Why Personal Style is Important
Other essays in this series
Just being at a fantastic location at the best time for the light are no longer enough to create unique images.
One has to have a personal style.
Alain Briot
Introduction
Millions of new digital cameras, from cell phones to DSLRs to Medium Format digital, are sold each year. Millions of new ‘photographers’ go to locations that used to see little visitation but that are now crowded.
Crowded locations mean that being at a fantastic location at the best time of the day and year is no longer enough to create a unique photograph. One has to have a personal style.
If you do not develop a personal style, you are in competition with all the photographers who can take a technically adequate photograph. This means millions of people because cameras, and software, automate nearly all the technical aspects of photography.
If photography is your hobby, your images will be similar to the images of many other photographers. If we were at mesa arch for example (see the photograph below), and we did not have a personal style, the only difference between our work and their work will be the angle of view, or the camera we used, or some other minor differences.
If you sell your work, you will have to sell on the basis of price. This is because if you have no personal style, price is the only difference between your work and their work.
Fact is, without a personal style our photographs will show a location. Anyone can photograph a location! There is nothing special in doing so. What is special is making this location look unique. What is special is using a personal style to depict this location so that our photographs looks different from everyone else’s photographs.
In other words, if we have no personal style our photographs will look similar to the photographs of other photographers who went to the same location. But if we do acquire a personal style, our photographs will look different even though we photographed the same locations.
 Sunrise crowd at Mesa Arch |
The problem
This situation is a problem and the solution to this problem is to acquire a personal style. Why? Because personal style is based on art, not on technique. Art is the only thing a machine (cameras) or software cannot do. This is because art is the outcome of your emotional response to the subject, not the result of a technical process.
All these new ‘photographers’ rely on technique -be it camera or software- to do the job for them. The good news for us is that cameras and software alone cannot create a personal style. Cameras and software, on their own, are unable to express emotions. They need us, the artists, the true photographers, to do that. This is because technical tools cannot make creative decisions. Technical tools are designed to make technical decisions. Only us, the photographer, the artist, can make artistic decisions.
The Personal Style Master Class
This is where personal style makes a huge difference between us and other photographers. The difference between our work and theirs is not the cameras or the software that we use. The difference is the artistic choices that we make. The difference is the artistic content of our work.
But to make artistic choices one has to study art. Once cannot study just technique. This is where the Personal Style Master Class comes in. I have created this Master Class for the purpose of helping you develop a personal style. Developing this style is achieved by completing 19 different steps that range from learning art and art movements, to evaluating your work, to finding out where you are at now, to defining specific goals, to working on creating your own style, and more.
The detailed syllabus and outline of this course, of the Alain Briot Personal Style Master Class, is available by emailing me at alain@beautiful-landscape.com with the words Master Class in the subject line.
Artistic expression is important
Developing a personal style requires a specific and well-designed plan of action. Giving you this plan of action is the purpose of the Personal Style Master Class. I spent over a year developing this plan and making it as effective as possible.
Without such a plan, developing a personal style can be a long and searching journey. This is why many photographers do not have a style. They consider developing a style hopeless because they do not know where to start. And, if they do start, they do not know how to proceed. In the Personal Style Master Class I give you a step by step Road to Success together with a timeline and specific goals that you can reach in a timely fashion.
If you don’t have a personal style the only other option is to make photographs that look like everyone else. Not many people care for that. Developing a personal style is a rewarding, long term goal. Long term goals have long term results. Short term goals have short term results. Developing a personal style is more difficult than putting a camera on auto mode and using software presets. Doing so is easy. The problem is that anyone can do what is easy. It is doing what is hard that makes one stand out. It is doing what is hard, and what no one else is doing, that makes one’s work unique.
Alain Briot Personal Style Master Class Announcement
If everything goes as planned, this new tutorial will be available in July 2012
Right now a pre-announcement list is available. Joining this list is easy: simply email alain@beautiful-landscape.com You will receive a link to download a FREE 21 PAGES EBOOK describing the specific contents of this tutorial. You will also benefit from special offers and from a lower price when the Personal Style Master Class is published. These special offers will only be made available to members of the pre-announcement list. Join now by responding to this email with the words ‘Master Class’ in the subject line.
Aditional information about this exciting tutorial will be available to members of the pre-announcement list soon. This is a major undertaking, being the largest tutorial I have produced so far. It consists of 19 separate steps and multiple sub steps. I have been working on it since February 2011, nearly a year and a half ago.
Alain Briot
 Quote from my essay Creating Meaningful Photographs You can receive a free eBook version of this essay by emailing me at Alain@beautiful-landscape.com with the words ‘meaningful photographs’ in the subject line. |
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Table of contents of the new Alain Briot Personal Style Master Class Workshop on DVD
You can receive the full size version, in eBook format, by emailing alain@beautiful-landscape.com
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Essay and photographs Copyright ©Alain Briot 2012
All rights reserved worldwide