Compose styles
Rather than blending styles toward a middle, this gives them roles. The first one carries the structure, the next comes in as the accent, and anything after that shows up in a single detail. Where they fight each other, it says so before you start.
How to divide the work
- Composition
- Follow New Color Photography: Tilt off horizontal and push the subject toward an edge
- Type
- Set in New Color Photography's manner (Captions carry only place and year, never explanation), and let Snapshot Aesthetic's lettering (No type, or at most a scrawl on the back of a print) appear only where you want the eye to catch.
- Material
- Ground in New Color Photography's material (Let one red run dense while the rest stays faded); bring in exactly one thing from Snapshot Aesthetic (Direct flash with its hard shadow, color left uncorrected).
- Colour
- Build on #ded4c2, #b31217, #1c1210 and admit one accent from #e3eee6, #979b71, #16120e.
Where they fight
- New Color Photography and Snapshot Aesthetic stand roughly 88 years apart. Keep one of them recognisably period rather than letting both drift into the middle.
Caution
- New Color Photography Raising saturation gets mistaken for the style, so the choice of subject goes unexamined and the pictures end up loud but with no reason to look.
- Snapshot Aesthetic The harder amateurism is staged, the more it shows, and the absence of real time spent with the subject becomes the only thing visible.
Image prompt
Produce four original images that take their structure from New Color Photography (style, 1976–) and their accent from Snapshot Aesthetic (style, 1888– / 1960s art adoption). ## What to make Make the kind of thing New Color Photography exists for: advertising that shows ordinary goods and storefronts through color rather than staging, or photobooks on suburbs and small cities where the banal is the subject. Choose one subject and hold it across all four. ## Structure comes from New Color Photography - Nameless everyday scenes - Dye-transfer saturation - Casual oblique composition - The intensity of red Composition: Tilt off horizontal and push the subject toward an edge. Type and lettering: Captions carry only place and year, never explanation. ## Accent comes from Snapshot Aesthetic, used sparingly - Tilted framing - Subjects cut by the frame - Direct flash - Album intimacy Let one material quality come from it: Direct flash with its hard shadow, color left uncorrected. ## Colour and feeling Build the ground on #ded4c2, carry the structure in #b31217 and #1c1210, and let a single accent come from #979b71. These are read off real works, so a direction rather than a fixed palette. Feeling to carry: intimacy, calm, rebellion, nostalgia. ## Where they fight - New Color Photography and Snapshot Aesthetic stand roughly 88 years apart. Keep one of them recognisably period rather than letting both drift into the middle. ## What goes wrong - New Color Photography: Raising saturation gets mistaken for the style, so the choice of subject goes unexamined and the pictures end up loud but with no reason to look. - Snapshot Aesthetic: The harder amateurism is staged, the more it shows, and the absence of real time spent with the subject becomes the only thing visible. ## Across the four Keep the roles fixed in all four. Vary the framing, the scale and the arrangement so the set shows what this pairing can do rather than four versions of one picture. ## Constraints - Do not imitate, reference or name any specific artist, studio, brand, character or copyrighted work. - Do not reproduce the composition of an existing work. - Produce original compositions in the general period languages described above.
Related entries
- New Color Photography 1976– / Style / Photography Movements
The art photography of the everyday in color, legitimized by Eggleston's MoMA show. Dye-transfer density gave banal scenes gravity and overturned the rule that color was vulgar.
- Snapshot Aesthetic 1888– / 1960s art adoption / Style / Photographic Genres
An aesthetic that takes the failures of amateur photography since Kodak, the tilted horizon, the head cut off at the edge, the flatness of the flash, and claims them on purpose. The intimacy of the family album became a grammar for art photography from Winogrand to Goldin.
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