Eschew Cliché

The urge to make clichés stems from a desire to make pictures that look like everybody else's pictures. Why would anybody want to do this? Personally I think it's because it relieves us from having to rely only on our own judgment when evaluating what we've done. Photographers, far more than other kinds of artists, are perpetually insecure about whether what they've done is going to be accepted as good. I also think photographers like clichés because, at an early stage of our development, it's a way of demonstrating competence and accomplishment. You can tell you're in this stage because the phrases "that looks like a professional took it!" and "it looks like a postcard!" are construed as compliments, and make us swell up with pride. (Later, of course, those kinds of comments become insults.)

So what's a photographic cliché? As with pornography, you're supposed to know it when you see it. I suppose we might define it as "conventional subjects shown in a conventional way." That this leaves each of us to define "conventional" for ourselves is probably a good thing.

Conventions, of course, change. In the style known as "pictorialism"—largely defined through the journal Camera Work by Alfred Stieglitz, who later grew bored by it—it was conventional, for some reason I never understood, to include a large glass globe in many pictures (guild secret? Masonic talisman? Esoteric symbology? Beats me). During the Eisenhower years, it was conventional that pictures be robust, cheerful, forward-looking, even heroic (which fortunately didn't hamper the ebullient Eisie, one of the great photographers of those days). Lately, convention can be found on tony art-gallery walls, where "photographers" no other photographers have heard of display fey, fatuous, flat, fuzzy, foreboding photos of nothing, interchangeably.

If you're smiling at that, don't get cocky. Amateurs are even worse. What informs the taste of amateurs who pursue clichés is their idea of the taste of others. Not the actual taste of others, mind you, but just the photographer's best attempts at second-guessing.

Be confident, baby
That's no way to live. As with many things, photography is often about self-confidence. The point is not so much to learn what other people like—that's ultimately a fool's errand—but to learn what you like. Only by identifying your own concerns and becoming comfortable with your own taste will you stand a chance of developing an organic style, or signature, or way of seeing, that is neither imitative ("designed to be like something else, but usually inferior to the original") or derivative.

Photo by Lee Friedlander

I think this is why rebellious and nonconformist teenagers often make the best photography students. They don't want to conform. They don't work to please.

We each are stuck with using our own taste as the foundation for what's good or bad, because the taste of others is so varied and unpredictable. If I found one person who loved one particular picture of yours and and gushed about it on and on, praising it to the skies, and another person who hated it and pronounced it worthless, what would that teach you? If you learn your own taste and cultivate self-confidence, you can be secure in the face of either reaction.

When you know with a quiet but solid confidence that you truly like one of your pictures and you're not shaken in the least when someone says, "What the hell is the point of that?" or "I hate that!," you're there.

Go for it. Dare to be different; be yourself. Eschew cliché.

-

A version of this post was first published in 2003! (Jeez. Time flies.) I found it when I was poking around in the archives for the previous post. In the meantime, I found this. It's a page from a 1937 issue of U.S. Camera. Pretty funny that it starts with the same mysterious glass globes I mentioned. Notice which of M.F. Agha's clichés are no longer popular or would be politically incorrect today.

Wikipedia says Dr. Mehemed Fehmy Agha was a "Russian-born Turkish designer, art director, and pioneer of modern American publishing" who was "instrumental in...delivering the full force of European avant garde experimentation to the pages of Vogue, Vanity Fair, and House & Garden, the Condé Nast publishing company's flagship magazines in the United States."

Mike

Book o' the Week

The Atlas of Beauty: Women of the World in 500 Portraits. "Since 2013 photographer Mihaela Noroc has traveled the world with her backpack and camera taking photos of everyday women to showcase the diversity of beauty all around us. The Atlas of Beauty is a collection of her photographs celebrating women from all corners of the world, revealing that beauty is everywhere, and that it comes in many different sizes and colors."

This is a link to Amazon from TOP. The following logo is also a link:

Original contents copyright 2020 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.

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

Roger Bradbury: "Typical subjects at the first camera club I joined, over 40 years ago: 1.) Windmills. 2.) Sunsets. 3.) Swans. 4.) Any combination of the above. So when I entered an almost abstract photo of a top corner of my bedroom, with two different coloured walls, the top of a coloured door and frame and a white triangle of ceiling, I was laughed at. I grew disillusioned with the club from that point. At least I'd tried something different. But I do remember it. Not that I'm still holding a grudge or anything....  :-)  "

Kenneth Tanaka: "I agree with your general suggestion to strive to make distinctive images. But I’d prefer to place emphasis on what to do, rather than to avoid clichés (which have a habit of changing over time anyway).

"Re 'The urge to make clichés stems from a desire to make pictures that look like everybody else's pictures.' No, I don’t agree. Or at least I don’t feel that the sentence accurately covers the observation. Photography is fundamentally a craft. Technology has automated most of its ickiest aspects, but it still requires learnin’. 'Making pictures that look like' pictures that you admire is a landmark in that process for many, perhaps most, people. So I’d encourage newbies to make many such pictures and study them, whether the person is 17 or 75. Once you’re able to intentionally make that trite image of the Grand Canyon, the Eiffel Tower, or the Brooklyn Bridge you’ve achieved competence with the gadget. Now for the fun part.

"Which leads to understanding why people make photos at all. Generally not for art. Not for recognition. And generally not for compensation. They make pictures to commemorate and, increasingly, to communicate. So as soon as someone mastered the basics or controlling their camera I would encourage them to concentrate of using it to communicate. Don’t be self-conscious about being cliché. Forget silly amateur photo 'composition' rules (that weren’t made for photography or art or the 20th or 21st centuries at all). Pay attention to what you’re putting in that frame, and where you’re putting it. Everything in the frame matters. Forget 'pretty.' Does it communicate what you want to say or depict? Does it record what you want to remember in, say, years to come? That’s the main purpose for using a camera for most of us.

"If some of your photos turn out to look very similar to many others you’ve seen…so what? As long as you created the image purposefully, who really gives a damn?"

Mike replies: I like your comments, as usual, and would only suggest that our differences hinge on one thing: you're considering "eschew cliché" as it represents a restriction, a limitation, a rule that one has to abide by; whereas, when I wrote that piece, I considered it might be a liberation, which might be freeing for some people. It's been my observation that people really do have a tendency to restrict their picture-taking to subjects that they've already seen as pictures by others.

Brian Cormack: "When I was in high school back in the 1990s, the school had a literary magazine that also included photography. My junior year I submitted a few pictures taken around town, including a few at the biggest tourist attraction here (called 'The Old Mill'). I joined the staff of the literary magazine my senior year and was surprised to see that the advisor adamantly refused to ever print any pictures of The Old Mill, since they received so many submissions of it every year. They even had a wall of photos in the office filled with all the pictures of the Mill that had been submitted over the years. I looked closely and found the one I had submitted the year before. I think about that every time I go out to that Mill to take pictures. It is a photogenic little spot, at least!"

Mike replies: That's great. The editor might have suggested an "Old Mill Issue," jam-packed with nothing but pictures of the Old Mill. Just as a joke. She could have included an open invitation to submit more pictures of the Old Mill for the next Old Mill Issue, which would be announced as being definitely scheduled for, say, a date 30 years in the future.  :-)

My predecessor at the magazine I edited hated pictures of kids, and refused to print pictures of children unless he couldn't help it.

Comments

[Bob Keefer]

I love Agha's list of bad photos. I've only ever shot most of them. The problem is, what's left to photograph? ;)

[Jon Maxim]

I am an amateur but I don't pursue the taste of others nor attempt to second guess them. I just come up with the same clichés all on my own.

[Joe Kashi]

This is a most worthhile post, particularly finding the serious but fun M.F. Agha credo. Your post has some timeless, yet for me timely, reminders as I am putting together this evening an exhibit for a local college gallery about authenticity of expression in art and photographs. cliches', imitation and derivation don't mix with authenticity very well. A worthy start for the "new TOP'.

In the same vein, I appreciated your recent highlight of the Bruce Barnbaum book, which I purchased through your link and found very worthwhile.

[Joseph Iannazzone]

The new schedule seems to suit you well. This is a great post compelling all of us to trust our own vision over our perception of the visions of others.

[David Aiken]

Thank you for this, even if the advice to "Dare to be different, Be yourself" presents me with a conundrum best illustrated by the difference in the ways in which Lee Friedlander did both in his shadow self portraits which he publicly shared on one hand, and the work of Vivian Maier who also did both as shown by her mirror self portraits which both she chose not to share.

I've often been told that I'm different but I still haven't learn how to be myself. It seems a lot easier to take Dr. Agha's advice in his Oath and learn how to know which photographs I should take "never again" which gives me permission to take them as many times as is necessary for me to learn the lesson :-)

[Peter Croft]

In my 50+ years of photography my style has been shaped by reading hundreds of picture books and magazines of all kinds but usually of high quality work. I'm not embarrassed to say that includes Nat Geo, although not recently. A friend said once that my work was like Nat Geo photos and I was very proud of that.

This has imprinted many, many images in my mind so that when I see scenes, many times I recall my stored images and the first photos I make will be cliches, imitations (in the flattery sense).

But then I recall the advice of someone to get the cliches out of the way first, then do your own thing. Ringing in my mind are the words, Isolate, simplify! Work out how I can find what really attracts me about the scene and concentrate on that.

And I avoid shooting what everyone else shoots. I'm not a snapper. Many times I don't even bother taking my camera out, and especially not my phone.

[John Slaytor]

I have photographed funerals for families since 2009. It’s liberating because with very few exceptions ( e.g. Koudelka’s Gypsy work) no other photographer has spent much time photographing them so I have no one to copy or compare myself to. Better still, the conditions are often appalling. Often terrible light and I am unable to position myself properly for fear of disturbing the proceedings. The difficult conditions force creativity.

[Mark Jennings]

Yeah, man.

In my own area of interest I see day after day that photographers are herd animals.

But probably every great photographer has been a sharp student of past and contemporary work by others.

And it takes time to develop originality, it being hard to loosen a bit the bonds of one’s period and place in history.

[Jerker Andersson]

Lately I´ve seen those glass globes for sale in ads on Instagram, marketed with saturated pictures of misty morning pastures turned upside down. Every photographer needs one sooner or later, it said. I haven´t needed one yet, but who knows? I might need one in the future. Speaking of clichés and IG, have you noticed the many distant rip-offs of HCB´s puddle jumper? With well shaped ladies in black & white. Kitschy AND cliche´!

[Ned Bunnell]

I will not take a picture that mimics another photographer’s work.

https://www.instagram.com/p/B_gKYjtnuy7/?utm_medium=copy_link

[That's really funny! And well done. I would have gotten the reference immediately even if you hadn't mentioned imitation. --Mike]

[Tom Hill]

You might find the recent book by Jason Fulford, Photo No-Nos: Meditations on What Not to Photograph, published by Aperture, an interesting expansion of the M.F. Agha "Oath." It's both tongue in cheek and serious at the same time. As the author says in the book:
"Rules can be useful, until they aren't. Things are subjective. There are no nos. You could even think of this as a challenging shot list."

https://aperture.org/books/photo-no-nos-meditations-on-what-not-to-photograph/

[robert e]

This is beautiful, profound and practical advice for artists and I'm with you 100%. But on the other hand, there are markets for clichés and opportunities for people who can produce them, and there's nothing wrong with earning a living or pocket change or getting your jollies that way.

Even for artists, as you say, clichés can be useful benchmarks for acquired skills or techniques (or even as confidence boosters). The flip side of that is that they can be useful challenges to creativity and originality. Or why not combine the two? Copy that cliché, and then break it.

[Bill Tyler]

At the end, Agha lazily avoids cliches by not photographing at all. I think the discussion a while back about the "tap on the shoulder" is relevant here. If you see something you want to show others, photograph it. Don't worry about showing how clever or technically proficient you are. Concentrate on how best to reveal the aspects of your subject that appeal to you.

[Moose]

Eggzactly!

(If you like your eggs larger, click on the photo.)

[Francisco Cubas]

Dear Mike, with all due respect, for me The Atlas of Beauty (judging from the samples) is a big cliché, very appropriate for this post.

[Speed]

A Google search on "Dare to be different" (in quotes) returns, according to the Google counter, about 5,550,000 entries.

It's hard to be different.

[Timothy Auger]

'I will never again photograph plaster casts of Greek statues ...' :

Damn. I just did that. This afternoon. In the Victoria & Albert Museum.

But then - disregarding rules regarding clichés is a form of cliché avoidance. So that's all right then.

(Good post on clichés generally, even if it was written a few years ago.)

[Kefyn Moss]

I don't know what rock I've been under but I haven't ever come across that Lee Friedlander photo, which is great. It's just the thing I would take myself but now I can't because he already did.

[William Lewis]

It has taken me a long time to find my personal taste and style. Lots of bad copies of Ansel Adams in my past. Some that aren't horrible. Some you could even call pastiche.

But eventually with lots of images and looking at what I call the usual suspects my own sense of style as a landscape photographer has emerged. I don't really know how much anyone likes it (I get a smattering of likes at various places I upload) I hope that others do enjoy it but it's more important for me that I enjoy it.

I now have a bit of a portfolio at my link and I enjoy when people take a look at it.

[Steve Jones]

If what you like is cliché or derivative, I reckon you’re in a bit of a pickle (I speak firsthand on this predicament, but I try not to get too sour). And then we must consider the trillions of photos taken every millisecond of the day across the ‘globe’; that list by Agha would be exceptionally long these days.

[Dan]

When you are young, photos of crusty old geezers tell the story of the wisdom of age. When you get to geezer age yourself they just tell the story of a man with terrible hygiene.

[Dave_lumb]

Kenneth Tanaka: "Pay attention to what you’re putting in that frame, and where you’re putting it. Everything in the frame matters. Forget 'pretty.' Does it communicate what you want to say or depict? Does it record what you want to remember in, say, years to come? That’s the main purpose for using a camera for most of us."

That's the quote of the week for me. :-)

[Timothy Auger]

I’ve given up trying to find my own ‘style’. The best thing is just to get on with it.

[Speed]

Kenneth Tanaka wrote in part, So as soon as someone mastered the basics or controlling their camera I would encourage them to concentrate of using it to communicate.

Which takes us back to a TOP post from a few months ago asking why the iPhone camera is so successful ... we use it to make a picture and communicate it to one and all. That is a feature included with all successful "phones" today and without which they would be far less successful.

[robert e]

It's not for me to advise anyone to eschew cliché, but please eschew showing it to me.

[Mike Chisholm]

I know this is a lost cause, but can I just point out that "cliché" is a noun, and not an adjective?

Pointless, really.

Mike

[Rob de Loe]

The perfect next click after this article is the Instarepeat account: https://www.instagram.com/insta_repeat/

[Peter Klein]

Virtually everything has been photographed so much in so many ways. No matter what we do, we will find thousands of photographs similar to the one we just took. It reminds me of what a 20th-century composer (William Schuman, I believe) once said to justify atonal music—something to the effect that all the good tunes had already been taken. We all are heirs to a hyper-accelerated culture where once a technique has been used a few times, it becomes a cliché. I think the best solution is to photograph what interests and moves you, in ways that interest and move you. And if what you care most about is being cool and avant-garde, maybe you’re missing the point.

[darlene]

It all depends upon what audience you are shooting for. As a commercial shooter I found the general public wants the cliché stuff and some expect it, and if you don't deliver, well you risk not getting paid. If you are shooting for your own idea of fine art, go for it. How many rock stars do you know? That is probably the number of fine art photographers that get rich for not shooting clichés.

[Mark Johansson]

Avoid photographing chewing gum: Eschew Chicle

[Al DaValle]

I am so very tired of people trashing the idea of making images of subjects that are "cliche". First of all...have fun making a life of photography shooting only subjects that can't be considered a cliche. But that is beside the point. The real issue with this approach to critiquing work is that such admonitions freeze the new, aspiring photographer striving to be creative. It places fear-based self-doubt into their path of learning. It weighs heavy on the aspiring young creative mind. This criticism is elitism and is judgemental. It may make the person offering the critique feel powerful and superior but does nothing for the one being offered help. In fact, I claim hounding on the "cliche" as criticism is, in itself, a cliche. Nothing is easier when teaching than to throw that word around as if you are imparting some great inside. As teachers, we must for deeper and further in our analysis if we are to truly help our students.

Cliche subjects are cliches because they are interesting, fun, beautiful, meaningful, etc. I say...shoot the cliches....shoot them all and enjoy the process and learn all you can in doing so. But....and this is a BIG "BUT" and the key point......DO NOT STOP THERE!!!. Make the cliche the beginning of your creative process, not the end! Take it further. Consider the cliche the path, not the destination. Work the idea embodied in the cliche until it becomes unique to you. Make it, in some way (large or small) your own. You will succeed once you've morphed the cliche into something unique to yourself.....even if you're the only one who notices the unique difference you have added. After all, once you've made something truly for and of yourself, you have finally made art.

I believe, that when teaching those new to creative photography, this subtle shift in perspective regarding the cliche is empowering, freedom granting, and enabling. What else can one who strives to teach art do!?!?

[John Robison]

That fellow Agha forgot to add ‘a line of shopping carts’.
I fool around with (emphasis on fool) photography. No theme, style, direction or tool (although recently I favor paper negatives). Too technically illiterate to learn how to post a picture on the internet all and sundry are saved from my efforts.

[Rick Denney]

Yup. The requirement is to be innovative.

The same as everyone else.