How to develop a unique style!

Okay, remember my last post?
That post about the link between Karate and photography?
Than you’ll maybe even remember the Kata part where I stated that you would learn something from copying others?
Well, I must say another thing about that.
Copying is fine to learn how to take beautiful pictures, but not to take your “own” pictures.
You see, everyone is different.
So everyone takes different pictures, that’s what called your photographic style.
It’s important to develop your own style, since that’s how people know a picture is yours.
They can see it “in” the picture.
You photographyic style can be about many things:

• Your genre
• Your subjects
• Your lightning
• Etc.

So if you don’t develop a own style, nobody will recognize you!
But how do you become unique
That’s where this tip’s about!
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Since it’s YOUR style, only you can decide how you’re going to develop it.
But I will try to give you some tips!

Tip 1: look at other photos!

You won’t be different unless you know what the competition looks like.
If you don’t know what the others look like, you can’t be different.
You must see them first, before you can make things different from them.
For example:

• They take BW (black and white) photos; than you want to take color photos
• They take landscapes; you like landscapes too so you are also going to take landscapes! (not everything has to be different!)

(These are actually no very good examples, since these are also genres of photography.)With “they” I mean the persons who took the photos where you have been looking at.
It’s impossible to make everything different, since there are almost as many photos in the world as there are people.
But to it is handy to look at some pictures first, before tryin to be different!

Tip 2: be creative!

People take pictures because of many different reasons.

• They want to capture a moment
• They want to create art
• They want to show something to others
• Etc.

So many people take photos.
You have to stand out, if you want to become a better photographer.
Try new ideas or invent new ways to do others.
Be creative and be always thitnking.
For example, many people make the same kind of photo:
A human figure in the middle in front of something.
You can make a photo from a reflection of a human figure.
If you like this, and you specialise yourself in it.
Your photographyic style can be(come) reflections.
Or black and white reflections, of reflection portraits.
This won’t say you can’t make another (no reflection) photo.
For example, someone with the clothing style "gothic" can wear “normal” clothing if he or she likes that.

My point is:

“If you know the others, you can stand out. If you are creative, you’ll find ways to stand out.
Those ways, that's what I would call: your photographyic style!”

Mel

PS

A photographic style is almost impossible to describe.
So please forgive me for the bad examples I have written in this post.