Differing image tastes from country to country?

[jools230575]

Evening (or morning depending on your timezone) all

I'm curious as to how people think image taste differs from country to country. Do folks from one place prefer to see an image presented one way? So for example, folks in country X prefer more moody skies etc?

Here's something I did last year. It won a competition in a UK mag and I've found that folks in France like it to? And another image I did this year that seemed to have quite divided opinion in France.

How about over there in the US of A or other countries?

[bill t.]

My best attempts to attach specific tastes to various nations have always evaporated in the presence of prominent exceptions.  You might have better luck with age or social strata.  Give me a nation-based aesthetic, and I will instantly Google an exception.

And my sense that Europeans have better taste than Americans has been a shambles ever since ABBA and Benny Hill. 

But nice shots anyway, not hard for anybody anywhere to like those!

[tom b]

I was talking to a photographer in Geraldton, north of Perth in Western Australia. The conversation came around to which images sold best. He had a British background and said he preferred atmospheric skies. His best sellers however were blue skies, white sand and blue oceans. This is fully understandable because people visit the coast for warm weather, pristine beaches and clear water.

The last year we have had La Niña conditions and I have managed to get some good cloudy skies. It has also brought cyclones and flooding rains. Prior to that we have had El Niño conditions which brought us nine years of drought and clear blue skies. Climate and landscape have a big influence on what images you can take.

A lot of my images have clear blue skies, you can't take images of clouds that aren't there. My preference is to be able to see the colour palette of a country. Australia and New Zealand are separated by a three hour fight more or less. The scenery and colours of the landscapes are so different. Unfortunately there are those who have to include sunrises and sunsets in all their images so that the shot could well be from Scotland or Utah.

As for somewhere like Australia I'm sure local conditions predominate preferences. At this moment there are people skin diving on the Great Barrier Reef whilst others are snow skiing in Threadbo.

Cheers and congratulations on the mag competition win.

[jools230575]

Interesting to read people's thoughts on this. I know from a commercial point of view that sometimes a blue sky will win out if it's for some kind of tourist brochure. But for me, blue skies are just boring.

As a kid, I used to love drawing. As well, in my parents dining room there was a picture of Constable's The Haywain. I used to look at it for ages and even mistakenly thought, in my child's mind, that it was of Harnham's Old Mill near Salisbury. And what do you see in that picture? Moody skies!!!

Coming from Salisbury and having access to the Water Meadows that Constable used to paint from, it was kind of hard to ignore them. I used to spend many mornings there before going off to the office. My first image sale was of those meadows. Salisbury Cathedral, water meadows and sheep. Ideal material for a modern artist.