It is ALL about STYLE!
If you don’t get anything else from my sessions (doubtful), you’ll at least get that I think style is everything. If you do this for a living it will certainly mean the difference between making a living and making a very comfortable LIVING!! If you don’t do this for a living, your style will allow you to work with people you wouldn’t normally have the opportunity to work with. They will WANT your style in their portfolio. For example, the best models out there, that travel around the world and get paid to shoot, may just work with you for free to add to their portfolio because your work is well worth his or her time.
Once you have established your style you will feel more confident and enjoy your creations more. When people recognize you because of your style…then you know you have one. You may not even realize you have a style until someone points it out.
Other than the time it takes to develop a style, typically a few years, the hardest part is that there is no checklist or rules, or even a direction to follow technically to develop your style. It’s just hard work, trying new things. Learning everything you can. Finding lighting you love. And spending a lot of time shooting and editing.
The video will tell you pretty much the same thing in different words.
“Learn the rules like a pro, so you can break them like an artist.” - Pablo Picasso
This Ira Glass quote is pretty relevant:
Nobody tells this to people who are beginners, I wish someone told me. All of us who do creative work, we get into it because we have good taste. But there is this gap.
For the first couple years you make stuff, it’s just not that good. It’s trying to be good, it has potential, but it’s not. But your taste, the thing that got you into the game, is still killer. And your taste is why your work disappoints you. A lot of people never get past this phase, they quit. Most people I know who do interesting, creative work went through years of this. We know our work doesn’t have this special thing that we want it to have. We all go through this. And if you are just starting out or you are still in this phase, you gotta know it’s normal and the most important thing you can do is do a lot of work.
Put yourself on a deadline so that every week you will finish one story. It is only by going through a volume of work that you will close that gap, and your work will be as good as your ambitions. And I took longer to figure out how to do this than anyone I’ve ever met. It’s gonna take awhile. It’s normal to take awhile. You’ve just gotta fight your way through.