3 Effective Ways To Develop Your Personal Photography Style

Find­ing your pho­to­graph­ic style takes time and effort. Just like find­ing a dec­o­rat­ing style for your home or fash­ion style, find­ing your pho­tog­ra­phy style takes time and prac­tice. If you want to devel­op your per­son­al pho­tog­ra­phy style, you need to shoot every day, and every sin­gle time you pick up your cam­era, you need to shoot inten­tion­al­ly. You need to lis­ten to your heart when your shoot­ing. If it’s not speak­ing to you, don’t do it. 

Delelope Your Personal Photography Style

#1‑Stop Comparing Yourself To Others

If you want to devel­op your per­son­al pho­tog­ra­phy style, the num­ber one way to do this is to STOP! Stop com­par­ing your­self to oth­ers! We are sat­u­rat­ed with images from every direc­tion ALL day long, and it’s easy to com­pare your pho­tog­ra­phy style to oth­ers and even eas­i­er to let their pho­tos start to define your style. 

You see a pic­ture, and you try des­per­ate­ly to dupli­cate that image. But it’s not long before frus­tra­tion kicks in. Why? Because there is NO way, absolute­ly none, that you can repro­duce some­one else’s photograph.

I say it all of the time… Pho­tog­ra­phy is a form of art and you want to devel­op your per­son­al pho­tog­ra­phy style. Being able to dupli­cate some­one’s pho­to is not devel­op­ing your style and is as dif­fi­cult as it is to dupli­cate some­one’s paint­ing. And…why would you want to? You want to find your pho­tog­ra­phy style. 

It is per­fect­ly okay to look at some­one’s pho­to and think, “Wow, I love …” or” I like the way they did…” but STOP wish­ing your pho­tos looked like theirs! If you fol­low peo­ple on social media whose images con­stant­ly make you feel infe­ri­or, stop fol­low­ing them until you become con­fi­dent in your photography.

That’s not to say that you can’t choose lit­tle things that some­one does in their pho­tog­ra­phy to imi­tate. Do you like the light and airy aspect of some­one’s photos…okay, shoot light and airy. Do you like how some­one cre­ates bokeh in their shots? Then, by all means, cre­ate bokeh…imitation is the high­est form of flat­tery. Copy­ing isn’t. 

#2‑Be Honest

The sec­ond way to devel­op your per­son­al pho­tog­ra­phy style is, to be hon­est with your­self! I knew ear­ly on that I did not want to be a wed­ding pho­tog­ra­ph­er. Oh, I’ll admit it, when I see those jaw-drop­ping wed­ding shots, I get tempt­ed, but then I lis­ten to that lit­tle voice in my head, and I am brought back to “my” real­i­ty. If I am hon­est with myself, I know wed­ding pho­tog­ra­phy isn’t for me. 

Begin to define the type of pho­tog­ra­phy you want to focus on and think of your pho­tog­ra­phy as art. You aren’t going to buy a paint­ing from an artist that is a modern/impressionist/realist/still life/contemporary/abstract artist. You will buy a still life paint­ing from an artist spe­cial­iz­ing in still life paint­ings. Think of your­self as an artist and own your style! 

Now, that’s not to say you can’t choose a few, but nich­ing down and per­fect­ing that one or two types will help you be a bet­ter pho­tog­ra­ph­er. I guar­an­tee you that most wed­ding pho­tog­ra­phers aren’t new­born pho­tog­ra­phers and vice versa. 

#3‑Learn

The thirds way to devel­op your pho­tog­ra­phy style is to learn to under­stand your cam­era set­tings and the rules of com­po­si­tion. Do not let lousy tech­niques define your style because the hard truth is…it isn’t a style; it’s just bad tech­nique. Chop­ping off peo­ple’s limbs isn’t a tech­nique, incor­rect white bal­ance isn’t a tech­nique, and bad, bad shad­ows on your sub­ject are not a tech­nique. The soon­er you learn the pho­tog­ra­phy rules, the soon­er you will begin to define your­self as an artist. If you are inter­est­ed in under­stand­ing your cam­er­a’s set­tings and the rules of com­po­si­tion, check out my Begin­ners Pho­tog­ra­phy Essen­tials class! 

It is scary, but I promise if you fol­low these steps and are true to your­self, you will find free­dom and con­fi­dence in your pho­tog­ra­phy, and you will be amazed at how peo­ple flock to you and your work. If you have any ques­tions, want sup­port, or just want to show off your pho­tos, join us in my Face­book Group-Learn Pho­tog­ra­phy with Dena! I hope to see you there.