Having to write a blog on style has been one of the hardest things I've had to do so far on this website, for many reasons. For one thing, can anybody really define what style is?  Is it a fashion?  Or is fashion often what is stylish (if only for a moment)?

Does the following photograph reveal a certain style (and what exactly is this style trying to tell us) ? Lower East Side, NYC

The other day I was lucky enough to see a show at the Whitney Museum which included many  Edward Hopper sketches and paintings. One placard  describing his art had a quote where Hopper says " I am always looking for me in my paintings " and that he "used the outer world to portray his inner life." That's a good approximation of how style determines form and vice versa. My style is who I am.

However, does that mean I have only one style that runs through my photography? Is the following photo somehow stylistically the same (or diametrically different)  from the photo above ?

Manhattan

Is style an imbeded message that is similar in different pictures, or again is style a passing thing like a "phase" in adolescence? I'm not sure I know the answer to that question.

I will pose the following:

Readers of this blog, contact me at   [email protected] with the answer to this question:

Describe the similarity in the styles of the following two photos:

France

                                                                                                   and

Manhattan

(to be continued - probably in Stockopp.com YouTube  Video #2)