Don’t Look For Your Style – It’s Already A Part of You (Podcast 720)

Let’s jump into today’s topic though. A few weeks ago I did a talk for the Oakville Camera Club, and included a number of slides on a topic that I’ve been gradually thinking about over the years, regarding looking for a style. As we start to learn more about photography, there comes a point where many photographer’s start to ask about finding their style. You’ll hear questions like “How do I find my style as a photographer” where the real question, which I also hear, is “How do I develop my style?”

The questions regarding searching for or finding a style are not necessarily flawed, if you are consciously thinking about looking within ourselves for the style, but the idea of looking outside of yourself to find your style is, in my opinion, fundamentally flawed, simply because, for our style to be truly ours, it can be nowhere else but already within us. Any style that you find or create based on external influence can never be yours.

Of course, we see imagery all the time, and we are visually influenced every time we view or imagine something that modifies our perception or appreciation of the world around us. Whenever we make a decision as to how we will compose a photograph, what exposure to use, when to use a wide aperture for shallow depth of field, or smaller aperture to get more of our photograph in focus, or even simply whether the image should be in portrait or landscape orientation. Every decision we make as we work comes from all of the influences that we’ve had until the point that we release the shutter.

That right there though, is exactly why our style is ours and ours alone, and why I truly believe that looking for a style as such is not something that we need to actively pursue. We form opinions about the world around us based on our life experiences, and these things help to form the core of our characters. This doesn’t only include positive experiences, as even some seemingly negative experiences, can make us better people. Of course, there are times when childhood maltreatment and other traumatic experiences scar an individual and can create some negative characteristics that we don’t really need to get into here, but assuming you aren’t an ax-wielding homicidal maniac, generally, our experiences in life tend to make us stronger in character.

This character forms a foundation for any style that we will ultimately start to see in our art, be it photography, or any other form of art. I’d hazard a guess that most people don’t spend a whole lot of time thinking about how to become a better person. Good, in itself, is totally subjective, of course, but assuming that we are relatively happy with who we are, we probably arrived at that point without having to consciously work on our character.

I believe that we gradually form a style subconsciously as we perform the act of creating our art. If you look at any one image, with nothing to compare it to, you will unlikely see anything that leads you to the artist, unless it’s someone that has become known for a specific style, but they didn’t arrive at the point where their style can be recognized with one image.

As the viewer, it takes a relatively large body of work for us to recognize the similarities that we start to recognize as a style, but from the artists perspective, it will rarely be the result of sitting down with a pencil and paper and drawing out a plan on how they are going to develop that style. It’s generally a completely organic process, and comes from doing the art time and time again, but I believe that the purest styles are directly linked to the underlying character of the person creating the art, and it’s profoundly moulded into a style over many years.

Shoot From the Heart

Of course, there are young artists that crop up from time to time with what we might consider to be amazing styles, and without doubt, artistic pursuits come more easily to some than others, but there are very few real overnight successes. Even someone that seemingly becomes amazing overnight, generally has years of becoming who they are to bolster what they have become, and there is no saying that what we see at any given time will be the same as the art that they will continue to create for years to come.

If, though, they are true to themselves in the decisions that they make as they create their art, there will generally be an underlying style that is visible and common through their work over decades, if not, ultimately, over their entire lives. This is why I often find myself saying that we have to shoot from the heart, and why I believe that we should not look externally for our style. Nothing that you can find outside of yourself can possibly be you. Your style can only come from within, based on your own sense of aesthetic, with a foundation of your character, which is, as I say, a culmination of all our life experiences until the point that we release the shutter.

Overcoming Technical Hurdles

The other major part of the puzzle, is developing our technical ability and understanding of our cameras and the effect that the settings have on the image, to the point that it becomes almost second nature. The technical aspects of photography are important, but by the time we are making our art, will hopefully be completely second nature, and simply support the creative process, and not get in the way of it. If you find yourself missing shots in the field because you can’t figure out how to adjust the settings of your camera to create a certain look, then you need to study the manual and get a better understanding of the fundamentals of photography.

Of course, we can bang our cameras into full automatic mode and still make photographs, but there will come a time when you want a certain look, and you’ll need to understand how to achieve that look, and hopefully be so fluid with that knowledge and technique that you simply go to work when the time comes to make the image.

You may recall me talking about The Mental Checklist, that I started to work through many years ago, shortly after I started this Podcast, and found that I was able to prevent myself from making mistakes in the field by asking the questions that I knew I’d ask later as I prepared for a new post about the shoot. By simply being more deliberate in the field, I started to overcome issues that were preventing me from becoming a better photographer, and doing that year in year out has gradually made me more and more confident in my ability to simply knuckle down and do the work, and get the results I am looking for.

In fact, I just did a quick search for my Mental Checklist post to get the episode number, and the results page was full of posts that I feel I should also reference, such as my post on the Seven Stages of Contentment in a Photographer, and The Balance Between Healthy Learning and Analysis Paralysis.