One of my biggest failings as a photographer is that I don’t have a distinguishable style. I have a common nominator in many of my images, for example in my flower images I try to shoot the flower with extremely blurred background so that the only recognisable element is just the flower. But that is a technique, and although using a specific technique often creates the style, I don’t think that the technique should be something you can express in numbers – in my case, focal length, distance to subject, and aperture.But in any case, this is the kind of photography I like. I can’t help it if I like those pictures where I have technically succeeded in eliminating all other elements but the subject itself. Even in landscape photography, I welcome any chance to keep it simple but I just can’t seem to find the right balance.

A good example is this winter image I took in March. I was snowshoeing above the treeline in the mountains, it was all sunshine and blue skies and the moon in the sky. Now, every photographer knows that plain blue sky is boring, so it was a challenge to shoot the landscapes with sky in the frame and keep it interesting. I opted to try with the starburst effect with the sun (quite nice, but a lot of flare) and then I tried to use the moon. The problem was, the moon was quite high in the sky so in order to get the mountain and the moon in the frame, I needed to use short focal lengths. I was aware that the moon would end up quite small in the frame, but since those nice fluffy clouds just didn’t materialise, it’s all I had to work with. I got one image I was really pleased with. I was somewhat deflated to find out that other people confirmed what I had initially suspected but somehow ignored – the moon is too small in the sky, it doesn’t hold the interest required to pull off the vast expanse of sky, there are too many elements to make this a minimalistic composition that works but not enough elements to make this a good standard landscape. I’m not complaining that other people don’t ”get” the image – the critique is fair. My problem is, I still like the image. Regardless of the failings, it’s still probably my favourite image from the whole winter.

Now, the big question is, who am I shooting for? For myself, or am I just trying to please everyone else? Well, I would like to take an image that pleases me and a lot of other people as well. I would like to take an image that is me, is technically solid, and that other people like. But the image I like the most is technically bad, photographers will see the technical mistake and non-photographers won’t like the image because of the technical mistake even if they can’t articulate what the mistake is.

I’ve also been advised to stick to my guns and keep taking pictures I like, the style will develop itself in the end. But where does that leave me? It leaves me with technically poor pictures with nothing else to save them. It leaves me with a ”style” which amounts to nothing more than technical inferiority. How’s that for a cheering thought for the day.