I wasn't referring to the top end photographers or how good they were. Rather I was wondering whether the average male photographer's photos are different than the female's and in what way? Is that because of nature or nurture?
The problem is, the huge majority of photography one sees is meaningless in the sense not of message but of content.
I don't think I subcribe very much to the concept of message in pictures - other than political cartoons or traffic signs, and warnings about quicksands and snakes.
Photography has two principal functions, to my mind: it can be used to sell something; it can be used to decorate somewhere.
As self-expression, if you remove it from the commercial side - and some commercial genres are entirely about the photographer's ability to express himself - then what do the majority of pix you see on the Internet have to tell you about their makers? Nothing, other than many fall into traps of manipulation, where that becomes the raison d'être of the entire output. Remember Cokin? Everybody who knew about them bought at least one and ruined many an otherwise good landscape. I ruined a pile of Lindos, Rhodes pictures using a friggin' tabac filter. Just as I once did some T&T ones using a polarizing filter. But it becomes a part of the learning process: simple is almost always best. Just as with lighting.
So that's where the problem lies with me vis-à-vis amateur images: what's their point? If the answer to that is that it is the photographer trying to teach himself something, then great, to him it has meaning and even possibly reward, but to others, usually nothing.
That written, please do not conflate it with the idea that some amateurs are not excellent photographers, because nothing could be further from the truth. Being a pro does not mean you are
always the better photographer; yes, you may have gathered expertise in some areas, but even there, many others are invariably far better at it in your chosen genre.
Male or female? I have two favourite female photographers: Sarah Moon and Deborah Turbeville. I wouldn't say either are great technicians in the sense that you go wow! in seeing their skill in lighting etc. but for me, the charge is entirely in the feeling of the images and the femininity and mood they create out of whatever is there in front of them. Even the models they choose and they way they use them is so different to how the average male would use them - he would probably not even pick those girls in the first place. And almost certainly not get the same expressions on their faces. The proof of that pudding is that I can sit and look at their images for hours - and do - and never become bored.
Of the males, I guess it's Hans Feurer for his long lens ability to isolate and create a tiny world of beauty with just a face, a blur, some fabric and the set of amazing stylists it's been his luck to have known over the years. Try to do what he does without those bits of absolutely eclectic cloths and colours and you find that you can't. Then there's Peter Lindbergh. I don't know where the hell I am with that guy. I have his huge tome on "a different vision on fashion photography" and it both fascinates as disappoints me. So much blackness, so much gloom! BUT! look at the "making of" videos, and another Peter comes to life. Perhaps his medium is not really paper but film. Whilst the book now stays mainly on the shelf, the videos never bore me. Perhaps the videos bring back my own memories of working towards a picture, those wonderfully emotional few minutes where you
know there is an outcome but not yet how to get to it. In so many real ways photography, with a model, is like a kind of brief love affair, which is why I can't stress enough how vital it is that the photographer be allowed to choose the short-list of girls for shoots. How can you create beauty from someone who leaves you cold - or worse? You still need that psychological turn-on. Otherwise, pass.
So how are the two genders different in photographic terms? The bottom line seems to be that female photographers share emotions with models as they strive towards their picture, whereas male photographers can't do that: they try to have the girl express what the photographer thinks of as his ideal kind of woman. Rather than play naturally in the same playground as the model, he has to invent a game for her to play in his.
The differences are entirely based on gender.
I don't see a male shooting 'em quite this way (attached pic by Deborah Turbeville.)
Rob
