What is Your Style?

A horned puffin soars directly into my lens. My personal photography style is partially influenced by the Japanese concept of wabi-sabi, where there is a simple, minimalist vibe that embraces some imperfection. I’m always looking for this type of feel and negative space in my compositions. I rarely, if ever, use Photoshop, because for me the challenge that comes into my work is all about getting it exactly how I want it in-camera, while in the field.
Photo and text by: Annalise Kaylor

Years ago, after a long day of working together on an assignment, my friend Sam and I bellied up to a bar in Nashville for some hot chicken, a cold beer, and some long overdue catching up. After small talk about our family and mutual friends, we eventually ended up going where a lot of photographers take the conversation after a little bit of time and got into talking about our work.

Sam, with his years more experience than me, always has some sort of insight for me to chew on, even though he didn’t realize it. I asked him what inspired his transition from photojournalism work to working with tourism boards and specializing in video. For him, it was about his love of the outdoors as much as it was about being better able to provide for his growing family. He explained that while he loved being a photojournalist and he learned a lot, he wished he had found his current work a lot earlier on. He was just so much happier now.

Then he asked me what I’d do differently if I had to start all over again. Without missing a beat, I replied, “I’d be a conflict or combat photographer.”

Like most people who know me and hear me say that, he was taken aback. It seems like it’s completely out of left field, but if you ever sit down with me and hear my stories from working in various conflict zones, you’ll quickly notice that my eyes catch a new fire when I’m talking about those days. It’s not so much that it’s the subject of my work, it’s my why - guide the heart to move the mind. I want to show and not tell and I want to bring those stories to life for the people in my world who will never have the chance to see them firsthand.

Sam nodded and said, “Yeah, I thought that’s the direction I would go, too. But then I got married and things changed.”

He went on to explain that while still working for a newspaper, he was asked to go on a conflict-based assignment in Iraq and it came with the obvious risks involved. The photographer and documentarian in him saw this assignment exactly as I would have: the storytelling opportunity of a lifetime. His wife, though, just a year or so into their marriage, had a very different take.

She said, “I understand why you think you want to take this assignment but help me understand why it has to be YOU who does this work. Is there something unique about your photography that means only you can get the job done? What photos are YOU going to make that no other photographer there can make?”

He couched that she wasn’t trying to be difficult, she was trying to understand what made him feel like his “why” was worth the risk of going into a conflict zone to produce photographs. What about his work would communicate the situation more clearly, with more impact than the work of anyone else would?

He told me that the more he thought about it, the more he realized that he couldn’t find a single thing that he would bring to the assignment that another photographer could not. Thus, he turned it down.

I think about this conversation with Sam all the time. The impact of this casual conversation on my work was profound. It forced me to address some of the tougher questions we have as photographers - what makes our photos different? Why are you the one who needs to make this image? What is it about the way you photograph something that brings this subject or idea to life?

In other words, what is your style?

We have all sorts of thoughts and perspectives around style. For some, the concept of style is the most important part of their photography. For others, it’s the least important part of what they create. Style, though, is fluid and can be both superficial and essential. It can be something that is constantly evolving or it can be an application of something new.

Virtually every time I ask early-career photographers about their style, the response starts with something technical. Their sense of photographic style is appropriated by the “what” more than anything else. The answer usually includes something about how they post-process their images, like their preference for a clean edit, their use of HDR, or a preset they created to overlay all of their images.

Thinking about photography at this superficial level holds back many otherwise talented photographers. It binds photographers to constantly change their technical style to keep up with trends. The problem with this approach to finding your style is the reliance on the superficial concept of style to make the photograph engaging. You have to constantly reinvent your work so it looks new. Over time, as you keep up with all the latest and greatest trends, you end up with a body of work that looks outdated and the only thread of connection you have with your past and present work is one of superficiality itself.

Then you have the other side of the coin. You have the notion that style is all you - it’s your approach to your photography and your visual statement that demonstrates why you create your photographs. It’s how you express yourself and your point of view through your photography. Over time, you elevate what you are trying to say with your work, but people still connect with your past work because it’s as engaging and as expressive as you intended it at the time.

It doesn’t rely on a trend to feel relevant, the subject and the photo stand on their own as relevant.

Authentic, substantive style is your visual language. It’s your intentional choice of images as nouns, verbs, and adjectives. It’s how they are woven together to communicate you, your ideas, and your point of view.

There are certain photographs that we see and instantly know who made them, even if we have never seen those images before. Everything about them communicates “This is a photograph by…” It’s never because of just one thing or because of a superficial gimmick. It’s always because the elements of their photography come together in a way that is uniquely theirs. It’s the combination of subject, composition, execution of making the photo, and the way the image is presented.

For example, Lynsey Addario is one of the photographers who inspire me the most. So are Ami Vitale, Jo-Anne McArthur, Suzi Eszterhas, Mitty, and Paul Nicklen. I can look at a random selection of photographs and instantly point out which image belongs to which photographer just via their style. The same for Joel Sartore’s “The Photo Ark” project - the style is distinct and I imagine any of you reading this who have seen even one of those images can recall exactly what I’m talking about. This is style.

Finding your style is different than figuring out your why. If your why is your reason for doing what you do, then your style is expressing that why in your own visual voice.

In this current state of photography, never before has photography been so available to so many people. If our photographs are expressions of who we are, then it follows that more people making photographs means more ways to say more things. As a result, the world of visual storytelling is loud and cluttered and it takes more than before to cut through all of that noise.

The beautiful thing about identifying your style and homing in on the elements of photography that matter most to you is that it frees your brain up from trying to be everything to every potential client.

There are many situations where I am not the right photographer for a specific job simply because it isn’t my style. My stock photo might not be picked over another because it’s too simple or has too much negative space. Jared talks often about how, for years, he got feedback that his photography was “too artful” or “too fine art” for magazine work.

When we do portfolio reviews, one of the most common things we see is a collection of images that shows breadth but not necessarily focus. Our cultural instinct is to show the entirety of our capabilities rather than our expertise in one concentration. But in the business of photography, specialization is a crucial part of building your name and your brand. It’s usually once someone has carved out that spot for themselves that they begin finding success in broad fashion.

Your “why” is one leg of your tripod. It is your purpose, your reason for your photography.

Your “style” is the second leg of that tripod. It serves as a fully realized vision and aesthetic expression of your why.

Your “how” is the third leg, which is where your technical execution layers in the dimension needed in your work to bring the why and the style to life.

If all three legs of the tripod aren’t engaged, nothing is stable and everything wobbles. You end up with esthetically pleasing photos that are boring or cliche. You end up with technically perfect photos that lack depth, emotion, and connection. And you can have emotional, stunning images that are lost in the sea of technical issues.

We’ll dive into that last bit and how to pull all three together for a strong visual voice next week.