Your Photography Style

As I designed my new website, I looked at all my categories and laughed.

I shoot:

– Weddings
– Engagements
– Toddlers & Children & Newborns
– Models/Actors (headshots)
– Families
– Portraits
– Birth Stories

I think the only thing I don’t shoot are people and their dogs.  Yet.  No, I’m kidding, it’s just not my thing and I’ll leave it for those who love doing that and are much better than me.

So you can say I shoot anything and everything that moves (aside from pets).  Was that OK?  Some specialize in just kids, or just weddings…but I just can’t pick right now.  I specialize in weddings and engagements.  I just love families too and I’ll always shoot them when asked.

I was waiting in line at Chipotle when I ran into Kenya and both of us were getting our meals to go to head home and work.  Then we decided to eat together, take a break, and fellowship.  I told her about my new site I was doing and how I laughed about how I do it all.  Then she mentioned style and I came up with this analogy I knew I had to share with all of you.

A style is not what you shoot.  It’s HOW you shoot.

J. Crew for example.  They do weddings, men, women, and children.  If you see any of those outfits, you instantly know that’s J. Crew.  They have a style.  (And now I’m thinking about my beautiful May bride Kate who is going to be wearing a J. Crew dress…)

Images from J.Crew website.

Get my drift?  So, you can shoot whatever you want, but as long as that signature style of yours is there, you’re fine.

Now, how do you find your style?  It’s not about how you process your images in photoshop.  Oh dear God, make sure it’s not that!  It should be your composition, your settings, the way you see LIGHT, and the way you pose your subjects, or the props you use.  The audience just has to know that’s a Diana Elizabeth photograph, watermark or not.

It’s OK if you’re not there yet.  It takes a while.  It takes trial, error, a whole lot of error, until you feel like your images sit well with your soul.

By the way, have you reserved your seat yet for my 4-week online course?  SIGN UP NOW!

Diana Elizabeth once processed an image blue.  Yep, she did.  Those darn LR presets were just so tempting!  It’s on her blog in the farrrr back.  She might delete it, but again, she may not because it was clearly just a fun thing she did with one of her vacation pics.  Never again…never again.