Finding my creative voice.

Growing as a photographer over the last five years has been an incredible journey - as I find my creative voice, grown my portfolio and developed a style that I can be recognised for. At the beginning of my portrait photography journey, I was learning predominantly from photographers on YouTube, how to light and pose my subjects, what light and modifier had what effect, how to combine colours, composition and facial expression. I had joined Peter Hurley’s Headshot Crew and learnt from him for a few months - something that contributed to a steep learning curve and gave me a handful of useful tools to start my business - especially helpful if you want a clean, corporate style headshot. However, it quickly became clear that if I wanted to develop my own style, it wouldn’t be within the HSC as they only taught Hurley’s lighting setup and discouraged divergence from that style.

Of course, at the beginning, I just wanted to learn quickly how to take a good photograph, how to light a photograph, how to pose somebody just well enough in order to start building my portfolio and charging for my work. And of course, what I was doing then was learning by rote. I was learning a series of lighting setups, things that other people could teach very easily in a technical way.

As I got gradually more experienced and more comfortable behind the camera, comfortable working with clients, I was able to add a few twists and tricks to my style. It was during this first two and half years that I was heavily influenced by other photographer's work, getting really interested in the work of Nadav Kandar, Dan Winters, Saul Leiter, Vivian Meier and London headshot photographer Phil Sharp. I was also assisting Ivan Weiss on occasion, and we'd become friends. So he also showed me a couple of lighting tricks that I was applying. Combining all of these photographers’ work together allowed me to develop something that felt good, but maybe wasn’t quite what I wanted to be producing. I had learnt tricks - technical ways to photograph someone, I had added these lighting setups to my paintbox - and I could paint with them how I wanted - but it wasn’t yet a voice of my own. In order to develop that voice I had to jettison things. Of course at the beginning of any creative journey you’re encouraged to learn from the masters - in a traditional art school environment students are asked to copy drawing and painting - but as you develop your own style, its imperative to discard the master, jettison what you used to love.

So I needed to expand my repertoire, expand the influences that I reached for. During 2023-4 I reached further, looking back into my history in art, to the work I had grown up with, to photographers outside the world of portraiture.

And it's really about this idea of speaking in your own creative voice, that I think is important here. Because predominantly people are not going to be choosing you as a photographer based on location and price. Within any given reasonable sized city there are a large number of photographers working in your field - most people assume the market is saturated, which is a lie everyone tells themselves when they start out because they’ve heard it from disgruntled professionals who have been left behind. But what it really means is that everyone is trying to do the same thing and go after the same segment of the market. How you capture attention is not by doing what everyone else is doing, but by differentiation.

Being chosen by a client is often for multiple reasons that aren’t always about price. Many photographers I know assume they’re not getting the clients they want solely because they’re “too expensive” - I’m here to tell you, thats just not the case. Pricing, as we will explore in a later article, is a message, it forms part of the client reasoning process, but it can’t be the main reason someone books with you. So, perhaps you're chosen because of the way you talk about your photography. Maybe you're chosen because you have been recommended by somebody else. But predominantly, I have been chosen because somebody has seen my work and enjoyed the kind of work that I've done, the work that's in my portfolio, and they can imagine themselves in those images, and I’ve only really got to that point by differentiating my work from the work of other people.

I would say this is true of anybody who runs a small business, differentiation is the main thing you want to be pursuing. Differentiation from other people in your industry, differentiation in terms of the style, the colour schemes, the posing, the approach that you take in your work, in your business. What I was trying to do was take the lessons I'd learned, but apply them in ways that felt different to anybody else in the industry. In the last two years I've been able to do that, but it does take a little bit of time. So in that first stage, it's totally fine to learn from other people and start trying out ideas that you get from other people, but with the intention that you're going to be able to get to a place that is wholly yours.

The way that I’ve approached my work today, is to be able to know what lighting tricks and what techniques to use to create certain images, but then to strip them back, to take an element off each time, just simplify something a little bit, to let the subject shine through. I’m reminded of what Coco Chanel once said about getting dressed in the morning - “Before you leave the house, look in the mirror and take one thing off”. Her focus on simplicity in her outfits was in order to let the woman shine through - not be overpowered by what she was wearing. In photography it’s similar. Rather than foregrounding the technical aspects of the process, I want to use those technical aspects to allow the subject to shine through. Rather than focusing on the technical, rather, using the lighting techniques, the backgrounds, the poses and so forth, to enhance the connection with the subject. I don't really want to put photography first. Photography is a supporting character, where the subject is the central focus. Over reliance on the technical seems to detract from my core belief which is creating connection.

Of course, every now and again, I'll add a little bit of a little pop of colour, or a little interest in the background with a curtain or the edge of a backdrop, or I'll add in some harder directional light, like a spotlight, or a small beauty dish or something like that, to give a little bit of a spice to the image, without making it too overbearing.

One thing I use to differentiate myself is how I construct my photography sessions. Because one of the main values in my business is the connection I build with clients, which in turn helps them build connection with the audience of the photograph - so for actors, that would be the casting directors looking at headshots, for business owners that would be their potential clients - I believe the time I spend with someone is important. While it’s certainly possible to take a good looking photograph in a matter of minutes, many people need more than that in order to warm up, to feel comfortable in front of the camera. In my sessions, I don’t pick up the camera for the first 40 minutes. I need to talk to someone at length to understand their needs and desires, their insecurities, and their dreams for what these images will do for them and their career. None of this is possible without a good conversation. Without time.

A few weeks ago I had a client come with her boyfriend for support, I could tell during the first part of the shoot he was a little uncomfortable just listening to us chat, he got up top get coffee, and by the end admitted he’d struggled watching us just shoot the breeze, wondering why we didn’t just get on with the shoot. But once he’d seen the whole experience, he really understood the importance of the first 40 mins of conversation, that first 40 minutes was so valuable in the session, and he could see the importance of truly understanding the client.

And for me, that's one of the differentiating factors that has helped me express my creative voice. All of these things that we talk about, like the gear, the studio, all of those are also super important. But the one thing that I think's the most important is time. And in a sense, why would you want to rush this? Why would you want to feel like you're being rushed as the subject of a photograph. You surely want to be able to experience this a little bit more slowly, with a little more presence. Just a little more intention when it comes to taking the photographs. And I think that that's super important for me as well, because I like to have that slower pace, that time to just take the photograph, not feel rushed.

If I'm creating something of value for my clients, then it has to be done in a way that really allows those photos to resonate meaningfully. And value here comes in different forms. Valuable in the sense that it's beautiful, interesting, engaging and creates connection, but also valuable in the sense that it helps them get a job, get a role in a play or a film or TV show. It helps them in a process of building their dreams. Now, these are important things that we do as photographers. It's part of the reason that people choose us to take photographs of them. Because there is an essential utility to the images - they do work for our clients, but precisely in order to have that utility, that function, there needs to be something intrinsically non-essential to the photos. Something intangible. I think we talk about authenticity a lot in photography circles because we don’t know exactly what word to use to mean that intangible, unnameable element to an image that escapes immediate rationalisation. Authenticity is something that cannot be fabricated, but appears fleetingly and only during moments when you’re not rushing.

A creative voice emerges from stripping back, getting to the core of what you do and why you do it - not from adding as much in as possible - trying to create something of value doesn’t come from trying to do what someone else does, but from the rigorous pursuit of your own artistic approach and an engagement with the truth of your work. As mentioned, we need to go through the process of learning that involves getting inspiration from those around us - that is natural, even necessary, but it is in the pushing through that we find what is true to us. In my mentoring, this is what I encourage. In order to find our own path we must reject, cast off the authority of the teacher. Its a really interesting moment in my university pedagogical practice when the student emerges from the belief in the teacher as an authority - most often an authority they have created themselves (I don’t need authority to teach, but a student will often create it themselves). It’s then that the most interesting work is produced. Working with mentees is so rewarding for that reason.

Having a unique creative voice is vital not just for our own practices, but in creating work that feels and looks like yours in order to help potential clients understand what they’re getting from you when they book - the consistency of your portfolio allows them to see their place in it, how you will photograph them. If the portfolio is all over the place, the inconsistency will confuse clients and could prevent them from making a booking. Being able to see a portrait in the wild and associate it with a specific photographer is important - but too often photographers’ work looks like each other. There’s always a tendency towards the mainstream, with the assumption that if that style works for a popular photographer, it will work for me. So, a cluster of photographers shoot similarly, price similarly, design their shoots and experiences similarly. This is a short cut to mediocrity and no bookings.

Half my clients are actors, and their need for differentiation is acute - when a casting director has hundreds of headshots of actors in front of them, having a photograph that stands out, that intrigues, is differentiated from the rest is super important. I’ve seen galleries of headshots where it was difficult to distinguish between actors because the style of photography was so similar. Do you want to contribute to the generic noise or do something that matters?

So, always look for inspiration outside of photography, practice other forms of photography and image making, you are the accumulation of your experiences, your interests and your influences - differentiate them and you’ll make something with intention.

Where else can we look for inspiration from? Well, obviously I look for inspiration from painting, from the Dutch masters, the baroque period, I also look to some fashion photography for influence. Paolo Roversi is super interesting, as is Chantal Convertini. Music has always been a huge part of my life, as has literature, cinema, art (I’ve been in and around the art world for two decades). Our clients aren’t just paying for us to take photographs of them, they’re looking for our taste - develop your taste, curate your experiences.

If you would like to work with me, either to be photographed, or to join my mentorship programme, please email studio@tomtrevatt.com