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Five years ago I published a brief piece about my journey in finding a photographic style. This article is designed help photographers early on in this avocation to advance at least one recognizable style in rapid fashion. Having a style is one key to having your work seen and appreciated by others, whether those viewers are doing so as potential buyers or just fans of art. This article is the first of a short series of articles on getting seen. 

Not all photographers care that much about being seen. Some may ask if it’s necessary to develop a style if you don't care about others appreciating your art. No, it’s not! You can certainly just capture a pleasing shot and be satisfied with that. Perhaps you would print it for your own home or give your prints away (at cost?) to close friends and family. But getting a few fans can certainly be rewarding in more ways than just helping to pay for all that camera gear. 

An advisor once stated, “If you lay ten of your prints on the floor with 100 other prints a third party should be able pick out all ten of yours.” It is interesting that it was much easier for me to say that I had a single style back then, since I had not photographed as many subjects. Now I have several styles and continue to work hard on refining these.

Many photographers unknowingly develop a style. Some of those I follow on Facebook or Instagram fall in this group. This style is usually defined by the way they process their photos to meet their own preferences. Perhaps they like high saturation. Photographers present saturated photographs for several reasons other than just a personal preference for saturated photos. These include the way their eyes see color. We have lots of variations in our color interpretation, especially between women and men. Getting lots of positive feedback from friends on an image will make one tend to produce more similar images, whether other highly successful artists would agree with that feedback or not. Or the photographer may like low contrast with few true whites or blacks. Or their photos may exhibit a lot of “crunchiness? from extra sharpening that was effective on one image, so now they apply it to every image whether it works or not.

These photographers’ works may or may not find their ways into galleries. But a planned development of a style should give you a greater chance at landing in a gallery if that's a goal. Shooting whatever gets in your sights, however, has little chance of helping you achieve that goal. This doesn’t mean you should stop shooting wherever you go, because there is great deal of learning and pleasure that goes shooting lots of subjects, but you should work with intent if you want to be in a gallery. 

Since I am not in a gallery, you might say that I am not an authority. But I do speak to many gallery owners in my travels and have considered being in a local higher end gallery. That local gallery has only shown interest in one of my styles because that was the one they thought they could sell. I won’t show my own work in this article, but the concurrent article on using an app to design your own gallery preview shows examples of what works best for my photography. You should be able to take from that to apply to your own photography.

Set a goal to become the best in your geographic area or area of expertise! Traveling up the California coast, Barbara and I stopped at a gallery in Sea Ranch. We ventured into the gallery of Paul Kozal. You should take a look at his Cypress Hedgerow gallery in his portfolio. He is THE local expert photographer for this genre and it felt like he had cornered that market. As a local, he has been able to photograph the hedgerows in all weather conditions and he has been able to gain access to properties that would be off limits to the rest of us. He has returned to the same scenes over and over again to capture the very best angles and light. If you live in an area that affords you the opportunity that Paul has had, shoot the heck out of it! You will also note that Paul shoots lots of other stuff in what would be considered different styles, but there a couple of styles where his work might be considered the best.

In another example of concentrating on one subject matter, take a look at the work of my friend, Dale O’Dell. Dale does not even have his own unique website, but his petroglyph series has been picked up for a museum exhibit in Tucson. His body of work has gotten quite large because he is willing to travel just about anywhere in the Southwest to capture additional petroglyphs in the light that matches his other petroglyphs. Again, this is not his only style, but it is the one he is most known for. Presenting a larger body of work on this single subject makes him a recognized expert. Dale does one other thing. He writes a details or a story about each of the images he presents. This makes his work more compelling to viewers and likely helps him sell much more of his art. 

Cecil Whitt is the pre-eminent photographer of the Badlands of New Mexico. He did not achieve this unofficial title by accident. He lives close by and the work he shows is almost all during the blue hour. From his portfolio, one would suspect he is allergic to the sun. Once Cecil became the most copied expert at his local badlands, he took his style to more distant locations. I suspect others (maybe me) will try to copy his style in some of those spots, too. But please try to develop your own style.

To get started on developing a style, make a list of what turns you on as you continue your photography growth. Focus on subject matter that is dear to your heart and locations that are close to home or that you are willing to travel to. Then see what you can do to narrow your area of concentration. Here are some examples:

1. You choose to photograph horses because you love horses. Now narrow down that area to rodeo horses, horses during roundup, horses on trails in the forest, or horses on the beach, etc.
2. You want to photograph all the Victorian houses in your town. Create a series on their front doors, doorknobs, their gingerbread trim or porch swings.
3. You love waterfalls, but just about everyone seems to be an expert in long exposure waterfall images. Think hard about how you can separate your images from all those other photographers. Perhaps you can take all the images at night with artificial lighting. Or shoot the shoreline when temperatures are freezing. Maybe you can create more dreamy waterfalls with a Lensbaby or a Lensball. 
4. You like to do macro photography of flowers, but it’s a challenge to make your images stand or to present them in a certain style. Try photographing just one variety of flower (say roses), or just blue flowers, or purchase or create a custom background to go behind the flowers you photograph. 
5. Birds are your thing. Narrow it down for awhile to birds of prey, or ducks, or hummers! Before long you will be known as the best photographer in your area for that genre. That’s a ton better than being just another bird photographer. 

These are just a few ideas to get you started. Spend some time with pen and paper writing down ideas. You won’t have to limit yourself to that specialty area, but if you present just that specialty area for awhile you will find the quality of your work improving greatly and at a more rapid rate.