dmacmillan wrote:
I wish that there was a way that anyone who disses selective coloring would have their VSCO filters automatically deleted from all their computers.
Trends are a little tricky, because unless you are one of the first wave of people adopting those styles you will be always playing catchup. As you perfect the latest trendy look, the trendsetters have moved onto something else even more trendier! It's a moving target as the trend works its way down the food chain of photographers.
Developing a style of your own is much harder but is something to strive for. If someone can look at your pix and because of your style see that DDiggler took them, that's better IMO than looking at your pix and deciding that that shot was from 2010 because it has a lot of flare and the shoes are the only thing in the frame, and this other shot is from 2008 because it's a tilty shifty shot.
IMO trends are like oregano, use a trend to flavor your portfolio or an album, no one wants to eat a big plate of oregano.
.... selective color, which is an edit that can be made AFTER THE FACT and is not destructive to the image and in fact allows the delivery of a wonderful timeless photo that will be enjoyed long after selective color comes back in style and goes out of style again...
....meantime they are ... delivering those atrocious portraits ... which, mind you CAN NEVER be recovered to be a timeless portrait?
... though THAT photographer can actually deliver a clean image when the "T/S portrait" finally goes out of style in 2010?
Oooooh so close! I thought you were going to make an excellent point that by delivering a large print that will go out of style, it provides the opportunity to sell the wonderful timeless version of that same photo again in 10 years to the same client when they get tired of the selective color/TS/flare-desat.
What that business decision lacks in artistic satisfaction (having to sell an image that you don't like) it makes up for in revenue on the repeat sale! Suh-weet!
Sometimes, though, you see a trend and realize, "Oh, dang...that is me." It's like throwing a ball in front of a Labrador Retriever puppy. I have always loved fedoras. Now that they're slightly back in style, does that make me "trendy?"
What's the difference between a "gimmick," a "trend," and a "movement?"
Just to throw a thought out, I'd say a "movement" is a genuinely new way of expressing an old concept, or perhaps a way of expressing a concept that had never found expression before. It actually conveys more emotional information than we had before using other means of expression.
OTOH, a "gimmick" would be a trick that doesn't actually do or say anything.
I like that distinction. There's a little more subtlety to it though. I don't think gimmicks are inherently so. Something becomes a gimmick when it's applied for its own sake rather than to enhance the intent of the image. A portrait using a 45mm PC-E that's slapped to an 8 degree tilt that could have been done with a 50mm f/1.4? Gimmick. An environmental portrait with subjects at different distances from the camera with both in focus (there's a story that can be told this way)? Not gimmick. Examples can be found for most things, but I think that principle works best for deciding whether something is going to be timeless or not.
RDKirk wrote:
What's the difference between a "gimmick," a "trend," and a "movement?"
I'd use the term style instead of movement, but I think it comes down to time...gimmicks come and go quickly and trends have more staying power and may or may not develop into a style. Sometimes I shoot gimmicky and sometimes I shoot with style, it can be unpredictable
Style is definitely different from a movement. A style should be personal. A movement, by definition, is a declared group. To be an Impressionist (or Pictorialist or a Pre-Raphaelite, et cetera) was a declarative statement, not merely a style.
