3 Tips to Develop Your Own Visual Style

Going out to take photos almost everyday has become a habit now. If it’s not street photography I am practicing on shooting whatever I am doing.

I don’t think you can run out of things to shoot. That’s my take on photography. Training your eye is in my opinion the most important thing in photography or in any visual art. Everyone can take a photo nowadays, and that’s really cool but not everyone can shoot with style.

That is what I’m obsessed about.

Today, I wanted to give some tips about finding your style in photography or in your art.

The way that I approach it is through a lot of practice, it may seem kinda obvious but it’s very very important. I cannot stress enough how this will improve your photography tenfold if you put the work in. It might sound easy but I am here to tell you the truth, it takes years and years… (Something about 10,000 hours or whatever hahah)

Secondly, in our social media obsessed world, it’s super easy to be consuming content at a rate that we are not aware that we are doing it. Lots of visual pollution. The way I approach it, is once per week at least, I delete instagram for example, and focus on what, I LIKE TO CREATE. Instead of getting side tracked with what might be reacting well on instagram that particular week.

What comes with that is the ability to get inspired by different forms of media. To me this is so underrated. I am someone who gets inspired a lot by the classics. Most of my ideas and inspiration and school of thoughts are from classics and books etc.

I find my visual inspiration a lot in old photography books, it does not have to be a famous photographer. I love going to the library and just picking up a photography book and going through it. Your mind is assimilating it and absorbing so much without you even knowing.

A lot of my inspiration also comes from movies/tv shows and storytelling content. These techniques have existed for a very long time and they are crucial. Begin by just picking your preferred movie/tv show and watching it again but this time with a point of view of analyzing and learning how every shot is composed and delivered to you. Pay attention to how the light is hitting the subject, the choice of lens, (zoom wide, etc), the type of shot, is it a medium wide, a wide, a tight, all that. This will give you an idea why the director/cinematographer chose this tool for this specific message.

Then go out and try it for yourself, there’s so many ways to do it. You don’t have to exactly recreate your favourite scene but just trying and create something that gives the same feel. Like it could be a scene out of the same movie or by the same director.

For my last tip, you have to brace up for the long run and be at peace with that. Seriously if you are in it for IG reels and tiktok, that’s fine but that is a tool or a delivery platform, not the art form itself.

In my case, knowing that it’s for the long run and knowing how impulsive I am, I develop other passions, like for example, sports, running, playing tennis. You need other things to zone out and cut off to be able to come back in refreshed and be critical of your work. It can take a long time to develop a style that feels truly authentic and honestly it will probably be ever evolving, but that’s the point.

These are just some of my reflections on what I’ve learnt and understood on my path to where I am. We are not born masters, we gotta earn it and I find the journey of learning and getting better incredibly fun.

Everyday is a new day to get better and a new day to see and capture things differently.