Styles of Photographing

People obviously have different styles in their artwork and the way they approach it. I think I have figured out mine.

With photography, I feel like people are either dedicating time to go out and shoot, or are more of a bring-your-camera-along kind of person. You have the people who specifically plan places to go to just to take photos, who plan every shot they want to take, who seem to have a purpose to their photos (let’s call them the “Photo” people). On the other hand, you have the people who make sure they bring their cameras along wherever they’re headed, who want to take pictures, and do, but that’s not necessarily their sole purpose (let’s call them the “Picture” people).

I think both ways are great and produce great photos.

I think my personal approach is the second one. I love photography and the art of taking a great photo. When it comes down to it, though, I just don’t think the way we’re typically told to think about photographing. I sometimes feel like my main concern when photographing is to just document the space/person/whatever the subject may be. Of course, I want to document it in an accurate, technically and compositionally good way, but my main thought is just capturing it. I feel like the more planning I put into a photo, the worse it gets. Not in all cases, but generally speaking. First, I thought maybe I’m just not taking photography as seriously as (what seems to be) everyone else, or my skill level isn’t as good. But the more I’ve thought about it, I think this is just my style. Less planning, more doing. Which is NOT how I handle anything else in life.