How do you find a photography style?

This article was translated from Dutch with the help of AI. Read the original.

One of the questions I get asked most often, and probably one of the nicest, is always: 'how do I get a style?' I have to admit that I am probably the last person you should ask, since I would not exactly define my own work as having a style. I just do whatever.

But people often recognise my work straight away, so apparently I do have a style. And apparently I am the right person for this article.

Right, enough nonsense.

What is a style?

But I never got much further with this concept than some toilet paper and inflatable lips. Probably for the best.

It soon started to lose its appeal. At first it was still going quite well, with a different coloured background now and then. Of course, I needed a ring flash and Frank was going to imitate David Lachapelle.

Well, unfortunately I never even got close. Very soon, my work became boring, repetitive and absolutely recognisable, but not in the way I wanted. It was more: 'Oh look, there he is again with his colours'.

That cannot be the point. So I gave up, style... Whatever.

I also no longer felt like imitating David Lachapelle. Of course, those extreme ideas stayed in the back of my mind, but I had more or less accepted that I would never develop a style. It is simply not possible, so I would just do what I enjoyed.

And in this case, that meant going to a circus museum with a hilarious team.

Or having a model bring a pet along.

And I think that is the trick. It was actually rather stupid of me.

When I was young, I gave guitar lessons at home. One of the first things I taught my students was that copying a style will never work.

That you have to take what you like from every musician, not just guitarists, throw it all into a pot, stir it well, understand what you are doing and then glue everything together.

So you can perfectly alternate a beautiful neoclassical run by Malmsteen with some hefty blues notes and double stops by Hendrix, then put the whole thing in a Brian May style. And voilà. If you do it often enough, you no longer hear that they are separate pieces, but... It is you.

And why do I not do that with my photography? Well, apparently it took me a while to realise.

Little by little, I started enjoying photography again. I stopped desperately trying to copy something I did not have the budget or models for, and simply did what I enjoyed. At that point, I no longer cared what other people thought, fortunately.

At first it was very difficult. There were times when I really wanted to stop taking photographs, or at least stop posting online. Because I find painters such as Rembrandt and Caravaggio incredibly beautiful, my work soon became rather dark.

Add to that a fondness for horror and science fiction, and the picture gradually began to develop. It was not exactly what was being shared on forums at the time. It was clearly much darker, with far more contrast.

More muted colours with one colour, often red, really standing out, Caravaggio, but combined with over-the-top styling, expression and so on.

Long story short, it was definitely different. And many people did not like that. Still, I stubbornly continued doing what I enjoyed. I refined it further and further. Not just in terms of techniques, as at some point you have more or less mastered those, but especially in terms of bringing atmosphere into a photograph.

You never stop learning in that area. Everything from lens flares and smoke to colours, hard contrasts and so on. Always with that storytelling element, or movement, but something has to happen.

And of course it helped enormously that around that time I met Nadine, who, like me, has a huge fondness for over-the-top styling. That worked well together.

And there you have it. Little by little, people's opinions began to change and I was actually given a style. Well, nice, but that is not what I want. And I think this is the point at which you develop your style. The moment you stop chasing it and work PURELY and ONLY from feeling and passion.

Model photography was going well now, but my street and travel photography was no more than that of a tourist with an expensive camera, taking pictures that he alone thought were worth taking.

I am still not a 'real' street or travel photographer, but thanks to a conversation with Jay Maisel, I started using every aspect of my model photography in my street and travel photography.

Even in my private snapshots. The only thing I really changed was the way I looked. Just as with model photography, I look at HOW I photograph the scene, FROM WHICH viewpoint, AT WHICH moment, with WHAT kind of light, and so on.

And believe me, you can really do that in a fraction of a second more than when you normally press the shutter, but the difference is enormous.

And the 'strange' thing is that although my street and travel photography is completely different from my model photography, in my view, people still see a style in both.

No matter how hard I try to undo it, by finding a matching colour and atmosphere for every trip, visit or series, by experimenting with other techniques, such as black mist filters, people still recognise my photographs as my style...

So I think that at the end of this article, we can say that finding your own style is actually about letting go of all styles and simply doing what your heart tells you to do.

Because just as we know the character of our wives, friends and girlfriends, a piece of the creator's character also appears in the image when art is made.

However hard you try to hide it, your true nature always comes out when you create completely 'freely' without desperately trying to copy something. In photography too, although we call it... Style.

But never forget that besides lighting, colour additions, editing and so on, a real photograph stands or falls by the connection you have with the team you work with. And of course, especially the model.

Nadine has worked with us a lot over the years. Often, it is precisely those moments when you both get on with it, without thinking about whether other people will find it beautiful or enjoyable, that the nicest things come from. But I think it is always the small details that finish it off.

Like the sign showing the direction and the bag here. Remove those and the photograph falls apart for me.

But you can also think of certain 'characters' with which you could effectively build an entire series.

Unfortunately, a style is not one single thing. It cannot be put in a box. It is something from you, and others, that you put into your work time and again, and through which people recognise not just the photograph but also that invisible signature.

And a copy of a signature is never as strong as the original, so find your own. That does not mean that a copy of a photograph cannot be stronger than the original.

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