Influences
For some reason, I’ve put a lot of thought into a post that Gordon wrote some time ago. The title of his post was Early Influences, followed by another post, Later Influences. And then, a great bit of evidence in the post, Bits of St. John where you can see clearly the influence on Gordon’s work. In the first post, Gordon asks a question that was asked of him at a workshop:
What was the first two dimensional piece of art that really had a strong influence on you?
When I first read the question, I pondered it for a while, then came up with no answers. My first reaction was to say Ansel Adams, but that was just a name that I knew off of the tip of my tongue. I don’t know if he really was an influence. Later, I thought of HCB, but then again, I don’t really think that he was an influence, only a name that I happened to know. I don’t really own any picture books of photographers or follow any photographer’s work closely. Perhaps it was a black and white print that my friend Bob Jennings showed me, but I doubt that it influenced my work.
I remember that i kept thinking that there ‘should’ be someone who influenced me, but there doesn’t seem to be. I had one guy tell me that my work looked a lot like that of Freeman Patterson. At the time, I said Freeman who? I didn’t even know who it was, so I guess that it was coincidence.
All in all, I guess that my work is my own and not really influenced by other work that I’ve seen, or perhaps it is but I just don’t know it. Anyone else? Do you feel that you have any influences in your photography? Certainly, there is nothing wrong with it. On that same note, I’m really feeling that I’d like to do some portraits and would just love for my work to be on par with that of Cheryl Jacobs. I just think that her work is fantastic! That is certainly my cup of tea!
I think your influences dates way back than your first impressions of professional photographers. There are children’s books, cartoons and all the drawing we did as kids. I believe this and a not so small portion of life per se adds up to how we express ourselves today, picture-wise. I wrote ‘adds up’, since you of course get influenced later in life, too – by famous photographers, but also other artists. That’s what I think, anyway.
[Reply]
Two photographers who got me interested in photography were Adams and White but as for who has influenced my own style, that I cannot answer with any certainty. I would guess that there would be elements from a number of photographers and artists both professional and amateur. The thing is that I am not even sure that I have what I would call a style. Looking back over my images I see that the way I make images has changed significantly much like an evolution. Perhaps style comes when the evolution stops. I don’t really know.
Oh, and Cheryl Jacobs work is cool. I can easily imagine your style going in this direction but I have no doubt that you would bring something of your own to it.
[Reply]
Ove is right, much of my fascination with a certain kind of landscapes, but also with fantasy literature, or even with certain computer games, goes back to maybe two children’s books that I had. Both were fairly realistic, not at all like what became modern in the early 70s. One was a book of fairy tales, the other a book of, I don’t know, animals in a jungle, a big fire, the story how the animals escape.
I think my current influences are the people whose blogs I read, and sometimes what they recommend. Craig Tanner gave me a method of analysis and critique, as well as the feeling that this is actually helpful for the artist, Ted Byrne opened my mind and encouraged me to actually think of what I do as art, Mark Hobson is an endless source of inspiration, to mention just a few. Mike Johnston recommended the late “Polaroids” by André Kertész, an incredibly touching book, one that I’d like to recommend as well.
Basically in this age of the Internet, influences are not what they were. There is so much communication, so much consummation, Flickr streams that I’ve subscribed to because Brian Auer of EpicEdits pointed had an image in his “Browser Fruits”, often from photographers who I have no contact to, have never commented on. I just happen to see their images, fleetingly, but nevertheless, some influence me. We live in interesting times
[Reply]
I can’t say any particular photographer is an influence on me. I know who I wish I was more like (Winogrand) but I can’t say my work is anywhere near as good as his. The first image I can conjure that influenced me was Joe Melziener’s sketch for Death of a Salesman. And I know I’m very influenced by Kandinsky.
[Reply]