That Whole Paige Duncan Phase I Went Through
So, someone asked me about Paige Duncan the other day, and it kinda threw me back. Yeah, I had a whole period where I was pretty obsessed with her work. Found her stuff in some old art journal, tucked away in a library, not the kind of thing you just stumble upon online, you know?
Her photos, they just had this… mood. Looked simple, almost like snapshots, but they stuck with you. I thought, “Hey, I can do that.” Famous last words, right?
Trying to Crack the Paige Duncan Code
First thing I did was just stare at her prints for hours. I mean, literally. I had a few reproductions pinned up. What was her secret?
- The way she used light, man, it looked so natural, like she just happened to be there at the perfect moment.
- Her compositions felt off-kilter but perfectly balanced at the same time. Drove me nuts trying to figure that out.
- And her subjects, always looking so unposed, so real.
I basically tried to reverse-engineer her brain. I made notes, sketched out her frames, the whole nine yards. Thought I was pretty clever, figuring out her “tricks.”
Getting My Camera Out and… Failing Mostly
Then came the actual trying part. I grabbed my old camera, nothing fancy, because her photos didn’t look like they needed fancy gear. That was deception number one, I guess. I went out, tried to find similar spots, similar light. It was a disaster, mostly. My shots looked flat, boring, or just plain awkward. Nothing like hers.
I remember this one time, I was trying to get this specific kind of shadow she often had. Spent a whole afternoon moving a plant around my room, waiting for the sun to be just right. Looked like a complete idiot, and the photo still sucked. It was a real pain in the neck. I thought maybe I just didn’t have “the eye.”
The Big “Aha!” Moment, or Not Really
After weeks, maybe months, of messing around with it, I started to see things a bit differently. I dug deeper, found some obscure interview she gave once. Turns out, Paige Duncan’s “simple” and “natural” style was anything but. That “natural light”? Often carefully crafted with hidden reflectors, sometimes even subtle strobes. Those “unposed” subjects? She’d spend ages with them, talking, waiting, until they almost forgot she was there with a camera. It wasn’t just point-and-shoot at all.
And her “simple” compositions? Backed by a ton of classic art theory, stuff she’d studied for years. It was like finding out your favorite “effortless” musician actually practiced 10 hours a day. It wasn’t a magic trick; it was hard graft and a whole lot of planning that she was just really good at hiding. Suddenly, my cheap camera and casual approach felt pretty naive.
So, What Did I Get From All That Paige Duncan Business?
Honestly? At first, I was a bit bummed. Felt like I’d been fooled. But then, it kinda clicked. Chasing someone else’s style, especially without knowing the full story, is a bit of a fool’s errand. You can learn from it, sure. I learned a ton about light, about really looking at things, just by trying to copy her. That was valuable.
But the main thing was realizing that her path was hers. She found what worked for her, through her own process. And I needed to do the same. So, I stopped trying to be Paige Duncan. I started playing around more with my own ideas, my own way of seeing things. My photos are still a work in progress, always will be, I guess. But they’re mine. And that’s a much better feeling than trying to be a second-rate copy of someone else, no matter how great they are. Paige Duncan, in the end, just pointed me back to myself. Funny how that works, eh?
