Developing Your Style

The Difference Between Good and Memorable

Good photos are everywhere. Memorable photographers are rare. The difference is style: a consistent visual identity that makes your work recognizable at a glance.

By the end of this lesson, you will identify the patterns in your existing work and build a framework for developing your unique photographic style.

Quick Recall: In the previous lesson, we curated a cohesive portfolio using the three-pass selection method. Cohesion is a sign of emerging style, and now we are going to make that style intentional.

What Style Actually Means

Style is not a filter. It is not a preset. It is the sum of all your consistent creative choices:

What you shoot: Subjects you return to again and again. Some photographers are drawn to people, others to architecture, others to quiet landscapes.

How you compose: Your natural tendency toward symmetry or asymmetry, closeness or distance, clutter or minimalism.

Your relationship with light: Whether you gravitate toward warm golden tones, moody shadows, bright and airy scenes, or high-contrast drama.

Your color palette: Muted earth tones, vivid primaries, desaturated grays, warm oranges, cool blues.

Your editing approach: Heavy processing or light touch, film-like grain or digital clarity, warm or cool color grading.

When these choices become consistent across your body of work, that is style.

Finding Your Existing Patterns

Most photographers already have style tendencies. They just have not noticed them yet.

The pattern discovery exercise:

Pull together 30-50 photos you love that you have taken. Not your technically best. Your favorites, the ones that make you feel something.

Now look for patterns:

I have gathered my favorite photos. Help me identify my emerging style:

1. Common subjects I'm drawn to
2. Composition patterns (do I favor symmetry? tight crops? wide shots?)
3. Light preferences (warm vs. cool, bright vs. moody)
4. Color tendencies (saturated vs. muted, warm vs. cool palette)
5. Recurring mood or feeling
6. What is unique about my perspective?

Here is what I notice about my favorites: [DESCRIBE THEM]

Quick Check: What five elements combine to form a photographer’s style?

Study What You Love

Your taste is the compass that guides your style.

Create an inspiration board:

Collect 20-30 photos by other photographers that you find irresistible. Not trendy. Not impressive. Irresistible. The ones you cannot stop looking at.

Then analyze them the same way you analyzed your own:

• What subjects appear most?
• What light quality dominates?
• What color palette is common?
• What mood do they share?

The overlap between your favorites and your own work reveals your authentic style direction.

If you love moody, desaturated street photography but keep shooting bright, colorful landscapes, there is a disconnect. Either explore shooting in the style you love or identify what you genuinely love about what you already shoot.

Building Style Intentionally

Once you identify your natural tendencies, amplify them:

Create your style guide:

This is not a rigid rulebook. It is a compass that points your creative decisions in a consistent direction.

Creating Editing Presets

Your editing style should be repeatable. Create a preset or recipe that captures your baseline editing approach.

Build your signature edit:

1. Choose your 5 favorite photos you have edited
2. Note what adjustments they have in common
3. Create a preset that captures the shared settings
4. Apply it to new photos as a starting point, then fine-tune

AI can help you define your preset:

Based on the style I described, suggest editing settings for a Lightroom/Snapseed preset:
- Exposure and contrast tendencies
- Color temperature and tint direction
- Specific color channel adjustments (HSL)
- Tone curve shape
- Clarity and texture levels
- Grain and vignette settings

My style: [DESCRIBE FROM YOUR STYLE GUIDE]

Quick Check: What is the difference between copying someone else’s preset and creating your own signature edit?

Style Evolution vs. Style Hopping

There is a difference between evolving and chasing trends.

Style evolution is natural. Your work should change gradually as you grow. Your photos from five years ago should look different from today. That is healthy.

Style hopping is jumping between aesthetics every month because a new trend appeared. Dark and moody one week, bright and airy the next, film simulation after that. This prevents you from developing recognition.

The rule: Try new things in personal projects. Maintain consistency in your portfolio and public work.

Signs of healthy evolution:

• Gradual shifts in color palette or subject matter
• New techniques integrated into your existing approach
• Growing confidence in what you do not include

Signs of style hopping:

• Your Instagram grid looks like a different person shot each row
• You buy a new preset pack every month
• Your style changes when a photographer you follow changes theirs

Try It Yourself

Build your personal style guide:

1. Gather 30 of your favorite personal photos
2. Identify patterns using the analysis prompts above
3. Fill in the style guide table with your tendencies and intentional direction
4. Create one editing preset that captures your baseline look
5. Apply it to three new photos and evaluate whether the result feels authentically you

Key Takeaways

• Style is the consistent combination of subjects, composition, light, color, and editing that makes your work recognizable
• Discover your style by analyzing patterns in photos you already love taking, not by forcing a trendy aesthetic
• Create a personal style guide that documents your intentional creative direction
• Build reusable editing presets that capture your signature look for consistency
• Let style evolve naturally over time but avoid hopping between trends

Up Next

In Lesson 7: Marketing Your Photography, we will take your developed style and curated portfolio and get them in front of the people who need to see your work.