Signature

Signature

What’s your signature, photographically? What might other members of Ephotozine look at and decide is always characteristic of your images?

Thinking about my own shots, there are some themes: heavy grain, maybe, and unusual lens effects, including minimal depth of field. Use of one or two specific Nik Filters, certainly. Sometimes, really unbalanced compositions, with more negative space than NASA knows about. And, on a good day, possibly a certain rapport with my models, whether they are paid or otherwise. You may want to add something, especially if you’re one of the people who have appended ‘I knew this was one of yours at once’ in a comments box.

People who have submitted panels of pictures to the RPS may have had formal advice about how to maintain a consistent style in their images: as I’ve never done that, I’d welcome contributions from anyone who has. Similarly, anyone who has published a book and has had to worry about the way that images fit together in a sequence is very welcome to add their three ha’porth.



Charlie Waite’s landscapes are – largely, but not exclusively – characterised by their square format, and I wonder if that’s because he shot with a Hasselblad, or whether he chose a ‘Blad because the format was right for the images he wanted to make.

Platon, who I wrote about a little while ago, has a consistent and limited technical approach, though it does give a characteristic look to images. He always shoots on film, and scans it with a NASA scanner from the Eighties, which he says gives a unique look. His images are carefully and fully processed to bring out lovely tonal detail, which is definitely a bit hyped-up compared with any darkroom print. The defining characteristic of his pictures is the rapport with his sitters, though: clear contact, even if it is also wary and cold, as in his images of Putin and Trump.

If you want, please tell me what you see as defining my images: but it will be far more interesting if you can set out what you feel identifies an image as yours…


The model in the portrait shot is Amethyst.