How to avoid the cliché?

Which way with our photography? Gates Pass, Tucson, Arizona, 2014

That’s a tough one. Given the huge number of photographs that have been made and are being made every second…

To wit:

–200,000 images uploaded to Facebook every minute…and another Facebook figure I’ve seen: roughly 6 billion images per month.

–We will collectively make nearly a trillion images in 2014 alone.

Even given that the vast majority of those images will be crappy, snappy shots destined to be trashed and immediately forgotten, how do the rest of us artistes avoid the evil temptation of repetition, imitation and cliché in our work?

Over the years, in one place or the other, I have read that a “serious” photographer ought to avoid making pictures of the following subjects (and this is a very short list!):

Dead trees, sunsets, cats and dogs, flowers, babies, railroad tracks, silky water, the homeless, one’s own countenance (i.e. self), docked sailboats, the Eiffel Tower, old trucks, autumn leaves on the ground, a friend jumping in the air, a standard fore-mid-background landscape, and so on ad infinitum.

If that is the case, what is left to photograph? Anything at all? Do you feel the heavy fog of creative paralysis setting in?

I suspect that whether an image is cliché or not depends not so much on the subject itself but much more on the vision and execution of the artist. I have seen outstanding and very original images of cats, flowers, the Eiffel Tower, and dead trees, for example. Hard to believe, but true. The idea is to bring your own funky personality into the process to create something not seen quite the same way before. Since each of us is unique, it is therefore theoretically possible for each of us to create unique images of all of these supposedly cliché subjects. At least, that’s the theory…

For your enjoyment, here is a somewhat corny and tongue-in-cheek video by DigitalRev TV (the famous Kai W presenting) that goes through 25 clichés you should avoid in your photography. Take it seriously…or not:

Related post: No Cats! (Dec 10, 2012)