civilized ku # 537 ~ the basis for defining a photographer's style

Light pole in a city park ~ Plattsburgh, NY • click to embiggenSven W, in his comment re: civilized ku # 531, opined/asked ...

These "dimensions" of ideal vs specific, impulsive vs pre-conceived, obvious vs framed could be the photographic equivalent of personality traits. Taken together, these dimensions / traits could be the basis for defining a photographer's style?

IMO (and that of many many others), the pictures one makes are, considered together with all of their characteristics and qualities of the medium itself, a manifestation of the characteristics and qualities of the picture maker him/herself. Or as artist Rockwell Kent stated:

art is no more than the shadow cast by a man’s own stature*...

... a notion that quite nicely reflects those expressed by artist Robert Henri in his book THE ART SPIRIT - that an artist should know him/herself as the prerequisite to finding / nourishing one's vision and the means to express it.

That said, I would add to Kent and Henri's notions that a person's act of expressing one's self by means of their art making endeavors is - for the aware, attentive, and thoughtful - a means to getting to better know one's self. And, IMO, the pictures made by such camera-wielding persons are the most complex and vigorous - aka, interesting and involving - of all.

*FYI, Kent's art was born out of both remarkable personal experience and a deep sense of moral and political principle.