This is the real point of photography.
Too often people can't or don't do that because _1) _they really don't know what their intent is or what the reaction should be, _2)_ they can't see the gap between what they have captured in their camera and what exists in their mind or _3)_ they don't know how to close that gap.

And, there are no rules.


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## justingagephotostudio (Feb 26, 2016)

Designer said:


> It would be a valid point of view if you're expecting only random perceptions. The trick is to elicit the reaction you intend.





vintagesnaps said:


> I'd say I think you can break so-called rules and that some reason or thought should be behind that,but I'm not sure what being able to reproduce the result has to do with it



By reproducing the result I meant thinking out the creative process and having an intentional choice in the tools used to achieve the result, regardless of how unconventional they are. Fully aware of the "rule that was broken" but taking voluntary freedoms knowing full well how the image should have been "conventionally shot" 
I am sorry for opening this can of worms as my first post here. But thanks for the input.

Best,
J-


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## table1349 (Feb 26, 2016)

justingagephotostudio said:


> Designer said:
> 
> 
> > It would be a valid point of view if you're expecting only random perceptions. The trick is to elicit the reaction you intend.
> ...


Oh, so it is kind of like living an everyday ordinary common sense life.


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## robbins.photo (Feb 26, 2016)

1.  I've dealt with the French.
2. Life is a bunch of choices, photography is no different.
3. Honestly I'm not really sure what it is your asking for input on, unless of course your attempting to duplicate my artistic signature.
4. For the record I've changed my artistic signature to an unpronounceable symbol, allowing me to get highly offended when you pronounce it incorrectly


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## justingagephotostudio (Feb 26, 2016)

The_Traveler said:


> Too often people can't or don't do that because _1) _they really don't know what their intent is or what the reaction should be, _2)_ they can't see the gap between what they have captured in their camera and what exists in their mind or _3)_ they don't know how to close that gap


Thanks that's the point or the flip side of it. When someone knowingly breaks a conventional rule knows how and why. Being able to continue growing and learning while being able to claim creative liberties as part of the visual identity


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## table1349 (Feb 26, 2016)

robbins.photo said:


> 1.  I've dealt with the French.
> 2. Life is a bunch of choices, photography is no different.
> 3. Honestly I'm not really sure what it is your asking for input on, unless of course your attempting to duplicate my artistic signature.
> 4. For the record I've changed my artistic signature to an unpronounceable symbol, allowing me to get highly offended when you pronounce it incorrectly


But you will always be remembered for..................................


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## robbins.photo (Feb 26, 2016)

gryphonslair99 said:


> robbins.photo said:
> 
> 
> > 1.  I've dealt with the French.
> ...



Well sure, but that was back during my purple phase.  As I've grown and matured as an arteest, well I've moved more into an aubergine until finally settling into a deep fuchsia.


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## table1349 (Feb 26, 2016)

robbins.photo said:


> gryphonslair99 said:
> 
> 
> > robbins.photo said:
> ...


So write a new song.  Follow the rules if you like or not.


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## justingagephotostudio (Feb 26, 2016)

gryphonslair99 said:


> Oh, so it is kind of like living an everyday ordinary common sense life.



You'd be surprised as to how much is NOT ordinary here... Like customer service, Not a requirement here. As an employee here you can literally tell customers to take a long walk off a short plank and still have a job... or your boss. I know sound like a dream set up to some.


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## Designer (Feb 26, 2016)

justingagephotostudio said:


> Fully aware of the "rule that was broken" but taking voluntary freedoms knowing full well how the image should have been "conventionally shot"


Unfortunately, we see people breaking the rules willy-nilly without first understanding the rules well enough to break them skillfully.


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## table1349 (Feb 26, 2016)

justingagephotostudio said:


> gryphonslair99 said:
> 
> 
> > Oh, so it is kind of like living an everyday ordinary common sense life.
> ...


No I wouldn't, I lived in Europe for 3 years.  Travelled France extensively.  It's says alot about a country who's three greatest individuals are Layafette, Inspector Cloeseau, and Pepe Le Pew.


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## bribrius (Feb 26, 2016)

way to deep for me i just take snapshots


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## Didereaux (Feb 26, 2016)

justingagephotostudio said:


> Hello friends co-creators, and artists,
> New on this Forum, Originally from Southern California, currently living on the french riviera.
> My background in photography... I actually started on the fashion design and stylist side, started getting asked to shoot, took courses at NYIP, now it's my full time Job.
> Some of you may or may not have dealt with the French, but the french do a few things well: Cheese, Wine, and complaining. (and I don't mean the constructive criticism kind)
> ...




What's to discuss or critique?  What you wrote is almost axiomatic in art of any kind.


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## Derrel (Feb 26, 2016)

gryphonslair99 said:


>



Yeah...this ^^^ was my initial thought as well.


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## table1349 (Feb 26, 2016)




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## terri (Feb 26, 2016)

Give the OP a chance to suss out what he's trying to explain before being too dismissive.   Lots of folks can't articulate perfectly, but getting feedback helps.   Lew seemed to get his point up there and connected just fine.    

If y'all are bored, find another punching bag.


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## table1349 (Feb 26, 2016)

Moderators...................................................





You said pick on somebody else.


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## xenskhe (Feb 26, 2016)

robbins.photo said:


> 3. Honestly I'm not really sure what it is your asking for input on,



Yes, what's the question?


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## xenskhe (Feb 26, 2016)

robbins.photo said:


> 3. Honestly I'm not really sure what it is your asking for input on,



Yes, what's the question?


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## Dikkie (Feb 27, 2016)

justingagephotostudio said:


> Some of you may or may not have dealt with the French, but the french do a few things well: Cheese, Wine, and complaining.



So, what's the point of mentioning 'the French' in this first post?
They have absolutely nothing to do with the point you're making to be able to shoot a subject without any limits.

You should've ended your rant with _'pardon me for my French'_, though...


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## Designer (Feb 27, 2016)

Dikkie said:


> justingagephotostudio said:
> 
> 
> > Some of you may or may not have dealt with the French, but the french do a few things well: Cheese, Wine, and complaining.
> ...


Well, if you lived on the French Riviera, wouldn't you want to mention it every chance you got?


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## table1349 (Feb 27, 2016)

Designer said:


> Dikkie said:
> 
> 
> > justingagephotostudio said:
> ...


Au con·traire Pierre,  everyone knows the real artist are in Pariee.  Ah gay Pariee, the mass of tourists, the snooty attitude, the condoms hainging in the trees along the Rue Saint-Denis. It makes me long to be living in Kitzingen Germany again.  A safe 350 miles from Paris.


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## dennybeall (Feb 27, 2016)

The Forum is in dire need of a section where discussions can be held without the self-proclaimed comedians high-jacking the threads for their own personal amusement.


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## andrewdoeshair (May 23, 2016)

I hope I don't ruin my reputation already, on my second post, but I think what I heard in the original post was (basically) "when can I break the rules?" And "the French don't get my art." Maybe seeking some backup from photographers who are excited to break the rules after his French critics made him second guess his deliberate choice to do so.
In my experience with hair, half of the scene gets it when you break a rule, and half of the scene thinks you messed up. But at the end of the day if a client wants a rule broken they'll sort of ask for that. I think if your customers are seeking something more traditional you should deliver that and be an artist on your own time. Nine out of ten unconventional haircuts I get to do are on paid models or on heads that I'll be rendering into more traditional cuts afterward, situations I plot up in order to produce unique content, but that 1/10 head who requests something edgy (most recently a professional model who was sick of being hired for old navy gigs and wanted somethings that made him unemployable by that type of company) gives you a shot of adrenaline and a euphoric state. Makes you wish your whole job was that cool. But then Monday rolls around again and you're back to the rules.

Does that sound about right?

Then when you're lucky and you break the rules in a fresh enough way, people come to you for that specific flavor, and you do get to do it all day long. That's like winning the creativity lottery, though, and you'll probably grow to hate the flavor you created.


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## Tim Tucker (May 25, 2016)

@andrewdoeshair

You're (like many photographers) thinking of it the wrong way around. There is not "life after the rules", "there was however life before the rules". I'll try and explain.

First and foremost there is the human eye, which is attached to a human brain, lens and processor. The lens in your eye is organic and has an iris, so ask yourself a question, do you really think that the eye is capable of producing the depth of field and field of view that you see when no camera lens of more complex design is capable of it?

No, of course not. The eye is a relatively poor optical instrument, but is backed up by the human brain. The image you think come directly from your eye is actually a stitched, focus stacked and colour corrected construct of your brain from an eye that continuously scans the scene.

Next question, can you take a photo of a horse and call it a sheep? This may sound silly, but obviously no. We recognise if it's a horse because we know what horses look like. We have memory, we compare what we see to that memory and interpret what we see. But this does not only apply to objects, we don't confuse distance easily, we recognise a near object from a far one almost instantly, we can tell a foggy day from a clear one. We can tell sunlight from overcast without looking at the sky. We do this because our brains process from memory, we see and recognise the way we've seen it before. we understand scale through memory so we recognise a near tree from a far one, we see leaves in the near ones but not the far, we see the exact shape of the near tree against the far ones _because we see and recognise the small visual clues that make them look slightly different_.

Italics because it's an important point. You interpret what you see based on your vast memory of what you've seen before and how you saw it. It's instinctive. We also instantly recognise when something looks wrong, or differs from our experience of how we have always seen it in the past.

This is what is comes down to, and only really this:

_*When people view a picture their interpretation of it is based on a comparing it to a lifetime of seeing and interpreting real things and real views in the real world, an instinctive understanding of how things look from a lifetime of vision. We also instinctively recognise when something is different from how we've seen it in the past.*_

This is where the rules come from, because we see in a largely identical way. So they are basically rooted in "_this is the way we normally see and interpret the visual data in front of us_". They're a distillation of what we normally see and interpret as correct.

So breaking the rules is largely about challenging the viewers perception, not only presenting a different view but also in _understanding how your audience will see it_. You cannot just make it up as you go along, you cannot just say this effect means this simply because you decide that's what it means, you have to understand how your viewer interprets it, remembering they instinctively know when something looks wrong.

All visual art is really based on an understanding of how others see your image and not how you see it.

Sorry about the long reply but it can't be expressed in a short answer, or even simple rules.

Now time to roll out the comedians...

_EDIT:



andrewdoeshair said:



			Then when you're lucky and you break the rules in a fresh enough way, people come to you for that specific flavor, and you do get to do it all day long. That's like winning the creativity lottery, though, and you'll probably grow to hate the flavor you created.
		
Click to expand...


That never happens, commercial photography is all about understanding what the client wants. A "cool look" is nothing more than a passing fad or fashion, if your client wants it then understand how to achieve it._


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## andrewdoeshair (May 25, 2016)

Thanks for the lengthy reply. Makes sense. The last part you quoted was based on my experience in the hair industry- I don't know if it relates to photography but only assumed it would.


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