Finding my own style

If there is one thing to say about me, then there is this thing: I don’t know myself enough to stick to a thing I like. For instance, the language. I like writing in english, but keep changing the language on my blog from german to english and around. I always think to much, what you have to do, what you should do. I rarely think about what I want to do. That is a key problem on my way to finding my style.

Starting off with the language. I started my blog with filmreviews, kept it in german because I wanted to appeal to a lot of viewers in Germany and because it is my native language. I know it, I like it. But even if I am not as good in writing in english, I never been longer than a week in an english speaking country, I just like writing in english. It’s a more free experience. That is why I changed the film reviews even to english ones. With changing to the photography focus on my  blog I thought again about the consequences of having one language to write in. I wrote in german again.

I flipflop. A lot. I just don’t know what to do. I want to have my own style and just don’t do what I want, regardless if others do the same or not. Even if there are a lot of photographers or bloggers aroung who write in english or german, there are always the ones who are successful with it or not. And in the end, it is not the language which succeeds, it’s the person and the product you can produce (am I right?).

Focusing on this aspect of my path to getting more myself I think I have to keep it up and do this for a lot of other areas in my life. For a moment I just have to shut up the rest of the world and just listen to myself for once.

Snapchat, Fotografie und das soziale Netzwerk

Nachdem ich den Artikel von Katja Kemnitz auf Kwerfeldein gelesen habe, dachte ich mir, dass ich auch meine kleinen Gedanken über Snapchat aufschreiben könnte. Ob das nun so wichtig ist, sei mal dahingestellt.

Seit dem Artikel habe ich auch mehr gesnapped und habe mich wirklich gefragt, ob es tatsächlich etwas bringt. Abseits davon, dass mein Handy einfach manchmal zu langsam ist überhaupt „wichtige“ Momente schnell auf der Straße einfangen zu können bzw. Snapchat gerade der Akkusauger Nr. 1 ist, kann ich noch keinen großen Mehrwert finden.

Die Krux des Ganzen: Man muss auch Menschen kennen, die diese App tatsächlich benutzen. Am besten natürlich persönlich. Noch ziemlich am Rande des Fotografiekreises im Raum NRW/Köln kenne ich tatsächlich nur sehr wenige, die Snapchat überhaupt benutzen. Das soziale Netzwerk ist es gerade, was Snapchat für mich ausmacht. Man interessiert sich für das Leben des anderen und kann einen Einblick bekommen. Natürlich gibt es zahlreiche berühmte Persönlichkeiten, auch Fotografen, die Snapchat regelmäßig benutzen, doch will ich wirklich immer reiche Menschen sehen, die ständig auf Reisen gehen, ihren Kaffee trinken, am Strand chillen? Ok, die Hälfte meiner Bekannten ist tatsächlich auch so, von daher ist dieser Punkt vielleicht nicht so toll. Nimmt man jedoch Chase Jarvis z.B. – er snapped ziemlich viel und benutzt es auch sehr als soziale Plattform und sein Exposure noch mehr zu erweitern. Ich kann nur wenig damit anfangen. Mich interessiert es eher wie er seine Fotos macht, was für Behind the Scenes Sachen es gibt, die mich weiter bringen und nicht einen Snap, der mich dazu bringen soll auf irgendwelche Seiten zu gehen. Und da ist es wieder: Es kommt auf den Menschen an – und da ist es am besten, dass man diesen auch kennt. Es ist zwar vielleicht witzig Jared Leto auf irgendwelchen Reisen zu sehen, aber so viel bringt mir das nun auch nicht.

Das Gute, was ich an Snapchat sehe: Dass man seinen Alltag zeigen kann, wie man selbst möchte. Entweder in kleinen Ausschnitten oder mit tausend, nacheinander gefilmten kleinen Videos. Das kommt auf jeden persönlich an. Und als kreative Person kann man immer versuchen jeden Snap so kreativ zu gestalten wie es geht, somit auch im Alltag nach schönen Motiven zu suchen und sich selbst und der Welt (bzw. den Followern) zu zeigen, wie man die Welt sieht.

Alles in allem ist Snapchat immer noch spaßig. Ich werde es natürlich weiterhin benutzen. Das Drumherum muss nur mehr ausgebaut werden.

Dieser Beitrag wurde auch auf meiner Seite khitos.com veröffentlicht ~

How to overcome comparisons with other artists or just a rant

This is a rather personal post, I guess, so be warned.

I encountered several occasions where my photos were compared with photos of other photographers in my close circle. I am way behind those photographers, I know that. And this is somehow the problem. They are way more famous, way more popular with my friends and just have the leap forward I do not have. It takes time. I try to shoot more and more. I ask almost every friend if they want to take photos. I try to get better. Of course I get inspiration by other artists, films or just my own imagination. The latter seems so unimportant when it comes to similar photos to other photographers. In my case I always here something like „oh, you have a similar style to so and so„, „oh, I have seen that style before„. It just sucks. You feel as if you did nothing, just copy.

My problem with this seems that I still have to find my style and work on it step by step. With this I try out a lot of things and in small steps I explore for myself what I really like in a photo. I knew from way before my ambitious time in photography that I liked back-shots. And it seems that even that won’t be recognized when the more famous photographers do it. Then they again will say „oh, a back-shot, didn’t so and so done that?“ „you like them back-shots, huh? So and so, as well„. I effing know. I kind of just want to cry out like a little teenage girl „I liked it waaaay earlier than the other one did!“. But I have to accept that as an artist who wants to get better you have to be compared to others, who ARE better. It just seems so unfair that own ideas won’t be recognized. It just sucks.

Furthermore, the well known photographers are not the inventor of all things. Inspiration comes from all things. You can just like the same stuff. It can happen. It just won’t be seen as that, if those two are too close together. I sometimes still struggle with all of this and question myself if I really like what I do. That is the worst part and nobody should get into that stadium. When you are questioning everything you like, you kind of are beginning to stop what you do and dislike your work. Stopping, thats the worst you could do. You should just keep going on. The comparisons will still be there, I guess. You could enlarge the distance to other photographers, even with small things, like changing themes of your blog or how you present your photos to the public eye. I don’t have the solution on everyones personal case, but the most important thing, in my opinion, is to keep on going. I experienced this myself by stopping for a bit and drowning in self-misery. It may be not as harsh as it sounds like, but I think I am not the only one who has self-doubt to some certain extend.

Ohyeah, writing about it helps as well. I like to put my thoughts onto the screen or paper, so I can put that and this thought on the side and move on. It is also a great tip for other problems as well. Well, I don’t want to beginn sounding like a author of selfhelp books. The thing you (and I) have to keep in mind is, that the comparisons will not stop, the critique will not stop and it is not beneficial at all to get distracted by all of this when you have fun doing what your are doing. It reminds me of a quote I heard some time ago: „It’s easier to steer a moving ship, than a ship who stands still„. I like those quotes. They are optimistic, dreamy and often very true.