So, what makes your photography work yours? “I own the raw file” or “it has my logo on it” aren’t the answers I am looking for. I’m talking about something that enable others to know that photo was taken by you as soon as they look at it.
Nowadays everyone and their fucking dog owns a camera or a smartphone with a decent camera, and with so many presets available online it isn’t difficult to create eye appealing photographs. We are constantly bombarded with photos on social networks, so what are you doing to make your photos stand out?
Some people aren’t worried about standing out, they are content with just creating nice enough photos to get some likes, but for us working photographers it is important to make our photos look professional so our potential clients can see our worth.
Do you have a particular style that makes your work stand out from the rest? It can be the angles you use, lighting, retouching, the colours you use across your images, the feel and mood of your photos, no matter what it is, it’s essential to have something that only you can produce so you can be known for it. On Instagram so many photos look the same, taken from the same angle, with the same lens, same background, same models looking bored. How are you going to stand out if your photos look just like everyone else’s!? The market for presets and actions is huge right now because people are becoming lazy and don’t want to learn how to create stuff, they would rather buy it already made, like that quote says “Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day; teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime”, so stop buying fish and learn how to fish!
When you have your own style it is guaranteed that not everyone will like it, and you will even be criticized for it, but the style that makes your work yours is the thing that will bring you paying clients and other people who appreciate your work, because they love what you do.
So here is my challenge for you, I know I still have a way to go in terms of establish a recognizeble style for myself, but I would like you to join me on this journey so you can also create your own, take a hard look at your portfolio and notice if there is something that is consistent across most of your images. Ask some friends to take a look at your photos and ask what they see. If you don’t think you have a particular style yet I urge you to come up with one that you love, and create images using it regularly. Standing out as a photographer in this busy world full of photos isn’t something that happens over night, but if others have done it that means you can do it too, it will take hard work, consistency, patience, and creativity, but if you create what you love and own a style, soon enough you will attract the right people.