What is your photographic style and how do you find it or define it? Those are tough questions, but with some help we can at least get you on the right track.
If you’re anything like me, you probably want to find or define your photographic style, whatever it may be. Obviously, just what is photographic style is a tricky question, but we’ll leave that to the side for now.
Let’s start with Scott French. He gives us three steps:
- Find your inspiration: collect examples of other photographer’s work, create a Pinterest board, for example. But don’t limit yourself to photography, look at movies, music, poetry and whatever else you feel inspired by.
- Study what you curated: study what you collected, what is it that draws you to it? What common characteristics do you see or feel? It may not just be visual, it can also be conceptual, emotional, spiritual.
- Experiment & explore: given what you curated and concluded from that, experiment with your photography with that as a base, as an inspiration. Follow certain leads, see where it goes, does it feel right, then continue.
Without having done a mood board like Scott French suggests, I’d say that I am drawn to:
- The ordinary (like William Eggleston, Sune Jonsson, or Martin Parr)
- Shapes, patterns, the abstract (like Michael Kenna, Gerry Johansson, or some of André Kertész’s work)
- Black and white (like so many photographers)
