Style v Substance in Photography

If you scroll through Instagram for long enough you might start to feel that photography is falling into two camps – style or substance.

Each have their own distinct features, pros and cons. And given my mantra to understand every vuepoint in life I wanted to compare both stylistic and story-led approaches to photography in this style v substance face-off!

Style in Photography

The attention span for an audience watching TV years ago used to 7 seconds. Every 7 seconds the camera shot would change on average to keep the mind engaged.

As social media and content consumption has increased and saturated media sites that attention span has dropped dramatically to under 3 seconds. Therefore you can be forgiven for photographers always on the look out for a new way to make you stop scrolling.

Style in photography has always been a cutting edge way to push boundaries and cause controversy. But now it’s done simply to get attention and increase engagement. This type of loud, brash (and some say OTT) photography is symptomatic of the age we live in and is copied across other forms of art.

But does it damage art when it’s all about superficial attention-grabbing and less about the image itself?

Every photographer will have an opinion on this, and in truth, I don’t think anyone is wrong. Art is subjective after all. Stylistic photographers still need skill to create the image and an understanding of what makes an eye catching graphic in the first place. That can’t be a bad thing, can it?

Just because we see the same stylistic devices (HDR, saturated colour, over smoothed skin, augmented imagery and effects filters) being used a lot could just be the beginning of a new movement in photography – as we’ve seen for decades.

*While visually eye-catching, what is the meaning to the moment?*

Substance in Photography

Call them the traditionalists or the purists; but photographers who concentrate on the story, feelings and connection with a subject live on the opposite side of the coin in this style v substance comparison.

Their photography may seem less polished and more candid than others, but that’s intentional. The audience is expected to investigate the characters, objects, location and the connection between them all to discover what the image is about.

There may be oversights in terms of exposure and focus with many shots being taken on a whim. Very little editing is applied in comparison to stylistic photographers as they don’t want the message to be lost in post-production.

The audiences for this type of photography is different too. It takes a different mindset to not be attracted by the big neon lights of the Instagram-age. But because of this, the story of the image needs to be as powerful and just as much as a show-stopper (but in a different way).

This means ‘substance photographers’ need to hunt down moments of amazement, split-second happenings and occurrences that will never happen again – and be ready to capture that moment. They shoot less images because of this tiring hunt for incredible stories, but each frame is precious when caught.

*While lacking style, is there a more interesting story here?*

Style v Substance: Which is Best?

Like I said – the choice is yours. Both approaches to photography have pros and cons.

Style – quick, popular, trending, dramatic, competitive, skillful but also with a short shelf life that’s more superficial and draped in effects.

Substance – slow burning, precious, unique, raw and under-produced but also personal moments that are built on emotional and human principles.

Traditional photographers can be accused of not moving with the times and embracing the new world as photographers in the past have always been accused of.

Whereas the new breed of stylistic photographers are regularly seen as the harbingers of death to the art. But with the constant rise and need for images online these days, it doesn’t look like they’re harming the industry that much!

Can You Have Both?

Many photographer would love to be nestled in that Venn diagram cross section where you can have the best of both worlds – style AND substance in their photography. And there are some great photographers online who do hit both camps well in my opinion.

It takes a lot of work to be a photographer who crafts great stories with deep meanings but also manages to make them visually appealing in a world where milliseconds of time are the currency.