3 Steps To Finding Your Style In Videography and Photography

One of the biggest questions I get asked in some form or another is how to find your style. 

"How do I find my style as a videographer / photographer??"

This is such a strong question, and a question I continue to ask myself everyday. Finding and knowing your style of art is an ever-changing part of who you are. 

Within this post I'm going to outline what I believe to be the three biggest steps in honing your style of art:

1. Learn the Basics

2. Experiment with the Basics

3. Replace the basics with your personality

1)  LEARN THE BASICS

There is no mastery without the fundamentals. You need to know how to get the basics down with your craft. When it comes to videography and photography, it is imperative to know these three main basics:

1. Your camera's technical capabilities

   • This means knowing what your camera is capable of, and what it isn't capable of. You must know if your camera works better when it is exposed for the highlights or for the shadows. You must know how smooth and how far your lens's focus throw is. You must know your clean ISO levels and what not to go past. You must know the sharpness of your lens at extreme apertures, and the right balance between exposure and sharpness. When is there too much chromatic aberration and vignetting? What is the quickest way to change the white balance?

   • Your camera is now an extension of your eyes.

   • Each shutter speed change and picture profile setting is now automatically adjusted like you adjust your posture– it is habit.

2. Your editing software's capabilities

   • This means knowing the file and codec types that your NLE handles well. You must know the basic colour correcting and transition effects. You must know the essential short keys by heart. You must know the quickest way to make a jump cut and how to organize all your files and footage. You must know the benefits of using and adjusting the colour wheel. You must know how to read your RGB parade waveforms and what white balance looks like. When is your footage/photograph too sharp or too muted? Are you clipping and how do you best use this footage given the customizations your editor can provide?

   • Your editing software is now an extension of your hands.

   • Every colour correction, grade, cut, transition is applied like your fingers on a piano– each key adds a musical intonation to your final piece.

3. Working with your talent

   • Too many people forget that videography and photography require someone to be in front of the camera, too. Yes, you can take photos and videos of inanimate objects, but it is the people on camera that form the essence of your artwork. Don't make the mistake of thinking your wedding photo/video gig is about you– it's about your couples. You must know how to work with them.

   • Ask the right questions that gets you onto a friendly and familiar level. You must know what they like doing together, as a couple and individually. You must know what they are comfortable doing when they are around their wedding party/friends and when they are alone. You must know what is off limits on camera. You must know what they want to look like on camera.

   • This is a coarse in itself, but the basics of photography and videography work requires the basics of human interaction, communication and respect. Never forget to respect the people who trust you behind their wedding cameras.

2) EXPERIMENT WITH THE BASICS

Now that you know the fundamentals of working with your camera, your editing software, and with your people, you must let yourself experiment. In the field, you will undoubtedly fall back to the basics when you are feeling lost (i.e. - when you don't know how to direct the groom and his groomsmen, you will fall back into the basic and standard types of video/photo work), which is why you need to know the basics. But letting yourself stray from these basics opens up so many new opportunities.

You must experiment with the basics and experiment away from the basics. Do what you know works, and then intentionally go against it. You must know that you are intentionally doing something obscure, but you must also know that you are trying to say something in your work at the same time.

Does the lack of focus mean something?

Are the slanted lines pointing to a deeper message?

What is the point of including that random piece of audio?

Let yourself loose and see what sticks.

Experimenting also entails trying something outside of weddings. Try a music video. Try a corporate ad. Try a live interview. Try coverage of a live dance show. I've done all of these and more, and the added perspective of each project will only aid you on your journey to your style. Don't be afraid to take the standards of a different industry and bring it into your own.

Thinking outside the box could mean someone else's inside the box.

3) REPLACE THE BASICS WITH YOUR PERSONALITY

As you continue to experiment with the basics and outside the basics, you will certainly encounter states of epiphany.

A state of epiphany is the lightbulb going off.

Amidst the chaos of experimentation, you will create order. And this order comes from your personality.

It is your inner person, your character, that intuitively brings all the pieces together. It takes the basics of exposure with experimental sounds and creates an omnitextual piece that is magical. Let this inner person shine. 

You are, first and foremost, a person. A spirit. It is this spirit that pushes and pulls you towards certain aspects of life that you find attractive. Your spirit is individual to you and no one else. If you can let this spirit out and into your work, you slowly come to "find your style".

When you find "your style", you find your spirit.

And it is now that you'll realize that your style was always inside you, just waiting to guide you.