How To Develop Your Own Distinctive Style

Using other people’s work as a guide is fine, but what happens when you want your own style?

- Paul Wilkinson

Can you imagine someone recognizing a photograph as yours, purely based on its style? When you’re just starting out, the achievement of a unique and distinctive style can feel as elusive as the finding ‘The One’. Where does your style come from? How do you develop it? And is it possible for every photographer to invent something totally new, anyway? I think the answer to these three questions is in your individual recipe mix of influences, capability, experience and creativity

1. Influences

We’d all love to be freethinkers who invent something new on a regular basis, but these people are a rare breed. The rest of us are heavily influenced by what we’ve seen in our day-to-day lives. That includes other photographers’ work, paintings, posters, magazines, Instagram posts and movies, for example. One of my influences has been the pencil drawings of E. H. Shepherd in early editions of Winnie-the-Pooh.