what's going on everybody today I'm going to show you how to find your own
unique style as a photographer the best way to stand out from the crowd is to be
unique original authentic and different from everyone else so how do you do that
today I'm going to show you how all right so how do we find our unique style
so the first thing you're going to do is gather a lot of pictures about a hundred
or so pictures you can use a computer or you can use a magazine so you can tear
them pictures out of a magazine you can go on different websites to find
pictures one website I like is one Island comm you can type in different
categories that you like and you'll find all these pictures that come up alright
so what I did is I went online and I visited a lot of different photographers
that I liked and I just made a folder with all their work in it so this is all
the work of all the photographers work that I like stuff that will really push
me to the next level and it's not necessarily you know exactly what I want
to do but it's just stuff that I'm drawn to so don't think about it too much
don't overanalyze it just pick some photos they really resonate with you
that you like for whatever reason and I chose 162 photos but should be around a
hundred or so I would say would be a good good amount I went kind of
overboard but you don't need this amount but still it's good to have plenty of
photos to choose from so now what you're gonna do is I'm gonna bring all these
photos up in Lightroom and then I'm gonna choose my favourite 20 to 30 so
whatever software you want to use you can just use you can just use the
browser that you have just make sure you have all the photos open to look at
alright now that I have all these images open what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna look
through them and I'm going to pick my favorite 20 to 30 images so you should
do the same thing just find that your favorite 20 to 30 images
right and you know if you really like it you can just check it so here are some
images that I like and I'm just gonna go through it and if I really like it I'm
just gonna tag it so really liked that one so I'm gonna tag it all right and
then just keep going through it okay all right so what I've done is I've
taken those hundred plus photos and I've narrowed them down to my favorite twenty
to thirty photos which I have right here and as you can see they're in no
particular order there are some obvious similarities but
what you want to do is you want to look over each one of them come familiar with
each one each photo and then you want to start writing things down that come to
mind when you see each photo okay you should write down not only what you see
but what you feel because your emotion is really important all right so in
order to help you out with this what I've done is I've made a chart and I
think you should make the same type of thing so we're gonna go to that chart so
this chart or this list of descriptors has seven categories now you can make
your own categories I made these categories because I think they're the
ones that are helpful for me and what I really think about when I shoot but you
can add to it you can take some away but this is a good way to start so what I've
done is I've done subject light mood and feel colors composition and space depth
and location alright so as I look at these photos I'm gonna be looking for
some commonality some things that I see occurring in many different photos that
I chose so out of those twenty to thirty photos which things do I see coming up
over and over well for example I see girls and guys in their 20s and 30s I
see both very masculine strong yeah I see very feminine as well as you can see
we can look at these photos let me just make them a little bigger so you can see
the women even though they're athletes or fitness models they're they're very
feminine they're very good-looking and the guys are very very masculine okay
now I'm not saying they're like a macho man but at the same time they're very
masculine in who they are their approach very stylized very refined alright so
now let's go back to our descriptors list so then I might say you know
they're all good-looking a lot of good-looking people they have strengths
both on the outside and inside their athletes where the focus is on the
subject so they're the main focus of the photo they're the prominent person in
the photo they have props such as you know the
balls that they use or the instrument I'm trying to tell a story my photos or
something deeper within the photo that's being told I try to make it authentic to
who the person is they all seem to be skilled so the lighting is really
important that's why I put subject first so subject is your most important who
you're shooting but then I think equally is important these two see these three
are probably the most important thing the subject the light and the mood
because if you get those three right you're really gonna have a good photo
then you know these are just technical things like composition colors you can
learn that as well as depth and location you can learn all these four but these
three are really you can learn them but they have to be authentic to who you are
so these are the three most important in my mind the subject light in the mood or
feel so I like it soft it looks soft it looks diffused light you know it's very
controlled indirect and cinematic the indoor shots are cinematic the outdoor
shots are backlit you see a lot of textures in the shot and are there added
in Photoshop later and on location that's shot at during sunrise and sunset
and you see a lot of off-camera flash so the mood as you see there's no smiling
there's inner confidence let's go back see there's no smiling in any of these
shots this guy is emotional but he's the only
one really it seems to be like some mystique
they all seem to be confidence but it's like an inner confidence so let's go
back to our descriptor list they seem to be you know - calm quiet feel there's
yearning for something greater it's like a dream a defining moment they're trying
to like find courage they obviously seem very dedicated to their craft to what
they do all right so these are the people I'm attracted to coincidentally
these descriptors kind of also fit my personality too so you'll find that
often the photos you choose are the ones that tell a lot about your personality
and not necessarily but I feel it says something about you maybe subconscious
it may be something conscious but it does tell something about you so next
are the colors so red yellow and green as well as some black and white I can
see some overlays some gels in there it's a cinematic and you know slightly
muted feel I see some fog in there so you might recognize certain colors
coming up let's go back as you can see these yellows right here even this is
yellow even yellow right here you know very muted slightly muted there black
and white there but then you see this yellow red yellow and red again maybe a
little green yellow and red yellow and red red over here some yellow mainly red
red red so I'm drawn to the color red even in this black and white has some
reddish tone to it and then some green right there and then some green right
here yellow again some yellowish tones there yellow again that's that's the
colors that I'm drawn to and then this black and white then obviously we see
the fog right here there's some fog and some backlit and stuff here going on
alright so now let's go back to our descriptors now the composition most of
mine are environmental portrait both the classic and then like a half body I
don't usually take full body shots but it's the right background right pose I
will I like to shoot at eye level and I like to keep it stylized so as you can
see it's mostly at eye level it's mostly like half-body there's a full body right
there so we needed the whole pose but other than that it's mostly like half
body as you can see even an elephant can't see his full body so that's my
style right you might be different maybe more zoomed in maybe you're just the
head maybe you're zoomed in and maybe you're just like shooting like that as
opposed to the full body let's go back to the descriptor list so that's your
composition in your space you can work that out it's very simple backgrounds
that I have or your backgrounds busy it's a lot going on or is it not okay
now my depth my depth is the subject is isolated not extremely shallow not wide
and mainly I don't have a lot of people that I chose in the pictures mainly just
the subject so I prefer to take pictures of one person at a time you may like two
people three people group shots they that may fit your aesthetic better for
whatever reason I'm drawn to just one person I really like to concentrate on
that one person what's going on with that one person all right and then the
last one location I like to have it in an authentic place on location or I use
a studio backdrop so as you can see the background is are all very simple even
this one is just a dramatic shot so the background fits perfectly with that
elephant there all right so I have to be authentic with the other ones
I think it's authentic to what they're wearing in their style right that
backdrop fit that backdrop fit them so the color has to fit the color tones and
it has to fit their style notice the background matches the color tone of the
person as well not many contrasting this is contrasting but it's very unusual
very different and that's mainly for my Halloween stuff which might be a little
different otherwise it's a more stylized simple background alright guys so get
your group of photos get something like this and write those descriptors out
take your time take an hour or two if you have to and really think about it
get into them another thing you could do is if you write out those descriptors
you could write them all out and you can make even a bigger list and I have right
here and then you can just highlight the ones that really stick out to you that
you see are very common all right and once you get those highlighted things
you'll be able to have a more accurate list so once you get the highlighted
descriptors the ones that are coming up repeatedly you'll have a more limited
and more narrow focused list last thing like I'd like to say is
when you're done only keep the list of descriptors so you're gonna get rid of
this so the images are nice it's nice to have these images but these are other
people's work you want to create your own work so what you're gonna do is
you're gonna look at that for inspiration then you're gonna get rid of
it the only thing you're gonna keep is this list of descriptors right here so
you're gonna print this out and you're gonna keep it and you're gonna use it
and carry it with you for each shoot that you do then you'll have your own
unique style and feel better about having a more specific vision limiting
yourself to the list will alleviate a lot of stress and help you grow as a
photographer being able to shoot everything will kind of stress you out
because then it just never ends and you won't differentiate yourself from other
photographers like I said right here it will help you stick out from every other
photographer so this list what you do and only you do what you like will be
unique to you so if you take this list and you take photos for three four five
months and you do it at least once a week you do a new shoe you're gonna
develop a really unique portfolio and a portfolio that will really stick out
from other photographers so as you can see this is my portfolio right here this
is on my old website actually I'm in the process of putting up my new website but
as you can see my style it's organized by all these things location subject
color palette palette mood feeling depth all you can see you can see it's
organized and it flows very cohesively alright so once you do this over
extended period of time you'll develop a portfolio like this and then this will
help you develop your own unique style alright guys I hope you found that
helpful don't forget to keep that list of descriptors with you on your next
shoot and every shoot after that because it'll really help you find your unique
style don't forget to subscribe to my channel so you can get more videos like
this and if you haven't done so download my free ebook with all my favorite gear
that'll help you find the best gear for you and I give examples descriptions all
that is right here and you can find more of my work right over here all
right guys have a good day and I'll see you in the next video