When I first started my photography journey I thought I would never find my style. In retrospect, that's a silly notion; but it did take me almost 3 years to understand my "style". Prior to realizing what it is, I thought I'd never discover my style.
Some photographers will have you believe that your "style" equates to a theme, i.e. the types of things you shoot; while other photographers will tell you that style is much more nuanced than boiling it down to theme. I didn't meet these latter photographers until I was deep into my journey. But there was one thing both of these schools of thought believed:
shoot every damn day, and shoot as much as possible.
That was, and still is, the best advice I've received about photography. Shooting all the time, whether the subject was mundane or exciting, helped me to understand and learn (and still learning) all the crazy dials and settings on my camera. Recently I was reviewing my library of now tens of thousands of images, and I realized what my style is. I think it boils down to one word: vivid
I don't mean vivid in color alone, but also vivid in composition, in subject, in mood, in location...I love to view the world through that lens of boldly bright and beautiful images that can produce powerful feelings from a strong and clean image.
Now that I've discovered this about myself, I can begin to hone and perfect my style in the same way that I constantly sharpen my knowledge about the technical side of light and how it interacts with my camera.
I recently worked with a friend on a series of head shots. While working on this project I had the moment of clarity about my style and I want to share those portraits with you below. Click on an image to enlarge it; and, as always, thanks for reading!
