Grappling with defining a style in photography.

Texan. For a project with Live Oak Theatre. 

In the "pre-Zach" days of my theater photography.

Right up front I'll say that attempting to create a "style" for your photography immediately is like being a non-swimmer and wanting to jump right in and compete in a twelve mile, open water swimming race. We'll be pulling you out of the water in the first few hundred yards....if you make it that far. 

I think a style becomes a subconscious (but routine) part of your approach to photography only after you've gotten comfortable with all the technical stuff and you've got thousands and thousands of photographs under your belt. Then you start to feel an almost magnetic pull to approach visual projects in certain ways that are different from the decisions others would make with the same scenes or encounters. It's a natural evolution that comes from trying and rejecting thousands of choices and then narrowing in on the ones that do work for you. For instance, you may crop your portraits in a certain way (tighter or looser, top of the head closer or further away from the top of the frame, main subject off center a certain way, etc.) that makes you feel "comfortable" with your particular choice. 

Over time you'll find that certain colors, or combinations of colors, are more attractive to you. You'll find that a particular range of skin tones, when rendered in black and white, seem more natural. And you'll come to understand that your style comes in to being a bit like the process of sorting data with a computer; you have a set of sub-conscious parameters (like filters) that make you satisfied with aspects of an image, and as you do your decade or so of trial and error you eliminate the various parts of a photograph that you don't like and emphasize the things you do like. But the process runs continually in the background. 

Trying to force a style is like trying to hear the sound of one brain clapping...

Many times a helpful exercise for me is to pull prints from across several decades that I really, really love and sit with them, trying to understand the common threads that run through each of the images. You do the same thing when you look through photo books by photographers whose work you admire. Their work usually contains many of the same touchstones that also appear in your work. By identifying the work of your peers, and the inspirational artists that you are most attracted to, you are also refining your own vision by, in some way, affirming that your particular point of view works. By acknowledging your attraction to  recurring elements in your work that also appear in the work of other artists you've selected you solidify your approach to interpreting what you see.

One of the nice things about this blog site for me is that I now have a catalog, online, of over 10,000 images that I've uploaded over the past ten years to share with you. Not all of them got shared but a  majority did. Now I can go back through the catalog, looking at large thumbnails, to see what threads run through many of them and in which I can see both a progression in my personal photographic style that comes from constantly photographing as well as a distillation process that seems to be running concurrently. The review process is very energizing to me since it reminds me of the time and resources I've expended to look in earnest. And tells me how I might keep moving along the visual line I've created for myself. The review also tends to kick my butt to keep me working and playing with images. It's hard work but fun work.

Or, I could just try downloading some PhotoShop actions and ......... naw. That's the definition of giving up.

I must have been frightened by rectangles as a small child because I sure do like the square. But again, maybe part of my style is the comfort I feel with the boundaries of the square. YMMV.

Have fun out there. Or not. It's largely up to you.