How would you identify my style...if at all

Friend asked an interesting question.

He said if you want to be successful in photography, you have to be able to tell the client what kind of style your work is.

I didn't really have an answer.

Can you critique my work and at the same time tell me if it would fall under a certain type of style.

Apart from the few odd pictures that dont belong, I believe I am keeping some sort of consistency with my photos.

https://www.viewbug.co​m/member/PredragJ

You don't have it yet.

How would you identify your style?

I don't see a style. I would highly suggest looking at the work of Edward Weston. His peppers look like nudes and his nudes look his clouds and his clouds look like his nudes that looks like his peppers. Also pick up the book The Americans by Robert Frank or Cape Light by Meyerowitz. Those photographers all have a very distinctive style.

PJmak wrote in post #18936662
He said if you want to be successful in photography, you have to be able to tell the client what kind of style your work is.

One of the dumbest statements being made in this industry.

Left Handed Brisket wrote in post #18936685
One of the dumbest statements being made in this industry.

True from money standpoint. You just need to follow [Skillfully] to whatever trends are popular [most prominent in color grading]

Like most peoples, random.

I kind of agree with that

olafs osh wrote in post #18936690
True from money standpoint. You just need to follow [Skillfully] to whatever trends are popular [most prominent in color grading]

Or better yet you are the one creating the trend.

When you work professionally you either exceed your clients expectations consistently or you will not stay in business. Many full time professionals also do their own personal work. I do. The work I do for clients is usually a collaboration with other visual professionals but in the end it is the clients. My personal work is all mine.

Wanted to also add that in many forums we concentrate on one image. You probably will never develop a style chasing the one great image. I would suggest working in bodies of work. Images that all relate in some way. Like pieces of a puzzle. Each important supporting a more important whole. Remember one great image will no more make you a great than one great at bat will put a baseball player in the hall of fame. It is a consistent body of work that will make you a great photographer and it more than likely show you your style.

PJmak wrote in post #18936662
Can you critique my work and at the same time tell me if it would fall under a certain type of style. . . .

https://www.viewbug.co​m/member/PredragJ

Instead of telling a client/prospect "I work in the _____ style," you might direct the person to your page. Clients may not know styles by name anyway.

Many of the photos there remind me of illustrations used in magazine ads, more for travel or lifestyle features than for products, but I don't know what to call that.

May I suggest not using more than one photo of the same cat? It looks unprofessional, as if you'd recruited your cat to pad out (pun unintended) the collection because you didn't have enough good shots of a variety of subjects. In fact, two cat pictures might even be too many, even if different cats, unless you make a specialty of animal portraits–only because there are so many amateur cat pictures on the Web.

In the cereal photo, the milk is too blue.

Not sure I am totally in synch here. For example Olafs Osh gas a style - I would say he works in shadows in a documentarian way. Don't think I've seen anything with bold colors, or following the hyper colors and saturation of Instagram stuff. In the sports forum, there are many there who prioritize ultra sharpness and colors subtle detail is lost. A chap in motorsports stuff... its easy to identify his post because he does grand sweeping shoots - not the ordinary super sharp close up stuff.

My personal stuff I like B/W or very subdued colors. If you were to see the stuff I do for myself, it is very different than what I deliver for sports publication. Two very different beast. I recently turned into a SID a shot I really liked which was a b/w gymnastics shot. He basically said is was gorgeous, but what in the heck was he supposed to do with it. Hey, I can try, right?

For the most part I would say your stuff follows the current instagram style shooting. Very much in the hyper realistic genre. Its all very good, but not highly distinctive. I think that is where you got the "no style" from. It is a style, but its not one that will set you apart from the pack.

A style can be how you treat colors. Or angles at which you view things. On 500px there is this lady that does amazing work with Dogs... it has a style and a color palette she keeps to. Try to think... if there were one subject that I would be known for... what is it.... and then work variations around that them for your "portfolio" shots. Shoot what you want for yourself... but if your are trying to create a commercial presence, the person you talked to is right.... you should be know for something.... pick what that something is.

In the case of Olafs Osh - his is black and whiteemphasiszing dark and shadows, that tell a story.

Makes any sense?

A style is more than technique though that can be part of it. A style is a combination of things like how one composes, which is not to be confused RoT. Vision, which is the way a photographer sees. How one exposes and then process the images. This can take decades to achieve.
Here's a few words by Weston
"so called “composition” becomes a personal thing, to be developed along with technique, as a personal way of seeing." - Edward Weston

Maybe a little insight into one of the greatest photography books and an amazing body of work and a photographer that had a definite style. Robert Frank.
https://www.youtube.co​m/watch?v=mHtRZBDOgag

Also a great piece on Winogrand
https://www.amazon.com …tographable/dp/​B07MR65358

Probably the greatest compliment that you can get as a photographer is when people start knowing that it is one of your photographs before they see the signature. When that starts happening consistently you are starting to get there.

PJmak wrote in post #18936662
He said if you want to be successful in photography, you have to be able to tell the client what kind of style your work is.

I didn't really have an answer.

Neither do I.

If a prospective client asked me what my style was, I would tell them to look at my portfolio and tell me what it is. My next question would be: what "style" do you want? You want black and white? Sepia tones? Dreamy? Ethereal? High key? Low key? High contrast? Low contrast? Gothic? Tilted? Zombie? Movement blur? etc. etc. etc.

Having not taken a history of photography course ever, I have never benefited from the pretentious discussion of one style vs. another and how this early photographer had a path-breaking style and how the work of everybody else who takes a picture reminiscent of his/her "style" is being derivative. Who cares? It's all posturing. I just take the freaking picture.

If my friend asked me what my style was, I'd have to restrain myself from saying something derogatory that couldn't be printed here.

I'm also a writer. I grow weary of people asking if I found my "voice" yet. How should I know? Yet when people read my pieces without my name on it, they tell me they can tell I wrote it. (It must be characteristic misspellings and grammatical errors.)

I guess my eye/brain connection is somehow defective. Oh well.

OhLook wrote in post #18936763
Instead of telling a client/prospect "I work in the _____ style," you might direct the person to your page. Clients may not know styles by name anyway.

Many of the photos there remind me of illustrations used in magazine ads, more for travel or lifestyle features than for products, but I don't know what to call that.

May I suggest not using more than one photo of the same cat? It looks unprofessional, as if you'd recruited your cat to pad out (pun unintended) the collection because you didn't have enough good shots of a variety of subjects. In fact, two cat pictures might even be too many, even if different cats, unless you make a specialty of animal portraits–only because there are so many amateur cat pictures on the Web.

In the cereal photo, the milk is too blue.

Thanks and I agree with your comment. In the back of my mind I knew it wasn't very professional to have multiple pictures of the same subject. This page was mostly just for fun so I never really bothered to details like that. Thats also why there is a variety of subjects there.

I think you nailed it with magazine ad comment because I always picture my work in a magazine and when I take a pic or edit it I work towards that look.

"I have never benefited from the pretentious discussion of one style vs. another"

Im not sure you're making the point you intended. You don't have to get into pretentious discussions to be able to tell the difference between a Sally Mann versus an Annie Leibowitz. Both shoot people images, but they have an entirely different feel to them. I'm not into high minded conversations either, but I can also learn a lot about developing my own style by looking at the elements of other people's styles, and trying to emulate those elements in my own "work".

I don't pretend to be an artist. I just capture what I see and what interests me. As I evolve as a person, grow older, see things differently in different context, my style has evolved as well. While in Colorado to do some images for an industrial client, in the middle of literally no where, I took a series of images of some old abandon buildings out on the planes. When I got them home, and processed them, I discovered I had a new style I really like. Style changes and morphs.

Instagram is a blessing and a curse. Just like 500px. You can see a lot of stuff there that is well executed. But most of them are renditions of a common "style" for that platform. I see very little that stands out. There is a commercial benefit for being able to reproduce a common and popular style with regularity. There is equally value in seeing things very differently than other people.

The question is, do you have a style (brand), or do you simply copy everyone else style or what is popular. Neither are wrong, the later in many ways being more commercially viable.