What's your photography style?

[lmtengs]

We all have our own styles, or trademarks that seem to pop up in all our photos that we post on the forum. These little trademarks distinguish our photography from everyone else's.

For a few examples, Musical Moderating Mike has his infamous peekaboos, often over Snake Island, and his photo amalgamations of two vessels, like the Coastal Spirit with a C-class a few days ago.

The people who see your photos are essentially seeing the World through the photographer's eyes, so then do the little trademarks in one's photography help define their personality? I'd like to hear some conversation about that.

Discuss what you think your trademarks are, and what they mean in your photos, both to you and the the people on the viewing end.

For my own style, I find that I really enjoy looking for new angles and unique views of things, and going where nobody's gone before to get that one special shot, even if it means spending twenty minutes clambering around on slippery rocks along the seashore to get the picture I want. I like to take things to the next level, take risks, and go out of my way to finish my job.

I also like to finish what I start. Instead of just posting one photo to say 'Viking was here', I'll post a whole story of photos, from embarkation to disembarkation, reciting how things came and went, what happened and when, and all that jazz.


So, I'm really interested in how this will roll out... please discuss.

[Low Light Mike]

Like Luke-Viking says, I do enjoy photographing 2 ships passing. I like the lead-up, the almost-touching moment, and the unique layered view when the 2 ships are lined-up in the space normally taken by one ship.

I find those moments interesting, and so I like to find opportunities to photograph ships passing by each other.

I also like the hiding-emerging moments when a hidden ship comes into view and vice-versa. Yes, the view of a whole-ship is nice, but we have lots of those, and so I like to try to capture something fleeting, such as that moment when the ship is partially hidden.

Part of my reasons for enjoying these types of scenic-gimmicks is that I have just a simple point-and-shoot camera. So for me to get a memorable photograph (in the context of what is seen on this forum), I need to capture an "event" and then hope that the photo-quality does the event justice.

So I enjoy traveling to get unique photo opportunities, such as an Alaska ferry heading down Johnstone Strait or a freight/pax ship in Friendly Cove.

When it comes to an everyday view of a ferry, I can't compete with those who are better skilled and who have better equipment. Not that it's a competition always (well sometimes, haha), but because of the equipment and commitment-to-learning levels that I've chosen, I need to find a niche, as noted above.

Getting back to the reason why I like ship photography. I like to see unique things, and I really like to share what I've seen. So if it were just for my own eyes, it wouldn't be as fun as it is to share it on this forum.

[deepsea]

I'm always getting the ship's life rings. Most ships in the fleet are the same, Spauldings, Coastals, Spirits, etc. So, I like getting the rings, because it has the ship's name on it.

[Low Light Mike]

An example of my styles: