DEVELOPING PERSONAL AESTHETIC

This why we’re all here. It’s why we do what we do. If we had chosen a direct path to riches, we’d have embarked on careers in finance or commercial real estate, right? So perhaps this is the key that keeps us all walking this creative path - how to express what I feel inside visually? How to communicate thoughts, feelings, and ideas to our peers with grace and poetry? How to unleash my personal style?

Each of our aesthetics are individual, none are “right”, and none are “wrong.” Each creative journey undertaken is unique, and each personal development is a solo introspective endeavor. Sure, the stimuli or muse might be external, but the processing has to happen within. What are you documenting? What are you trying to say? Who’s the audience?

I spend a lot of time looking at the work of other artists, finding creators who’re making work that flicks that switch inside my mind. It’s always the same switch, but it can be operated in so many ways. I love the work of photographers Christopher Anderson, Paolo Pellegrin, Richard Mosse, Matt Black, and Ian Teh. But equally the music of Tool, the food of Daniel Humm, the surfing of Laird Hamilton, or the painting of Peter Doig gets me to the same place. It’s not so much an appreciation of a particular style - if you look at the list above, each mention is very different to the last, even the photographers, it’s more a nod to perfect execution, all elements carefully chosen and perfectly in balance.

Who’s your equivalent inspiration to mine? Find your list. Keep searching and recognizing those that light that spark inside you. Notice the common feeling that grows as you remember each work. Why do you feel attracted to Artist A, at the same time as Artist B? Trying to look deeper than line, tone, texture, shape, form, taste etc. What’s the common theme? Quality? Balance? Time? Effort?

Notice your inspiration. But be very careful not to emulate. Keep that feeling of general inspiration inside and try to offer it to your own work. Use it like a compass. Is this inspiring? No? Ok, let’s change direction. Is this inspiring? Maybe? Ok, let’s keep working in this direction. When I’m working on a piece, I try very hard to stay away from external aesthetic input. Too often it sways me toward a style that I love, but isn’t mine, and I begin to copy. It takes effort to get back to my own path. 

In the same way that infinite inspiration can be petrifying, so can endless combinations of equipment and style. You’re a freelancer now, you can go anywhere, work on anything, in any way that you like. So a healthy part of this job is setting limitations that allow your creativity to flourish without being influenced or overwhelmed. You’re building a padded cell, just large enough for exploration, without being so big you get lost in there.

Topic is another helpful level of constraint that will give you clues to aesthetic development, certainly the limitations that equipment will allow. For me, I’ve spent most of my career photographing and filming international conflict or humanitarian issues. That means gritty, up-close, fast, even blurry imagery. My equipment needs to stay small(ish), so I can move fast, and there’s never time for elaborate lighting setups. But, if you’re making panoramic landscapes, perhaps a medium-format Phase One is what you’re after. For lifestyle and fashion, perhaps you have the luxury of crafting room-size sets and using seamless backgrounds. It’s all valid, whatever fits for you.

The wrong aesthetic direction can be a benefit too. The work that I’m asked to make for TV and for some magazines while on assignment often isn’t the type of thing that floats my boat. It’s too digital, literal, and sharp for me. But it pays very well and watching my “inspiration compass” I’ve seen that I need to travel in a different direction. 

For me, I get a kick out of layered, experimental, 35mm film photography. Color or black and white, it doesn’t matter. The camera doesn’t matter either really. But I love the process, the chemicals, the tangible nature of the medium, the way the equipment feels, the “magic.” I like offering the audience an up-close view, a sense of “being there,” and an empathy with the subject or topic.

Often assignments get me to the place I need to be, to a story that’s interesting, paying my way. If I’m filming for TV I’ll use a Canon C300 mkii. If I’m photographing for a magazine it’s a Nikon D5 or D6. Then… in my pocket I have a film camera of some sort, perhaps a Nikon FM2 (which makes mean double exposures), a Polaroid mini, or even something homemade. I satisfy the assignment, shooting my own stuff concurrently.

When it’s all developed, scanned, edited, and published I show the work around - the same topic, photographed in two styles, one mine, one kind of mine. I notice the reactions of my audience to the two styles, listen to their feedback, and correct my course if I agree.

But most important of all is time, and repetition within time. It’s practice again and again, considering your last step, and making the next. Find a starting point that lights you up - a style, a process, or a medium, and become the master of it. Keep pushing your path until it begins to convey what you’d like to communicate in your heart, your minds-eye, or deep in the subconscious - that place that can’t be put into words.