Defining Your Photographic Style

Things to consider when developing a signature photographic style and defining and long lasting portfolio.

Photographers spend a great deal of time on the web viewing the work of professional or amateur photographers for ideas and inspiration. What you will discover is that there are a lot of very mediocre images out there and a great deal of this is due to a “lack of style.”

This should get you thinking, how can I improve on my photos? A potential solution is to develop your own image style or signature look!

So what is this style thing then? Think of it as a signature. There are many photographers out there who possess easily recognizable signatures to their photos. Ansel Adams, Jeff Ascough, Richard Avedon, Helmut Newton, Jerry Ghionis are a few easily identifiable by looking at their photos simply because they have a look uniquely their own – their signature or style.

Why is this important? Many photographers labour long and hard to figure out who, and what is their focus in photography. You hear photographers speak about their specialisation or genre in terms such as “Wedding Photographer”, “Wildlife Photographer”, “Portrait Photographer”, etc. and it is important to specialise and focus on a particular field of photography. However, most photographers take a wide variety of photographs outside their specialty for fun or necessity. In the end though, if you specialise then at most of your photography time should be focused on that area.

Specialisation is important but is it enough? Many photographers stop at this point when defining their work and leave out that most important aspect – generating a distinctive image style of their own. Images may well be cleaned up, colour adjusted, and ‘Photoshopped’ and in the end each photo is completely different from the others leaving the viewer with no sense of a present or emerging style from the photographer.

Your Style Should Define an Image

Creating an individual style for your work is a long term process in photography. You have to experiment, chop and change for a while before trying to determine how your images will look. There is very little chance of being fortunate enough to stumble upon your own unique style immediately. There are many aspects to defining your style of work but below are three major components to help you along the way.

Medium

Decide on your medium of choice, colour, black and white, high dynamic range, or something else? Find a medium and stick to it, let it become your format. A portfolio that is all over the place, some monochrome, some HDR, some IR and some colour tells me that the photographer does not know what he likes or is trying to appeal to the masses or has not settled on a style (or doesn’t care about style). Similar to your specialisation, the majority of your work should be focused into your medium of choice. There will always be exceptions, but make them just that – exceptions and not the rule!

Look and Feel – Your Signature

This will always be the most difficult and time-consuming part of deciding your individual style of photography and probably also be the most fun. Trial and error and unlimited processing experiments in your chosen photo processing tool will help refine the look and feel of your style. Keep in mind the mood, and subject of your specialisation or genre and through fine tuning you will eventually create a set of processing tools necessary to give your images a unique style that will tell the viewer this is your image. Creating presets, shortcuts and formulas all help you to produce your styled photos really fast once you have sorted out the tuning of your images. Take your time and get it right – when it doesn’t work shrug your shoulders and start again!

Consistency

Ok, so you have your subject specialisation, you have your primary medium and you have refined your look and feel to a degree that you now have a signature style that you can apply to your images. Now comes the tricky bit! To begin to implement a little consistency, it’s tempting to continually tweak and change things, but you must restrain yourself. Minor changes will always be part of the process but it must not radically alter your signature look and feel (your style) – or you will end up with a completely different signature. Always apply your signature to your images. Think of it as “branding” from a sales and marketing viewpoint. Consistent application of your style is important not only for your images but also your brand.

Conclusion

Things to consider when developing a signature style and a lasting portfolio:
• Processing software is a boon and a curse to photography.
• Avoid “gimmicky” tricks in your photography
• Selective colouring, Black and White backgrounds or over Photoshopped pictures really do not stand the test of time.
• Read what the great photographers of our era say regarding processing photos –“if it can’t be done in less than five minutes don’t do it”. Look at their work and see that most pictures are simple, without bells and whistles but they do have a unique signature all their own.

Adam Szczepanski - Documentary Wedding Photographer

4 Dec 2012