Not the Same

In a nice instance of synchronicity, no sooner were we (um, Ralph and I?!?) talking about how digital "makes everybody's pictures look the same" than what comes over the transom from Photoshelter but an article about an anonymous Instagram user called @insta_repeat who points out that many people post similar pictures.

However, this isn't the same thing. It's not what I was talking about. What I meant was that photographs look technically similar, with less differentiation or departure from a standard "digital look"; what @insta_repeat is talking about is similar motifs.

Motif, noun, a distinctive feature or dominant idea in an artistic or literary composition. Synonyms: theme, idea, concept, subject, topic, leitmotif, element.

And actually, @insta_repeat's examples of the same motifs are an argument against all photos looking the same, not for it.

Take for instance this motif, "MCU back of head with outdoorsy hat" (I assume "MCU" stands for "medium close-up"):

Obviously, all twelve of these photographs are quite different, despite sharing the same motif...and I quite like the effect of seeing them all together in a grid!

In fact, it's a nice challenge to pick a standard or common motif and "make it yours." That is, work within the motif, but make a picture that satisfies your own visual taste and individual genius or outlook (what's sometimes called "your personal vision" on the Interwebs, although that term for it makes me cringe). Just as the motif or subject doesn't make the picture period, using the same motif or subject doesn't make it the same picture!

Ansel Adams, Clearing Winter Storm

Mark J. Miller, Tunnel View

Same view, but not remotely the same photographs.

I wrote a somewhat satirical article a long time ago about "the photographer's life-list." It was a list of themes or motifs that many famous photographers had made pictures of; the idea was that you should go out and make your own photograph—one that "looked like I could have taken it" in Ralph's words—of whatever the shared motif was...Rancho de Taos, a slot canyon, the Flatiron building, a contorted vegetable, a heroin-chic nude, etc.

I was talking about doing this artistically, but I should mention here that the cleanest, clearest way to "own" a common visual motif is simply if it has personal meaning for you. As in, that's not just a "MCU back of head with outdoorsy hat," that's your dear friend Betty who you knew since 7th grade and who died of cancer in 2010, on that wonderful couples' camping trip you took together in the Sangre de Cristo mountains in New Mexico in 2001. Get how that works? With that kind of personal meaning attached, there is no way anyone else could ever make the "same" picture as yours...no matter how closely each of you matched up with a commonplace motif.

Mike

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(To see all the comments, click on the "Comments" link below.)
Featured Comments from:

Mark Power: "Mike, on a somewhat related subject...why is it that some black-and-white film snapshots seem so much more interesting than the mass of digital images we see today( I guess we don't call them snapshots any more)? At one time I looked at thousands of older B/W pictures taken by amateurs in the hopes of finding that gem—maybe one or two per hundred—but those one or two would be as strange and moving as as images made by professional artists. But I am rarely inclined to save or even look twice at amateur digital image as seen on FB for example—unless of course it's an image with personal meaning. A mystery."

[I was lucky to be one of Mark's students at the old Corcoran School of Art in Washington, D.C.—his website is here. As he has to say now, "not to be confused with the British photographer of the same name." —Ed.]

Mike replies: I've noticed that too, and it's very puzzling. Two ideas...one, it has something to do with Walter Benjamin's bearpaw casting—the notion that if you take a plaster cast of a real bear track in the mud, you have something different than if you sculpt a rendering of the bottom of a bear's paw, because in the former there is a real physical connection to a real thing. The digital picture is a byte-by-byte replacement of the lens image, not a physical impression of it. The other thought is that the one-in-a-hundred snapshot probably comes from a pile of snapshots that weren't edited at all (the processor had to print every exposure) and even the Facebook pictures in their numberless millions are being edited or selected. If you posit that the one-in-a-hundred snapshot occurs because people can't recognize the good in what appears to be bad, then it's at least possible that those pictures are being eliminated from the Facebook pool...even though there are far more Facebook pictures to start with.

Both of those thoughts are just theories or notions. But I have indeed noticed, and wondered at, along with you, the phenomenon you're describing. There really ought to be more great accidents in digital than there appear to be.

Rob de Loe: "This is one of those things that means everything and nothing. The divide is found in your last paragraph. Some kinds of photos have only had value based on the personal connection to the photographer. A picture of my parents has enormous meaning for me, and none for you. That side of the equation is easy. Who cares if my picture of my parents looks similar to millions of other pictures of other people's parents?

"Where it gets tough is 'serious' photography where there's an expectation that something new will be produced. People are getting desperate to find new ways of photographing things that have been photographed countless times already. On the one hand, this explains all kinds of digital technical trickery. On the other hand, I think it also explains (partly at least) people returning to old technologies. Your wet plate photograph of something that has been photographed a zillion times at least looks different than the sharp, clean digital versions. I'm not sure what the path forward is, especially when you have the techniques under control and can reliably make the photo you're after. At that point, whether or not you make anything worth looking at is going to depend on what has always ultimately mattered the most (ideas, vision, authenticity, etc.)."

[Note: Rob's and Denise's comments seem to be in conversation with each other, so keep in mind that they weren't. —Ed.]

Denise Ross: "Presenting something unique and distinctive to the world is one of the main aspirations of the 'altphoto' movement—the handmade print using a process from along the photography timeline, often with a contemporary twist. Platinum, carbon, gum, albumen, salt prints, etc. These are prints made to be seen in person, not online. The reality is that most people only see them online, so the content still matters. Content/image will always matter in photography, but the unfortunate truth is that it is very hard to photograph anything today that hasn't already been photographed. As other commenters here have noted, even if you stumble on a new technique and post it, in about five minutes a gazillion photographers are copying you. The only way to really beat the game is to make real prints and get them in front of physical eyeballs.

"A while back, Mike had a black-and-white print contest. I was delighted (as well as honored) to have one of my images selected. 'Delighted' because the print was made on handmade silver gelatin paper from a handmade film negative. The process made the transition to the small screen. That's the kind of breakthrough I wish for all 'handmade' photographers. There is a wealth of ways to make prints. The potential is wide open (as opposed to the digital/virtual world, which seems to be homogenizing at an accelerating rate)."

Mike replies: Increasing perfection is indeed homogenizing. It's been noted in the high-end audio world that although tube and transistor amplifiers used to have very different sound signatures, as each gets better they become more and more alike.

John Krumm replies to Denise and Mike: I think the homogenization I see has less to do with technical perfection and more to do with style and subject and technique trends, combined with the 'group ranking' systems that have replaced independent editing on the web. When I see a well edited 'Baker's Dozen' installment, for instance, I'm reminded that creativity and original thinking is alive and well, and has little to do with format. But coming up with that dozen+ takes real work, and the internet does not like to pay for real work."

Shaun O'Boyle: "While in Iceland I encountered dozens of photographers copying other photographs made at the same location, most of which happened to be at the bleeding edge of a 1000-foot drop into the sea or gorge. The model usually looked terrified, but somehow overcame common sense to stand on the brink to get the instashot. It gave me the cold sweats just watching this risky photo making."

Comments

[Jack Stivers]

I'm betting the hat-wearing folks in the foreground got better images than the folks behind them. Maybe they should have taken turns standing in front. 8-)

Ansel's image is hard to top.

[Michael Perini]

Hats & Half Dome
I have found that I was more opinionated when I was younger.
The more I learned, the more I realized there is more room in the tent of good Photography than I once believed.
Just when you are sure something is a cliche' someone comes along and makes it new.
I like that, --it keeps me humble and makes me think twice before I reject something out of hand.
I think this growth also comes from the realization that the only person it is important to please is yourself. And as you say above it helps to make it your own. If lots of others see tour work as good, that's a bonus.
In Paid work there are two people who must be pleased, --the client and you. I don't believe that you can succeed by only pleasing the client. For long term success you have to find a way to produce work that the client likes and that you are proud of.

So when I view the work of others, I no longer think in terms of good or bad, but rather it speaks to me, or it doesn't. It's what I call 'Dive in, or Move on"
I never get hung up on stuff I don't like, I just move on and look for work that invites me to 'Dive in'
My only rule is to keep making pictures, and print some of them.

[Gordon Lewis]

Although most of your readers know me as a street photographer, one of my favorite motifs is a classic: portraiture. Every portrait is essentially the same (i.e., a headshot) and there are only so many ways you can pose someone. The variety comes in who you photograph, where, how they are dressed, lighting, expression, etc. Anyone who thinks producing a great portrait is easy or rote should try it sometime.

[cdembrey]

Mike said: ...digital "makes everybody's pictures look the same"

If I use a Zone Sieve, mounted in a Copal 0 shutter, with my 4x5 Toyo film camera, then it would take a lot of futzing in PShop to duplicate the look with a digital camera. If I used a Zone Sieve with my Canon 40D instead, it would take a lot of futzing 8-) Creativity lies between the shooters ears, not in a cookie-cutter-camera that they have mastered.

BTW How do you convey ...personal meaning for you with a still. Maybe it would be easier using voice-over in a slide-show video.

[toto]

Haha, @insta_repeat made me laugh. I, too, have seen many similar-looking photos on Instagram. However, even if two people on the same trip take (practically) the same photo side by side with the same camera/lens settings, I'm sure each one of them experiences the moment differently.

[lyle allan]

Quote by Chuck Close

From "Fixing the Shadows", BBC series on the History of Photography aired on Ovation TV, December 2007.

Here's the dilemma and the strength of photography: It's the easiest medium in which to be competent, but it's the hardest medium in which to have a personal vision that is readily identifiable. There is no physicality to a photograph.There is nothing there, some silver that got tarnished in the development process or some dyes in a color print. There is no physicality. There is nothing you can point to and say this is the work of this artist's hand. So, how do you make a photograph that everybody immediately knows is the work of a particular artist? Well, that is a very difficult and complicated thing to come up with. And when someone really ends up nailing down a particular kind of vision to such an extent that they really own that vision you know they have really done something.

[Moose]

Lovely post!

[Bill Mitchell]

The two most important innovations of the digital age:
1) PHD (Press Here Dummy),
and
2) DELETE.

The best use of #2 should be at least 1000X that of #1.

[Brian Stewart]

How many photographers does it take to change a lightbulb? 50! One to change the bulb and 49 to say "nah .... I could have done that!" (and many variations on that gag). Looks like the other 49 went out and found their own lightbulb. On a more serious note, the problem I have with @insta_repeat's compilations is that there's no way of knowing which images were simply imitations and which were just people taking the obvious shot for their own pleasure. No harm in the latter. It's hard not to be tempted to do the former sometimes. One suspects that on Instagram there's a lot more imitation than people are prepared to admit to. But then uniqueness is hard to achieve and transitory at best - in both style and content.

[bruce alan greene]

Guilty as charged!

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10154532788916062&l=e2751ac5e8

[Bryce Lee]

I could say with the 12 photos of heads with hats that the title could be
"Heads Up"

[Moose]

May composition transcend motif, even, perhaps, cliché?

[Michael Perini]

I agree that increasing perfection is homogenizing
Social Media is also homogenizing, it is a place of trends, and fashion and indeed imitation.
Our feedback loop has been vastly shortened, we also See, far more stuff.
Look at how many Photographers who gained their reputation by doing good work, now make the bulk of their living through blogs & seminars.
Look at how many signature lighting gizmos there are.
Everyone sees every variation of everything instantly.
All this is neither good or bad, it just IS.
Like comparing great athletes from the 1950's to those playing today, in those conversations we usually get to "You can't really compare, because it is a different game now"
We seem to be applying the metrics and judgements we grew up with to a photographic landscape that has changed Technologically and socially. Photography used to be an event, now it has also become an extension of language practiced every day by nearly everyone.
Some things remain, most are different and the pace of change is accelerating.
The result is some dislocation for those of us who learned to understand photography before digital creation and display was a thing.

I wish I had a smart and pithy conclusion but I don't. As far as I can tell I'm not alone.
But we all have our take on what it means for us personally, and sometimes, that has to be enough.

[George Davis]

vemödalen: This post reminded me of your post 07/06/2016 http://theonlinephotographer.typepad.com/the_online_photographer/2016/07/the-dictionary-of-obscure-sorrows.html, which sent me to The Dictionary. Which has a link to a 2014 video on a similar theme. Just thought it might be relevant.

[Stan B.]

The medium is, in fact, homogeneous- so concentrate on the content. To get something "unique" of the same tried and tired subject, particularly a tourist hot spot, one can: choose a different light or weather, incorporate the tourists themselves, or even turn the camera 180. So many times I can't believe how no one has noticed photographic possibilities right on the periphery of where everyone has their camera pointed.

[MikeR]

Re Mark Power's comment and your reply, I have an alternate guess:

When I shot film, especially in the days before I learned how to work in a darkroom, I was always conscious of a) the cost of the film, and b) the cost of developing and getting prints (from the drugstore, of course). So, I was a bit parsimonious with how often I tripped the shutter. A roll might stay in the camera for months. Perhaps it was that back-of-the-mind thought that, "this will cost something" that motivated me, and perhaps thousands of other snap-shot-ers to be somewhat careful with subject and composition, and to only take pictures of something worthwhile?

[Tim Auger]

'Character' to some is technical imperfection to others. The obsession with sharpness and resolution on the Internet (in forums and in technical test sites) has skewed our priorities. If you look at old copies of National Geographic, the photographs were not necessarily particularly sharp or free of grain, but they had content. I went to a presentation on Friday of some competition-winning photographs here in Singapore. Among the winners (I'm pleased to say) were some powerful social-commentary images of India that would have been slaughtered for technical reasons on most forums ...

All that said, I have been spending some time going through hundreds of 35mm slides taken in the 60s and 70s. To be candid, most of them were pretty dreary content-wise, and not that great technically. So lets not get too sentimental about the past.

[Moose]

Stan B took some words out of my mouth. Faced with a far less dramatic clearing storm than St Ansel, I turned around, walked up a few steps,and found this.

Not as fabulous as Clearing Winter Storm, neither subject nor photographer in that league, but I'll bet the ratio of forward shots to this rearward one is in the realm of billions to one. \;~)>

[Wolfgang Küchle]

I'd like to point you to the work of Harald Mante who is well known in Germany for embracing the idea to create such collections of photos with the same motif in different variations.
http://www.harald-mante.de/

Best regards
Wolfgang

[Kenneth Tanaka]

Photography has been richly laden with mimicry and outright rip-offs almost since its invention in the 19th century. What’s new is the ability to easily gather so many examples so quickly. Several years ago Michal Raz-Russo, a good friend and museum curator, mined an enormous collection of anonymous photos spanning the 19th and mid 20th centuries to create a wonderful show and catalog titled The Three Graces. It presented a very vivid example of how photography has been used to represent oneself to the world, long before social media. And just how much mimicry has been common for so long.

Separately, anyone remember the fellow who composited hundreds of snaps of the Eiffel Tower (and The Great Pyramids) some years ago? They just looked like single blurry images

[Doug. Thacker]

I think what we"re seeing on instagram, its proliferation of seameness, is conformity in action. The compulsion to conform is a powerful one, especially where it meets no resistence.

The similar look of digital pictures in general is probably down to the ubiquity of Adobe software, but when it comes to the remarkable rarity of aesthetic value among the billions of images produced, I think you're definitely onto something with Benjamin's bearpaw casting thing. Digital imaging is predicated on a pragmatic idea: add enough pixels and the simulation bcomes indistinguishable from the real. But as we now see, there is a lot more to reality than bits and bites and pixels, and no amount of them can change this.

[Mark Sampson]

See Geoff Dyer's fine book "The Ongoing Moment".

[michael Mejia]

Mimicry is not creative. A picture of a person is not portrait. A selfie leaps past waiting around to be selected by a photographer.

While digital capture is so immediate to so many, it is not the source of the blandness. It is because they are not produced by photographers; just people with cameras, a very different beast.

The ubiquitous insta-imaging depends upon some limited exposure to an icon of a subject-type. It relies upon a safe definition within a pubic narrative but lacks the commitment to really developing the capture moment. That is why they can seem so empty and monotonous.

Mimicry is exhaustive. It is the repeated exposure to dross that undermines an understanding of insightful and skilled capture.