What is your style? I would define my photo style as “realistic” or "natural". I don’t do a lot of textures and drastic changes to color because I like a more natural appearing picture, but I do increase saturation and I like stylized pictures, but drastic changes I only do few here and there. Most likely in the coming years I will do a lot more textures and overlays as they can add interest to your photos. I am always looking at other peoples pictures and read blogs with the intent to improve my photography. Then I look back at my pictures and see flaws in them and want to change them, I have to force myself to move on and let it go, but I quite often recrop my older pictures to improve them. My weakness is leaving too much in the picture!
When I read photography posts I quite often read things that really doesn't set well with me. One of the blogs I decided to read (claiming they could improve my pictures) jeered removing the color from a picture leaving only one color. This they said was bad. Something about not natural, but they loved black and white which actually isn't natural. Then other people weighed in and condemned the action as well. They also complained about over saturation, and greens looking unnatural, but making a picture dark where it removes some color is just fine I guess. Sepia is cool and yet what is natural about that? It amazes me how some people have decided that they are the Kings and Queens of defining what is art, and what is bad and unpleasing.
It really doesn’t make sense that no color is cool and one color is bad, except if the color is sepia, or too much color is bad. I prefer a little more individuality myself. I am not saying that over saturation is always cool, but I call the over saturation “post card” shots. Maybe over saturated green is liked more by people who live where it snows and everything is dead and dormant for months on end. I like an occasional over saturated picture. I have a few that I love, and it really doesn’t matter to me if anyone else loves them or not. The group think stuff is almost mob like. There is a fellow with a photography blog that I like and once in a while he shares some pics of his children. Nothing special about them, you see a lot of nice pics of kids everywhere. Except this guy has his children’s pictures shared by followers at a count of over 1,000 shares for a single pic. What? Nobody shares ordinary pics of kids like that, except this guy is popular and people share his pics, who they are sharing them with is beyond me since there is nothing special about them. If I sent him a pic and asked him to post it as his own I am sure it would be shared in the thousand plus count! Why? Perhaps people feel like he is one of the family. I guess there is a little paparazzi in all of us.
HDR is popular and I like most of the HDR pictures that I see. HDR “like” processing is popular with some people and really doesn’t look that great, but I do use it once is a while and typically on a picture that otherwise doesn’t look all that good without taking a different apporach. Sometimes I use extreme processing to save a picture I like. Just give it a different look. Some HDR “like” pictures are cool, but wait…there are the self-appointed overlords that don’t agree with me.
Pictures are about depicting life, creating moods, and sometimes creating a work of art, there are lots of ways to do that, and who is to say which one is right or wrong? Some pictures only have great meaning to you and no one else. Those are the best pictures! We only know what we personally like, and I kind of like it that way. If your picture is interesting then many others will like them as well, regardless of what style or type of photography you prefer. Get your camera, get in, get the shot, and get out! Photo document your life as you live it. Happy shooting.