You Don't Need to Find Your Style Yet
When I started creating, I thought having a style meant I needed to decide what mine was.
My colours.
My editing.
My aesthetic.
The kind of photographs I would take.
The things people would eventually recognize as me.
But there's a tiny problem with trying to find your style before you've made enough things:
You don't have enough evidence yet.
Your style isn't hiding somewhere waiting for you to discover it.
You're building it.
Your style comes after the experimenting
Think about the creators you recognize immediately.
Their work probably has patterns.
Maybe it's the way they use light. The colours they gravitate toward. Their sense of humour. The subjects they photograph. The way they tell stories.
But those patterns didn't necessarily exist because one day they sat down and decided:
This is my style now.
They made things.
Then they made more things.
They experimented.
They copied techniques to understand them.
They changed their minds.
They went through phases.
And eventually, certain things kept coming back.
That's where it gets interesting.
Look for what keeps returning
Instead of asking:
What's my style?
Try asking:
What do I keep choosing?
Look through your camera roll.
Your saved posts.
Your Pinterest boards.
Your old projects.
Even the things you loved years ago.
What keeps appearing?
Maybe you're always drawn to movement.
Maybe you love soft light.
Maybe every project somehow becomes pink. 😂
Maybe you photograph tiny details nobody else notices.
Maybe your work is colourful even when you swear you're going minimalist this time.
Those repetitions are clues.
You are allowed to have phases
This one would've saved me so much overthinking.
Your work does not need to look the same forever.
You're going to change.
Of course your creativity is going to change with you.
There might be a year when you're obsessed with bright colours.
Then suddenly everything is cinematic.
Then you're photographing everything with flash.
Then you're fascinated by something you never expected to care about.
Good.
Follow it.
A creative phase isn't evidence that you haven't found your style.
The phases are how you develop one.
Don't build the cage too early
Sometimes we become so determined to be recognizable that we stop letting ourselves be curious.
I can't post that. It doesn't match.
That's not really my aesthetic.
People know me for this other thing.
And suddenly the style that was supposed to make our work distinctive becomes a list of rules.
I don't want that for you.
Especially while you're still discovering what you love.
Make the weird thing.
Try the completely different edit.
Photograph something you've never photographed before.
Let yourself surprise yourself.
Your spark: Make one thing this week that doesn't match your current aesthetic.
Make more than you analyze
If you've made ten photographs and you're trying to determine your signature photography style...
Take another hundred.
If you've posted three videos and you're wondering what your content identity should be...
Make ten more.
Sometimes the answer isn't another moodboard.
It's volume.
Every new thing you create gives you another piece of evidence:
I liked that.
I hated doing that.
Ooh, I want to try that again.
Why do I ALWAYS choose this?
That's you learning your taste.
Your taste matters more than your aesthetic
An aesthetic is what something looks like.
Your taste goes deeper.
It's what you notice.
What you find beautiful.
What makes you laugh.
What you choose to photograph.
What you leave outside the frame.
What you keep coming back to even when trends change.
Two people can use the exact same camera, location and editing preset and still create completely different photographs.
Because they're looking at the world through two different people.
That's the part nobody can copy.
One day, look backwards
Here's the funny part.
You might not recognize your style while you're creating it.
Other people might notice it first.
Or one day you'll look through years of your work and suddenly see little threads connecting everything.
The colours.
The curiosity.
The way you photograph people.
The ideas you keep returning to.
And you'll realize:
Oh.
There I am.
You didn't find your style.
You left enough evidence to finally see it.
So if you're still figuring yours out, good.
Don't rush to define it.
Stay curious.
Make a lot.
Change your mind.
Follow what catches your attention.
Your job right now isn't to have a style.
Your job is to create enough that one has the chance to emerge. ✨