Photography 101: What Is Your Photographic Voice?

I am going to venture down my road of experience once more. This time I am taking on a question that many people asked me when I was first walking down the road of photography. That one dreaded and ridiculously tough question is what is your voice?

When I first took up a camera, I was a happy man behind the lens. I took photos of everything and anything. Dogs, birds, plants, the ceiling, my toes, and whatever else I could finagle into my viewfinder all became my subjects. Then I decided I wanted to make a living of this, and the first question I received repeatedly was what my specialty/angle/voice was. To this question, I always answered, “ummm, good question.” So how did I finally come to answer this? It was not easy lemme tell ya.

The first part to finding your voice is to pinpoint the style of photography you like. Style is different from voice as style is the genre. Your style might be nature, animals, portraits, sports, architecture, or any of the other umpteen dozen styles that exist. For me, I found I really enjoyed macro, grunge, HDR, and landscapes. Keep in mind these don’t all really fit together as one cohesive style. I was able to finally pinpoint this by simply paying attention to the images I spent the most time gawking at.

The second part is to start learning all you can about the styles that interest you. This encompasses everything from looking at photos to reading up on techniques. I cannot even begin to tell you the amount of macro and HDR photos I have looked at and studied over the years. This was all part of the learning and growing process. Really, this area should be no different for you. You know what you enjoy looking at, and should work with those areas you enjoy and are comfortable working.

I then took to the field to start honing my style skills. Now I don’t own a macro lens, nor do I have all the stuff I feel I needed for landscapes or HDR photography. This did NOT stop me though. I learned I could crop images to get a fake macro. I learned how to create HDR images from one exposure, and what made good landscape photos. I was not going to let a lack of gear slow me down. Therefore, I spent months shooting, reading, and learning.

As I spent time working with the styles I enjoyed, I then began breaking down the smaller details of the photos I liked. This is the part of finding your voice. Your voice is ultimately how you tell a story with your photograph. Everyone has a different way of telling a story. There maybe six million landscape photographers out there, but each tells a story in a different way. They may all post photos that look similar to one another, but if you look deep enough you will see how each photographer puts their own spin on the same photo.

This next tip was all thanks to a friend. I had been struggling in looking for my voice when a wise friend recommended I print out five to ten of my favorite images and study them. They told me to look for the common practices I had in all of them. One night I did this, and I ended up spending five good hours just looking and listing the commonalties between all the images. This is when both style and voice finally came together. I finally knew how to tell my stories!

This process is still growing and maturing for me. I still have a long way to go to honing my voice. This is not something that happened over night either. No, it took me a year of constant work before everything came together and clicked. However, when that light came on, and I knew how I wanted to show the world how I saw it, I was ecstatic.

Sadly, I cannot give you concrete steps and a breakdown on finding your voice. That is a journey that I believe everyone has to make on his or her own. There is no magic formula, no text or scripture I can point you to that says this is how you get your voice. The most I can do is tell you my story and how I found my photographic voice. I hope that that it helps just one person out there develop theirs. Enjoy the journey and revel in all the small wins you make along the way, as that will be your north star guiding you along.

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Chris Nitz

This is where you would expect me to tell you about my life, how awesome I am, or why I am so superior to other people in this line of business. I would enjoy telling you how I have wrestled grizzly bears 10 feet tall. Maybe you would like hearing how I have taken on Velociraptors in my days as a young man. Even better is the story how I have traveled to the furthest reaches of space to stop catastrophic alien invasions. The problem will be that you might not believe my awesome stories.

I will keep these awesome stories for the campfire though. I’m just a man, taking pictures, trying to make a living. I ditched my education in computers in favor of pursuing my passion for photography. I enjoy a good cold beer on a warm day. I have a fondness of the outdoors.. I have enjoyed years capturing life’s unscripted moments. Hopefully, I can enjoy many more years of slacking off without fear of those grizzlies taking me out before my time.

My Philosophy is to capture those non-scripted moments. To capture the little details that this world really has to offer. From weddings to insects, I enjoy capturing the life, the details, and the moments that come and go in a flash.

www.chrisnitz.com