3 Steps To Uncover Your Personal Photography Style
If you’ve ever wondered how you can uncover your personal photography style, this article will help you get started. It’s a super fun and creative process, so let’s jump into it.
When you are new to photography, it’s normal to feel that finding a personal style is a mystery, that it’s something unreachable. You might even think that a personal style is only for those who have “made it” and already have a thriving photography career.
The truth is, all photographers struggle with the concept of personal style throughout their careers. Why? Because personal style is less about photography technique and camera settings, and more about YOU, your personality and your life story.
And we humans change all the time. Therefore, your style will also change with you. When I think back on different phases of my photography career, I feel like laughing. Yes, I did have a personal style back then, but it’s not the same as the one I have now. I have changed, and my style has changed with me. And it will change for you too, as you embark on your journey into the world of photography.
If you’ve ever wondered how you can uncover your personal photography style, this article will help you get started. It’s a super fun and creative process, so let’s jump into it.
When you are new to photography, it’s normal to feel that finding a personal style is a mystery, something unreachable. You might even think that a personal style is only for those who have “made it” and already have a thriving photography career.
The truth is, all photographers struggle with the concept of personal style throughout their careers. Why? Because personal style is less about photography technique and camera settings, and more about YOU, your personality, and your life story.
And we humans change all the time. Therefore, your style will also change with you. When I think back on the different phases of my photography career, I feel like laughing. Yes, I did have a personal style back then, but it’s not the same as the one I have now. I have changed, and my style has changed with me. And it will change for you too, as you embark on your journey into the world of photography.
3 Steps To Uncover Your Personal Photography Style
No matter what level you’re at in photography, you can always use the following steps to develop your style, tweak it, or change it. These are steps I still work with to improve my style, and if you’re up for the challenge, I’m sure you’ll get some excellent results.
STEP #1. MAKE A MOOD BOARD
When you embark on the journey to find your personal photography style, an excellent place to start is by creating a mood board. But here’s the critical step. It’s not just about collecting photos you love. You have to curate what you include. That means carefully handpicking a small collection from all those images you like. Pick the images that are most important to you and that represent a style you wish to experiment with.
When putting together a mood board, think of yourself as a curator rather than a collector, and try to introduce meaning and threads from one image to the next. It makes for a more natural interpretation when you start creating your own photos.
If you pick too many photos for your mood board, chances are you’ll become paralyzed by overwhelm. Being inspired by many things and styles isn’t a bad thing, but it is if you become overwhelmed. Just make a small board with 6 to 10 images that look beautiful together and have some kind of common thread. Then use that board for inspiration during your next two or three photoshoots, or until you finally create something you like.
The trick when trying to find your photography style is to focus on the one thing that inspires you the most. If you’re not sure what that is, listen to your heart. No doubt it will tell you right away. Pick the one thing that really moves you, and focus on putting that into practice.
And keep in mind that you are not making a mood board to copy the images. You are making a mood board to remind yourself of the creative direction you wish to explore. Let yourself be inspired by the colours, the tones, the light, the props, the shooting angle, and the composition, but never try to copy an entire photo that you’ve found on Pinterest or Instagram.
There is a difference between making a copy as part of the learning process and making a career out of imitating another photographer’s work. I believe that personal style is an extension of your personality. Your personality is expressed through the photographs that you take. If you copy someone else’s style, you’ll never become a happy, fulfilled, and fully booked photographer.
To find images for your mood board, go to Pinterest, Instagram, photography books, magazines, or blogs.
STEP #2. MAKE STYLE DECISIONS
Now that you have your inspirational mood board ready, it’s time to set up some creative guidelines for yourself. These guidelines will help you decide how you style and shoot your photos. If you have never tried to make strategic decisions about your creative work before, this will be a new way for you to bring your ideas to life.
The guidelines are not there to limit your creativity. They are there to help you narrow down a specific style and mood. I like to call it “making style decisions.”
Making style decisions is an art form. It’s a skill you will develop over time, and it will help you tremendously in creating a signature style. I would go as far as to say that the art of making style decisions is the number one skill that makes some creatives stand out and become masters at what they do.
It’s about knowing what you LIKE and what you don’t like. What you want and what you don’t want. It’s about experimenting and understanding what works and what doesn’t work. This is a skill you can only develop through trial and error and a whole lot of practice.
Whether you’re a florist, an interior designer, a photographer, or an artist, you need to make style decisions. Doing so will take your creative work from a hot mess to professional mastery.
Okay, so let’s go back to your mood board. Look at the photos and study them carefully. Write down what makes the images unique and what you love about them.
The next step is to plan your actual photoshoot. Decide what you will be photographing based on your mood board and the following style decisions:
Decide on the mood: What mood are you going for? Romantic, dark and moody, bright and airy, colourful, artistic, rustic, urban, country style, authentic, elegant, dramatic, or simple? Or perhaps a mixture?
A good question to ask yourself is this: What do I want the viewer to SEE and FEEL when they look at my image?
For example, if you want a bright and happy style, you’ll want to avoid choosing dark props in muted tones or a dark setting. Instead, select a light environment with white walls that reflect the light, and choose props in cheerful colours.
Decide on Light: What type of light you choose to shoot in will affect your style tremendously. If you shoot in the golden hour or bright daylight when the sun is out, your photos will be more fresh, bright and happy than if you shoot on a cloudy/grey day with little sunshine available.
Decide on a Colour Palette: I always recommend that you pick a simple colour palette with just a few colours. The more limited your colour palette, the more professional your image will look. The colours should complement each other and help create a sense of balance in the composition. If one colour sticks out and attracts too much attention, take it out or add something else to the scene that matches that colour to balance it out.
Decide on the Story: Sometimes photographers get so caught up in creating a beautifully styled image that they forget to consider the story, the message. It can help you tremendously if you think about the story you wish to tell. It doesn’t have to be complicated. It can be as simple as the story of morning coffee in bed or freshly picked tomatoes from your garden.
Consider how you can make your story authentic. If you’re photographing tomatoes from your garden, you might include a little dirt, a few fresh leaves, or a pair of garden scissors. If it’s about morning coffee in bed, your bed might be slightly messy, and your coffee cup might have left a small coffee stain. How you choose to tell the story will be an essential style decision.
There are many, many more style decisions to be made, but for now, I don’t want to overwhelm you. If you start with just these four style decisions, you’ll end up with a helpful creative framework to work within.
Stick to your decisions for a series of photographs and see if you can create a small collection of images based on the same style decisions. This is a great way to practice developing your personal photography style.
STEP #3. PRACTICE
Now that you have some guidelines to help you begin the journey of developing your personal photography style, it’s time to put them into practice.
Just looking at pretty pictures on Instagram and Pinterest won’t get you into action. You have to plan your shoot. Make time for it. Prioritise it. To become truly good at something, you must put many hours into it.
Excellence doesn’t come from practising for an hour once a week. It takes time, effort, passion, and determination. But I promise you, if you make the time to practise, and if you don’t give up when things get difficult, you will find your unique photography style.
Are you ready to get started?
Here’s a quick summary:
- Make a mood board. Curate and select only a handful of photos that truly inspire you.
- Make style decisions. Set up specific guidelines for your workflow and photoshoot.
- Practice, practice, practice. Don’t get angry with yourself when you have a bad day. After all, it’s just a bad day. The next time you try might be the day you create your masterpiece. Never give up. Keep going, and put learning before perfection.
I wish you all the best with your creative process.
With love,