Finding Your Style Creatively | Photographers Create Podcast

Summary

In this episode, the host discusses the process of finding one's personal style in photography. The conversation covers various aspects, including the challenges of comparison, looking beyond visuals, influences from home and personality, collecting images for reference, limiting equipment, working and practicing every day, keeping a journal, exploring different genres, and finding personal style with film photography. The host emphasizes the importance of authenticity and self-expression in creating a unique style. The episode concludes with a call to action for listeners to leave reviews and consider being a guest on the podcast.

Takeaways

• Finding personal style in photography can be challenging, especially for beginners.

• Letting go of comparison and focusing on self-expression is crucial in finding personal style.

• Influences from home, personality, and other aspects of life can shape personal style.

• Creating references and limiting equipment can help in developing a consistent style.

• Working and practicing every day, keeping a journal, and exploring different genres are important steps in finding personal style.

• Film photography can offer a unique and authentic approach to personal style.

Chapters

00:00Introduction and Rebranding

00:29The Challenge of Finding Personal Style

01:22Letting Go of Comparison

03:19Influences from Home and Personality

05:14Collecting Images and Creating References

06:11Limiting Equipment

07:36Working and Practicing Every Day

10:30Keeping a Journal

12:47Exploring Different Genres

15:39Finding Personal Style with Film Photography

16:38Call to Action and Conclusion

Finding Your Personal Style (00:00.718)

Episode Transcripts

Hey everyone, welcome to the Photographers Create Podcast, formerly known as You Belong Podcast. Did a little rebranding, trying to find a way for people to find me a little bit easier. And I feel like changing the title of the podcast was the right choice to have it be a little bit more in line with what I am hoping to give to all of you listeners, which is for photographers and our creative side. So.

new branding, you belong is no longer. And it's now for talk first create. So today it's just me. I, today we're going to be talking about personal style, finding your personal style. This is a tough one. This is a hard one, especially if you are just starting out, you have no idea what to do. There are so many different options out there, niches and looks and equipment and the whole shipping it is can be very overwhelming and.

In this podcast, I want to simplify it down, give you some really actionable steps of how to find your personal style and hopefully cut through the crap and find your way. So let's start with why it's so hard to find your personal style. As photographers, we are very aesthetic. We want things to look a certain way. We're about the visuality of things and...

I think that's a detriment. We are looking at other people's work and what we're drawn to or what we feel like things should look like. It's all about this look. And because of that, it limits your ability to find your personal style. So we're gonna dive into things more than the way things look. And I wanna start off with, first of all, let go of comparison. It's really hard. We are all on social media. We all...

have other artists that we really admire and it's really hard to not compare ourselves to those people. But you got to do it. You've got to put your blinders on a little bit when you're finding your personal style and don't get too influenced by other photographers. And at the same time, you are getting influenced by photographers. It's just not possible to not be. Is that even correct to be able to say it that way? Did I do double negatives?

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It's impossible to not be influenced by other photographers. And if you are feeling influenced, heavily influenced by certain photographers that you really, really, really, really love, and you're, but you don't want to copy them, just remember that there are no new ideas. There just aren't. Things are recycled and things will look different through your lens and through your mind, through what you, your composition and lighting and everything.

will be different. There's no way that you can completely copy other photographers. So let go of that. Let go of comparison and let's dive into how you can find your personal style. First of all, don't just look for photography. Like we said, start with yourself. What does your home look like? What do your clothes look like? What colors are you drawn to in that? So for instance, if my home,

You can see a little bit of the back there. I like things light and colorful. So my entire house is white. The entire walls are white. I love it because it's this blank canvas to be able to put color on top of. And I feel like that's the same with my photography. My photography is light, but it still has a ton of color. And that has influenced my photography a lot. The same with my clothes. I like things simple.

but still have a punch of color or a statement, but I don't like a ton of jewelry or things like that. So I feel like that has also influenced my photography. So how is that influencing yours? What is your house like? Is it dark, which is awesome? So are you drawn to more like shadows and less exposure in your work because your house is filled with awesome, like dark navy blues or dark greens or grays.

and things like that, or is it like mine light and bright? So that can influence your photography a lot in it being able to try to find your style. So start with yourself. The other thing is your personality. What is your personality like? Are you reserved and shy? So maybe your work needs to be similar to that. It doesn't need to be as loud or in your face about things because your personality is more shy.

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or are you super fun and outgoing? I know photographers that they totally lean into that personality trait and continue that through their work. So they have a lot of playful families or couples or weddings that are just really fun and in the moment, or are you, because you're more reserved to you, do you think it's more posed and a little less chaotic, a little more controlled? So.

look to your personality style, look to your home, look to your clothes, look to your favorite colors, lean into you and start writing things down. Write things down with what those traits are of yourself and the things that you are because as an artist you can't mimic other people entirely. I mean you do it first for a while but you need to be able to

Get into yourself and create from a place of self or else it's not going to be authentic and it's not going to transcend into your, it's not going to get that connection with your audience unless you're being real. All right. So you've gathered these ideas of what you want your style to look like based off of you and your personality. Oh, I got it. It's just how I'm sitting. So the next thing is to start collecting images of your work.

that you are proud of and that you do like, and that do fit that mold, that different outline of ideas that you have come up with from looking at yourself, and start creating either a Pinterest board or collages in Canva or a file on your desktop, or maybe have them on your home screen all laid out to try to help give you a reference point for when you're shooting or when you're going to be doing a stylized shoot or...

prepping for a shoot or you're editing or whatever, have those images out that feel like that is those are on the right track. And the next thing you can do is go into other people's works for ideas. If you don't have that work that you've created yet, go in and try to find those images that really call out to you or touch you or are fitting into those.

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personality traits and likes that you already have and start creating that pictures board or file or whatever you are doing to be able to reference it. That's a great jumping off point to stay consistent and to create work that's consistent. All right, now let's get into some like other actionable steps, limiting your equipment. Oh, as photographers, this is so hard.

There are so many amazing things out there. I mean, the new Fuji is coming out. And I'm not even like a big digital shooter, but it's like, oh, I love those Fujis and the way they look with their recipes and everything. That would be so much fun to have. Or I really want that new, you know, lens, 85 millimeter lens to get that really delicious Bokeh, you know, depth look. And there's so many awesome things out there that we could buy cameras and lenses and presets and.

filters and it just goes on and on and on and on and on because of that your style can be all over the map and the way to like narrow it down to try to find your personal style is limit your equipment. So the way that I like to do this is to what feels good to work with. My mom's an artist and she works with oil paint and she's done a lot of different art and created a lot of different art but

She is always, she only works with oil paints anymore and also on really big campuses. That's what feels the best to her. And what feels the best for me is film. I love film. I love my two cameras that I take with me on my shoots are my Pentax 645NI and then my Nikon F100 with a 50 millimeter lens. And oh, and on my Pentax is a 70 millimeter. So they're basically both 50 millimeter look lenses.

So they are very, they interact very much the same. And then also I'm a portrait 400 girl. Sometimes I'll use 800, sometimes I'll use 160, but I stick with portrait 400 to try to create that consistent look. And my style is the same. So find what is best for you, what equipment feels best in your hands, what feels best with your work that you are creating and the work that comes out of it.

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Is it a specific preset? Is it a digital camera? Is it a film camera? Is it a DSLR or is it a mirrorless? Is it a 35 millimeter lens? A lot of people love 35 millimeter lenses and I don't. So it doesn't really matter what other people are doing. It's like what feels best to you. If you don't have a bunch of equipment to try out, you can rent equipment really easily.

and give it a go. You don't necessarily have to have like a stylized shoot to do this. You can just set up something or your family and just take pictures with your family. Trying different lighting scenarios, being able to get that work that you like with the equipment that you have and then sticking with that equipment, even though it's very tempting to keep buying more equipment and more cameras. I am 100 % guilty of this. All right.

The next thing is work, work, work, work, have a goal to take pictures every single day. This is great when you're first starting out to be able to practice, but then also be able to find what you like and then be able to recreate it over and over and over again. So that is your signature style. You know, that's what you like to shoot that, you know, that's what you're willing to work with. And that's the.

work that you're going to be able to give clients or that your art is continually looking like that or whatever. Shoot every single day and then also keep a journal. So I have a session journal and this is either for personal work or client work. I go in with ideas that I have first and I write them down and then I do the shoot and then afterwards I write down what worked.

what didn't, what I liked, what didn't I like, then when I get my images back, I will also go back into the journal and say what worked and what didn't work. This is a great way for me to keep track of what I am wanting to create and then also being able to recreate it over and over again and learning. We all are learning. We're all on this journey and it's totally okay to like have ebbs and flows.

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but to stay with what is authentically you and what you're trying to create. Let me think, what else? Personal style wise, I think that's it. So this was a short and sweet today, guys. If you have any questions, you can definitely leave them in the comments about how to find your personal style. If you have any tips for...

our listeners also comment. I am definitely not an expert in everything and I'm happy to admit that, but this is a specific journey. And for some people, they nail it really early on. They nail exactly what they want to create. They're able to recreate it over and over again. And then they just bust out of the gate with that style and they just are killer at it. And for other people, myself included, it takes a long time.

like years and years, which just sucks. But once you hit that and you find it and it just feels right, you know you've hit your personal style. One other thing, oh, let me back up. One other thing to add to being able to find your personal style is genre. There are so many things that you can do in photography, landscape photography, macro, family, weddings, elopements, newborns, maternity, documentary.

studio, natural lighting, artificial light. Like there are so, so, so, so, so many genres and niches that you can do with photography and being able to find your style. Um, you need to try different things for that. So for instance, when I first started out, I wanted to do weddings. I liked weddings the best. I liked working with people who wanted to follow my directions and I love love like,

is my jam. I just love that connection between spouses and partners and I just wanted to capture that and so I started out with weddings but families just kept coming to me and so I had to keep and I was just starting out so and I wasn't quite exactly sure I didn't quite have my style down or my niche down so I kept doing families and that makes a lot of sense I'm in that stage of my life my kids are

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And older I've been doing, I know a lot of families, so they were hiring me. And the more families I did, the more I fell in love with doing family client work and just appreciating the family unit and how influential it is in everybody's lives and how it becomes who we are, this family background and how we're raised with our ethics and our values and what we're exposed to and our influences. So I...

didn't start out with my niche. I didn't also didn't start out with a film as my niche. I started out with digital like everybody else did, you know, years and years and years ago. And it just never felt good. I never liked it. I'll be freaking honest with you. I bought so many stupid presets trying to find this editing style I want to do because I would edit and I didn't like it. And I would try some, and I was like, well, so -and -so's work is fantastic. Sure. I'll give it a shot with their present.

I mean, I tried everything and I just hated it all. It just felt terrible until I was at Photo Native and I was put, given a film camera in my hand by Richard Photo Lab and I took a bunch of pictures in Santa Barbara and I knew I had found it. I sucked terribly when I first started, but I knew that that's what I wanted to do and I worked my butt.

off to create really consistent beautiful film work for myself and for my clients. So yeah, that was my finding your style journey. I hope that was helpful for you guys. I hope this little tiny podcast is beneficial to you. If it is, I would love for you to leave a review so more people can find this podcast and leave a review on Apple podcasts or Google or Spotify or wherever you find your podcasts.

and also shared on Instagram. If you've liked this episode, just do a direct share to your stories. I would absolutely be so appreciated if you did that. And then also, if you would like to be a guest on the podcast, you can head to the website. It's allisonhatch .allisonhatchphoto .com backslash photographers dash create. And you can send me a

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There's a quick little forum and you can send me your ideas for what you would like to do on the podcast in your end speaking. I would love to have you. I love meeting new photographers, learning about their journey and their work. And that's what this podcast is all about. It's just sharing each other's joy for this art medium. All right, everyone. Thank you so much. I hope you have a fantastic day. Bye.