technique vs. style

I think people often confuse technique with style.

I am writing this blog to explain how I see the difference between the two.
Basically, technique is a “look”; whereas a style is a “shooting philosophy”.

I came of age in the “film world” not the “photo world”.

That's where I cut my teeth, paid my dues, learned my craft & created my visual language.

The “film world” functions differently from the “photo world”.
In a nutshell, here's how film works:

1) The director has a story she wants to tell.
2) The director then explain all she can about that story to the director-of-photography (DP):

the message
the nuances
the mood
the WHY
etc...

3) It is then the DP's job to figure out how to best film that idea.

The DP devises plans for lighting based on mood, film stock based on location, lenses based on point of view, color pallets based on the emotion.
He is plotting the BEST way to visually tell the directors “story” and bring it to life.

In other words, the DP has a multitude of techniques & “looks” to pull from that he has accumulated over the years.

Examples would be:

This lighting and lens choice brings out irony.
That type of light and camera angle creates romance.
So on and so forth for moods like sincerity, shock, authenticity, silliness, etc...

What I am trying to get at here, is that there is not one standard issue “look” that the DP has.
If he only had one “look”, he would not be of much use to directors—he would be one dimensional.
Instead, to be collaborateively useful, he has to develop a bunch of his own techniques & “looks” to story tell.

That is how I view myself as a still shooter.
I have a multitude of my own techniques & “looks” I select from to best tell the story.

Here's the ironic parallel between film & photo.

In the photo world the art_director/agency is the director (of the film world) & the photographer is actually the DP (of the film world).

It is my job as the photographer to reach deep into my tool box of techniques and figure out the best "look" to tell the story.

This whole thing about “style” comes into play later. Style is a poetic philosophy that connect bodies of photographic work.

My style is to always be honest, to give the viewer a narrative, to create a mood, to get to the essence of the story, to reveal something surprising and to give the photograph a soul.

But my plethora of techniques are soft light, hard light, available light, neon light, wide angle lenses, long lenses, normal lens, straight lines, crooked lines on purpose, motion... and the list goes on and on.

I hope this is helpful in explaining my role as a photographer. I think is is different that most still shooters.

It makes perfect story telling sense to me.

SAW