This was hard! Crafting a mood board that encapsulates my style is tough because it's now almost 10pm and I've been scouring the internet trying to find the exact photos that fit my vibe and turns out, it's tough to find exactly what you have in your head out there in the world. Encouraging in a way, because that means it still needs to be created and isn't toooo mainstream. I added some people who inspire me and broke the rules by putting two from the same artist (sorry), but they feel different.
I feel like my style and what I gravitate towards has changed every so often, and I'm curious if that's just part of growing up and growing into yourself as an artist—or if my style will continue to evolve in cycles and look different decade to decade. Right now, I'm draw to two ends of the spectrum: the messy, chaos of collage and vintage product designs and flash with slow shutter; and on the other hand, clean lines and minimalism of monochrome and hard light. Especially in photography, I feel like I've finally broken out of my photojournalism training to decide what I like aesthetically—and make it happen in the frame.
The three pieces I'll pinpoint are Ramisha Sattar's collage pieces for their irreverent refusal to be clean and buttoned-up—plus her use of motion graphics, which I'd like to learn more about—Michael Angelo Covino and Kyle Martin's film Splitsville for the seemingly real, raw screenplay and the muted, almost nostalgic color grading (I do know they shot on film which is part of this, and they said they chose to do that to make it seem like real life...we don't see the world in 4K; instead, it's kinda blurry and we can't focus on everything at once and then memory plays a part of making things more fuzzy and lalalala TLDR; they shot the feature on film), and finally, I guess I'll go with Nash Howe's running photo. It doesn't quite capture what I'm going for with the harsh flash and motion blur, but it's close.
After years of following a formula, it feels empowering to know what I like; how things *should* be to me. ...But it's also a burden. Chatting with a fellow ex-photojournalism grad this week, she lamented about feeling compelled to entirely re-decorate her Christmas tree because the bows, added after everything else, weren't spaced *exactly* right. Was it a smart use of time? No. Did she feel insane taking an hour out of her busy pre-holiday work week to sit on the floor and fully undress her tree, mathematically determining the placement of each ornament? Yeah. But it had to be done *right* or nothing else would get done. And I get that. We're currently deep in negotiations about a gallery wall for our living room...what should go up, what frames to thrift, what art to paint. I've been putting off the conversation for six months because I simply can't see a way our disparate styles will mesh. Send thoughts and prayers for our still-blank living room wall.
