What is style? Google defines style as a distinctive appearance, typically determined by the principles according to which something is designed. I would venture to say, you probably have a style all your own. Whether it’s for your home, or how you dress, each of us has likes and dislikes. In the world of photography, in my opinion, style is developed over time. Finding your own photographic style takes time, and is often developed through trial and error.

There is the technical side to any type of photography, which is learned over many years with much practice, but style is a very different aspect of photography. Style is learned to a certain degree, but it really comes down to your own personal likes and dislikes. In relation to photography, style is developed as you become more experienced in your art. Finding colors, patterns and textures you like and that work in harmony with your personally.

My personal style is typically light and airy. I tend to lean toward white, light pinks, blues and muted colors. Very few of my photographs have dark or bright colors. I also prefer to have a softness to my images. My aperture is usually wide open (1.4 or 1.8), allowing for the maximum blur which creates a beautiful softness. My style, which has devleoped over time, is soft and produces a peaceful and easy image to take in. There is so much going on in our lives, that I strive to make my images comforting and calming.

I have recently started photographing food, I am finding that my likes and dislikes from still life photography are similar in my food styling. The challenge with food, however, food cannot be blurry, no one wants to look at a blurry image of food and imagine themselves eating it! The challenge for me, is making my food images portray my style while at the same time making sure the food is sharp and exactly as it looks when I photographed it. Challenging but fun at the same time.

My blog photographs today are of blueberry muffins, my husband has eaten so many blueberry muffins in the last month, I think I need to try something differnet next. I needed to achieve my style with this muffin so I baked them a few times, some with crumb topping and some without. The muffins with the cumb topping were by far the favorite!

If you are a photographer and have ventured into food or stilllife photography I would love to hear from you and see your images. Photography is always about learning, viewing others work and talking to other photographers always inspires me to think of things differently and try new things. You can email me or reach out to me on Instagram.

I appreciate you following along, until next time . . .