How to Find Your Street Photography Style
Reading time: 9 minutes
There are a lot of street photographers out there working today and that’s a good thing in my opinion but it can be increasingly difficult to stand out in a world where everyone is a photographer. It only takes half an hour on the Internet researching street photography to see a vast array of styles, so how do you find one of your own? Well, in this article I’ll be exploring how important style is in street photography and the steps you can take to develop one yourself to ultimately stand out from the crowd.
Influences
You are what you consume. If you eat a lot of pizzas, you’re probably going to put on weight. If you read a lot of books about birds, you’re probably going to bust out some serious knowledge next time you’re on a hike. If you regularly run a 5k three times a week you’ll probably do better than the average at the Saturday Park Run. You see where I’m going with this. If you consume a lot of street photography, you read books, look at prints, watch documentaries and so on, you’re going to get a great understanding of different approaches and styles of street photography which you can then try out yourself. Likewise if you only look at one or two other street photographers’ work, you’ll notice their influence and style creeping into your own photography and you’ll have fewer reference points to build your own style from. I think it’s super important to understand the history of street photography to begin to work out where you fit into it.
So how does looking at other street photographers’ work help you find your own style? You don’t want to outright copy other photographers work but that can be quite hard to do when you really admire someone’s photography, especially when you first start out. You can however experiment and try out different ideas and themes you notice in others’ work and then this will help you decide what you want to photograph and how you want to go about it.
If you look at early expressionist paintings by different painters, often you’ll see they are quite similar in style but each equally beautiful as the next. This is common in the art world, people help each other, start movements, get inspired by each other and in a way it’s a collaborative process even if you don’t physically meet the people you’re inspired by.
Have a look through street photography books, as many as possible, to get a good idea of what is already out there and find a path that you want to go down. I really recommend Reclaim the Street and Magnum Streetwise if you want exposure to a whole heap of work to get inspiration from. It can be tough to find and stick to something you like and your taste will change and develop constantly anyway, but that’s something we’ll explore a bit later on in the article. First we’ll talk about how important gear is in developing your own style.
Focal Length
One of the things most likely to influence your street photography style is your choice of focal length. Most street photographers use a fixed focal length lens, the most popular probably being the 35mm (full frame equivalent) focal length but you can use any lens and any focal length for street photography. You can of course use more than one focal length across your photography but it can be really beneficial to stick with one camera and one lens for a long period of time to really get used to seeing with that lens, and this will definitley have an impact on the ‘style’ of photos you make.
50mm: Probably the best all-round focal length, not too wide that you need to get really close and not too long that you need to stand far outside the action, so it’s great for beginners. 50mm has a bit of compression and there is a distinctive look to it.
35mm: Very close to the field of view from the human eye. Wide enough to get close to the action but still include a decent amount in the frame. This is currently my favourite lens and 99% of the work I have made in the past year or so has been with this lens.
40mm: Gives a good balance between 50mm and 35mm (obviously) and is often touted as the ‘goldilocks’ focal length. A great all rounder focal length.
28mm: Shows a wide field of view so you can include a lot in your frame, great for layering and well-balanced compositions. Often means you need to get very close to the action to make a good photo, so not necessarily for the faint of heart. However can also be used to show an expansive enviromnent so can be great for minimalist street photographers too.
70mm+: Great for capturing details, textures and abstracts in the right hands, hard to capture street scenes full of action, can be good for isolating subjects.
Film/Post-Processing
The ‘look’ of your images can have a big impact on your style, whether that is photographing on film, JPEGs or post-processing RAW files. This is something I find really hard to get right, as soon as I’ve worked on a post-processing style for a while (I shoot in RAW and edit in Lightroom) then my taste changes and I don’t like that look anymore. As hard as it can be to cultivate, a cohesive look and feel to your images can go a long way to developing a recognisable style for yourself - just try not to get pigeonholed, you don’t have to stick with an edit you’ve used for a while, you can of course change it up.
If you’re a beginner street photographer, using the camera’s in-built simulations or buying presets from photographers you like can be a good place to start. I’ve been spending a lot of time recently working on my presets which I’ll be releasing soon. However I think when you progress a bit, finding your own editing style over time will give you a much better chance of developing a style recognisable to you.
I recommend getting to know your chosen editing software really well (Lightroom or capture One for example) then experiment, show work to your friends or on your social media, get feedback and then you’ll find more of a style over time. If you shoot film, it’s still the same process, choose a film stock, remortgage your house, take some photos and then tweak the scans in your editing software to get them how you like them to look. But there is one thing that will impact your style more than post-processing and we’ll talk about that next.
The Content of your Photos
The subject matter of your photographs will go a long way to forming your style. If you’re new to street photography then check out this article as a good starting point to all the different kinds of street photography out there. For example I used to be really into photographing abstract, ‘fine art’ street photos, focusing on creative framing on a 50mm lens. I fell out of love with this style of street photography, bought a 35mm lens and went looking for meaningful (to me) human moments instead and never looked back.
My style changed a lot and one of the downsides to putting myself and my work out there on Instagram and YouTube is that people are not shy of telling you what they really think without thought for your feelings at all. Some people may prefer my old stye, some might prefer my new, some may like both. Regardless, I photograph what interests me first and foremost, the moment you start photographing for popularity on social media, you’ve failed as an artist. Sure, share your work but don’t make photographs to impress others. If you make work that impresses you over time, that’s how you cultivate a strong style and body of work.
Have conviction in your taste and don’t be afraid to change it up, photograph what you like and we’ll talk about how we can make use of projects to do this really well later on in the article.
Give it Time
It can take a long time to develop a style and just when you think you might be getting somewhere, your taste changes or you have a confidence knock. This is where time and consistency comes in. Consistency with going out as much as possible, flexing your creative muscles, not the consistency of making the exact same work over and over. Consistency of editing a certain way for a while but regularly assess and curate your work, if you don’t like it you can change it up.
The beauty of RAW files is that you can change the edit time and time again if you want to. But this can sometimes give you too many options, so maybe experiment with JPEGs if you want more of a baked-in style. The point here is that you need to give it a long time for a style to emerge, so keep making work for a number of months, years, decades. If you can’t see a clear style emerge, try focusing on some of the tips in this article.
Projects
Projects can be a great way of developing a style, or experimenting with a new style without it being jarring or at odds with your previous photography. If say you used a 50mm focal length for a while and photographed your local neighbourhood, that could be one project, then if you change focal length or subject matter, say a 28mm lens capturing moments on the street, then this can be a new project and so on. It gives you a licence to experiment while still keeping it all under the umbrella of your style. Having a website can be a really good way of curating your work into projects, but you can also do this on a social media platform like Instagram.
It Will Change
As I mentioned earlier, my photographic journey and work has naturally changed and developed over time along with my interests and what other kind of work I look at. It pays to know this that if you see your work changing, It doesn’t mean you’ve failed at finding a style, it just means your work has developed and evolved. You can see how much my ‘style’ has changed over time on my YouTube channel if you’re interested.
Do You Even Need a Unique Style?
I would argue the most important thing is to go out and do street photography, capture what interests you and get some inspiration from others, but try not to copy, and inevitably your style will emerge over time. Yes, I do think some kind of style is important to stand out in the crowd, but it should definitely not be the main thing you focus on, your main focus should be to make the work, learn new techniques, and just enjoy the process and your style will emerge over time. If you’re still not sure what your style is, or how to really develop it just focus on the craft of making images and experiment.
Sometimes when we try to develop a style we can be held back by our own thoughts, confidence, or ability, so check out this article next which outlines some common street photography mistakes and how to fix them.
