ยฉ Wes Anderson
Wes Anderson, When Style Becomes a Filter
There is an Instagram account called Accidentally Wes Anderson. Almost two million followers, a book in 2020. The community photographs pastel buildings, symmetrical libraries, provincial hotels, and everything looks “Wes Anderson-style” even though Anderson has nothing to do with it. The style is so recognizable that anyone can stumble into it without knowing. The phenomenon says more about style in photography than about the director.
Anderson builds total frames. Central axis of symmetry, frontal subjects staring into the camera, fixed pastel palette, props arranged like on a dollhouse table. The world in his films does not happen, it is manufactured. It is a closed visual grammar, made of a few recurring letters. When a grammar is this narrow, one pastel building with the subject in the middle tells the audience where to place you.
For the photographer this opens a problem. A style that can be replicated with three rules is a filter, not a style. It works while new, stops when it becomes a template. Anyone who starts shooting to chase “the Wes Anderson moment” is following an aesthetic already written by someone else, while believing they are building a voice. The difference between a voice and an aesthetic is simple: the first resists copying, the second invites it.
Real style is what remains after you remove everything imitable. The palette can be copied, the symmetry can be copied, the ritual of objects can be copied. What stays is the way you look at a subject before deciding how to photograph it. Anderson, as a director, arranges. For those who shoot street or documentary, where the world is already there and will not move, the only style possible is the relationship between you and what was there first.
When you walk out with the palette already in your head, you are inside someone else’s aesthetic before raising the camera. If anyone can redo your work after hearing it described in three adjectives, the style still belongs to whoever invented it.
Marco Savarese
Editor-in-Chief
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Marco Savarese
Marco Savarese is Editor-in-Chief at Eyeshot, the independent publisher he founded in Italy in 2018. He spends most of his year reading portfolios, judging the Open Call, and editing the magazine catalogue. The reading desk is open, and he takes one-to-one Professional Reviews from photographers working seriously on long-term projects.
Who Finishes Your Photograph
NOTE #210. A photo isn’t finished until it survives to where people see it. Paul Strand chose hand photogravure for Photographs of Mexico so the printed copy kept the tonal weight of his prints. Protect the tone to the end, or the worst medium decides for you.
What the Dark Does
NOTE #209. A face lost in shadow reads as underexposed, a defect to fix. Gordon Willis kept Brando’s eyes in the dark in The Godfather and held it against the studio. Before you rescue a shadow, ask what it does; if you can say it, you decided it.
The Place After
NOTE #208. Of a huge event, often only an ordinary place is left. In On This Site (1996) Joel Sternfeld photographed fifty banal American places where violence happened, each with a line of text. Photograph the aftermath, and let the line do the work.
The Photo Made Together
NOTE #206. Street photography teaches you to steal people; there’s another way. In Malick Sidibรฉ’s Bamako studio the youth chose how to be seen. Before you take someone, ask how they’d want to look, and make the photo together.
Write Your Own Rules
NOTE #205. The thing that improves you most isn’t a new camera, it’s a short list of your own faults. Tony Ray-Jones kept a notebook of orders to himself and it shaped Martin Parr. Write your three rules and keep them in your pocket.
Watch the Master Work
NOTE #204. You don’t learn from a master’s finished prints, you learn from watching them work. In 1962 Joel Meyerowitz watched Robert Frank shoot, quit his job that day, and picked up a camera. Watch the body, not the result.
The Work Before the Name
NOTE #203. The worth of a photo and the worth of the byline are two different things. Koudelka shot the 1968 Prague invasion anonymously as ‘P.P.’ and revealed it sixteen years later. Photograph what must be photographed even when no one will know it was you.
The Subject You Run From
NOTE #202. The strongest subject you have is the one you’d rather not photograph. Ishiuchi Miyako went back to Yokosuka, the occupied base town she was taught to fear, and made it her life’s work. Point the camera where it’s uncomfortable.