Photography Beyond the Genres
Like all creative pursuits, photography comes in flavors. There is portraiture, landscape, street, sports, event, wedding, fashion, wildlife, still life, lifestyle, macro, documentary, and quite a few more. You can divide photography in as many genres as you want, each of them having its own subject matter, techniques, communities, and boundaries. It’s the boundaries that make me think lately.
Of all photography genres, landscape often strikes me as particularly dogmatic and, therefore, not very creative.
The greatest part of my photographic journey covers two genres: portraiture (primarily taking portraits of my two daughters) and landscape (primarily practiced during trips and vacations). More recently, I also started exploring street photography and visual storytelling. I must say that, of all these genres, landscape often strikes me as particularly dogmatic and, therefore, not very creative. If I’m in a cynical mood, I tend to see landscape photography as a genre that is primarily practiced by middle-aged, white men (just like myself) with big cameras and heavy tripods, who firmly believe in minimal ISO, stopped-down apertures, wide-angle lenses, neutral density filters, long exposures, panorama stitching, focus stacking, and exposure blending. They are also obsessed with location (often iconic hot-spots that are abundantly shared on social media), timing (preferably golden hour), and the weather (not too clear, not too cloudy; fog is king). They prepare well and are full of expectations. When the moment is there, they fire off numerous exposures of the scenes they have envisioned beforehand. If things go right, they return home satisfied with the trophies they have collected. If not, they are deeply disappointed.
I’ve been like that for a while, or at least I’ve wanted to be like that, inspired by the numerous photographers on social media (especially on YouTube) who make you believe that this is the way to do landscape photography. All other ways are not considered landscape photography, at least not in its purest form. Showing up unprepared with a smartphone in the middle of the day at a less than iconic location is not considered landscape photography by any stretch. Heck, even if you commit only one of these four sins, you’re definitely not a true landscape photographer. I’m slightly exaggerating here to make my point, and you definitely see this kind of gatekeeping behavior in other genres as well, but I believe it tends to be worse in landscape photography. That’s a shame really because it’s so limiting. It degrades this genre of photography to a technical, rather than a creative, pursuit. At the same time, there are so many great landscape photographers out there. Probably most of them are technically proficient, but definitely all of them are creative in some way or another, for example, by not using the typical techniques, not adhering to so-called “rules” of composition, or not aiming their camera at the typical subject matter. More importantly, many creative landscape photographers go beyond the boundaries of their genre, not only by engaging in other genres, but also by introducing elements from these other genres in their landscape work.
Venturing into different genres can be seen in other types of photography as well. How refreshing that is, is shown by celebrated photographers like Stephan Vanfleteren, Sally Mann, Trent Parke, Erwin Olaf, Sebastião Salgado, and even landscape photography icon, Ansel Adams. Each of them has, to some extent, crossed the borders of the genre they are associated with. This has contributed to shaping their photography as we know it. Although most of us may never touch their level of creativity, it will certainly help if we open our minds and experiment with photographic genres that are outside our comfort zone. This could become an essential part of our creative development: starting with a particular genre of photography, learning the basics of that genre, including the conventions, fanatically sticking to those conventions to learn, grow, and feel part of a community, noticing repetition, plateauing, getting bored, trying out new things by breaking the rules or borrowing from other genres, showing renewed growth, and perhaps even developing our own style.
I’m definitely in the trying-out phase right now. I have become bored of conventional approaches to landscape photography, especially with regard to subject matter, and I’m currently experimenting with elements of street photography. I also try to be more responsive to things happening around me when I’m shooting, to plan less and to improvise more, to follow my curiosity rather than some preconceived image, to tell visual stories by taking photographs about things rather than of things (an idea I borrowed from James Popsys), to shoot coherent series of photos rather than just single ones, and — above all — to produce work that is meaningful, at least to myself. Of course, trying out new things is a personal choice, just like staying in one’s comfort zone is. Nothing wrong with the latter as long as people don’t judge those who do choose to push the boundaries. Indeed, to each their own.
One of my first attempts at crossing the boundaries of landscape photography by introducing human-made elements in my subject matter. When I took these shots, my interest was sparked by a combination of things: setting (picturesque countryside), questions (what’s going on here?), juxtaposition of interesting elements (the tractor, gate, and barn; the rooster, fence, and trolley), contrasting colors (orange and red against black, brown, yellow, or green), and shape (the Z shape of the wooden gate and the metal bars of the fence in the foreground). I obviously used sub-framing as my main compositional tool. It’s been a while since I took these images, but they still speak to me, perhaps even more than many of my much prettier landscape photos.
