Finding Photographic Style
Life hits hard my friends and let me tell you, nothing hits harder as a photographer than finding your groove when it comes to your photographic style. Here, I present three images hot off the press that I wanted to meditate on a little, and one just below purely for funsies. Join me on a brief meditation into photographic style, and hopefully some of these ideas will help you on the road to finding yours too!
What is style?
I’m not going to try and bore you with a dictionary definition and to be honest, I’m also too lazy to search up the dictionary or grab my trusty, dusty old friend off the shelf either.Â
By my reckoning though, style is all about choice and expression – from the clothes we choose to wear every day, to the music we listen to, the TV shows we watch and the art we consume.
If that’s true (and let’s assume it is), then finding your own photographic style is all about making choices that express whatever it is you’re thinking or feeling from both a technical and emotional perspective. This is why for me even during those tough times, photography is such a fantastic outlet for feelings. By the way this picture of the moon is purely for fun!
How did I find my photographic style?
I’ve been a photographer for a good few years now. In this world where everyone has a phone in their pockets, and those phones have baked-in image presets whenever you take a photo, we’ve become conditioned to how images should look. You know the ones I mean – super saturated colours, high contrast, razor sharp. The truth is when it comes to photographic style, that’s a choice made by the developer of the phone or app you’re using. When you port over to a “real” camera the learning curve is tough because you’re suddenly working with the RAW data you capture, so not only does your composition neetd to be hot, but your thinking around “what do I want this photo to look like?” also needs to be on point.
So how did I find my own photographic style? Well, it was mostly just going out and shooting lots of different subjects and scenes, trying different weather conditions, getting up early to go take shots like the ones below during sunrise. That’s before we even mention Lightroom and Photoshop adjustments, which are a whole different kettle of fish. If we had to boil this all down to a forumla, it would go a little something like this:
Photographic style = subject preference/composition x feeling +/- colour.
The Specifics of my Photographic Style
Ok so what’s my secret sauce when it comes to the Lightroom edit? Well I’ll tell ya because I like you I guess…
Step 1: Crop. Boom!
Step 2: Bring up the shadows to reveal hidden details.
Step 3: Isolate the sky and lower highlights a touch to bring back detail.
Step 4: Reduce clarity and texture to soften the image.
Step 5: Desaturate greens and make highlight colours pop.
Step 6: Use colour harmony to set the mood of the image and to run those colours through the shadows, highlights and mid-tones as needed.
Any other tips?
So you’ve learnt about my photographic style, and hopefully it’s making you think more about your own and how you want to (or already) achieve it! That’s perfect! Any other tips I hear you ask? Well I suppose I can spare a few more.
– Don’t forget local masking, as it can help make certain areas of your image pop. Look at the image below – I used the brush mask to add some shadow back into the mole hills and at the base of the hedgerow.
– Use your tone curve to add in some contrast (not forgetting to remove the colour cast if that’s your thing).
– Introduce some extra “glow” by using a radial gradient mask to dehaze from a light source, add a little warmth if you like, and generally give a bit of glow up.
– Try to be ok with some parts of your image being dark or out of focus. We get drawn into YouTubers and other photographers telling us what our photos should look like, that we forget they are ours – not every bit of an image needs to be tack-sharp, and it’s ok to blow your highlights or crush your blacks if that’s the photographic style you’re going for!
Thanks for reading guys, I seriously appreciate you choosing to spend time here with me. If you like any of the images you see here, shoot me a message on my contact page, or head over to my shop page to browse the prints on offer. I also have lightroom presets available for FREE which you can get from my shop page too – they’ll help you create images just like the ones above in record time!
Peace and love,