Getting Categorized, or How I Ended up A Goth Photographer

June 23, 2009

in Featured, Instruction

At Saturday’s Fine Art workshop at the studio, my partner Fine Art Photographer Bob Warren introduced me as a “Goth, Pinup and Body Art Photographer”.

It got me to thinking. What kind of photographer am I, and why do people keep saying I’m a goth photographer?

There Are Two Ways To Categorize A Photographer

By The Subject’s They Shoot You can look at a photographer and see he mostly shoots scantily clad, big breasted, tan women with warm light and say they are a glamour photographer.

Or maybe he shoots a lot of pale skinned women, who wear black and have tattoos. Then he’s a Goth photographer.

By Their Style Style is a slippery term, but you can say someone is artistic or edgy or sexy or disturbing.

When Bob called me Goth, he was using way #1.

But when I think of myself, I think in terms of #2. So that is why it feels a little annoying to be called Goth. To me I’d be a Goth photographer if I was Goth. I’m not.

So What Kind of Photographer Are You

Strangely for me after thinking about this I realized I’m an art photographer. I always kind of thought of myself as a glamour shooter, but I rarely shoot what I’d call classic glamour. What I like to shoot is unusual and meaningful things that make a narrative statement. That sounds like art to me.

Do you define yourself using #1 or #2?

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