How to Discover Your Own Style and Make it Unique

5 Tips from Wedding Photographer Danny Dong

1. Build a comprehensive and solid lighting skills

To form a certain style in your photography is not easy, not to mention forming a unique style and distinguishing yourself from others. Lighting is the most basic part of photography. A good photographer needs to learn to observe light and use light to create magic. To make your work unique and stand out from others, you need to have solid lighting skills. The following two images were from an engagement photo session I shot on January 19th, 2014. The couple brought a bubble machine and asked me if I can shoot some images with bubbles. They didn’t tell me this before the shoot. When I thought of bubbles, I quickly thought of using backlight to create a dramatic look of bubbles. Here the backlit image I shot with one single Canon EX600 off-camera flash:
The following image shows how I set up this shot. My wife, Julia, held the bubble machine. I put the flash on a light stand and hid this light stand behind the couple. You cannot, however, control the wind. So when wind blew in the wrong direction, Julia had to eat lots of bubbles that day. But, she had a lot of fun too.

2. Try something new and brave, but make sure your clients’ families are comfortable with it

In 2011, I had a gorgeous couple who hoped that I could shoot a few unique and sexy images for the bride on the wedding day. I had no problem with creating some boudoir and glamour style images. The challenging part was, because it was the wedding day, her mom, her sister, aunt and other bridesmaid were all getting ready nearby. So, these images needed to be sexy yet classic. I asked her to pose completely undressed, but holding her wedding dress to cover her body. The following photo is from that day:
After I finished these images, the bride’s mom came to hug me and said to me: “Danny, these images are incredibly beautiful and artistic. If I knew you 30 years ago when I got married, I would have hired you to do this for me.”

3. Collect feedback from viewers and continue to improve your style

After I shot Lauren’s wedding, I got so many great comments from her family and friends, which led me to test how many brides would desire this sexy and glamourous style portrait on their wedding day. I wanted to see if I could add boudoir sessions to my wedding coverage to make my work unique and different. I printed two big metal prints with the above image and displayed them at my bridal show booth. Then, I was able to see every brides’ reaction when they saw the image. I found most brides thought this style was unique, creative, and different. Others said comments like, “Well, this does not make any sense. Why did she hold her dress but not put it on?” Or, “Is she a model? Was this image shot from a model session instead of a real wedding and real clients?” I could have simply ignored these comments and kept shooting these types of wedding images, but these comments did make me think: “How should I make the wedding day boudoir images more believable and more storytelling? How can I make the viewer believe these are wedding day images?” With these questions in mind, I then created the following image, “Dressing the Angel” for my clients and they loved them. Furthermore, I think it’s more interesting and storytelling then a single bridal boudoir portrait image:

4. Pay attention to the story and concept

When I first began photography, I always thought the image had to be at a unique location or the subject needed to be beautiful in order for the image to be outstanding. But later, I realized that viewers find the image memorable because of the story and concept. So if you try to create a unique image, then you need to first pay attention to the story and concept.
The following image was shot during an engagement photo session. The groom is a magician and he wanted me to incorporate magic into the engagement photo session. I used the concept of floating to create this image. They loved it.

5. Enter photography contests to observe market trends

Wedding photography trends comes and go. Sometimes we are too obsessed with our own work and we are not able to see the new trends in the market and what other photographers are doing. To me, one of the most important resources to learn the market trends is to attend the WPPI 16×20 Print Competition every year. Why is it so important to me? The purpose of entering the contest is not to win. It is, instead, to see other photographers’ best work of the year and see the difference. All the world famous masters such as Jerry Ghionis, Bambi Central, Cliff Mautner, Rocco Ancora, and many others are still competing in this competition. Those masters’ work does influence wedding photography trends.
I entered this image in 2012 and received an award of excellence (score above 80).
I used HDR processing on this image and added fake clouds to give un unrealistic look to the image. If I shot this image in 2014, I would not have entered this image into the contest. In the past two years, HDR technique has been overly used in the wedding photography market and it’s not unique any more. So, if you are in the competition every year, you will be able to see the trends and will be able to judge which images have potential. In 2014, Instead of fake sky or clouds and using HDR processing, I would rather use flash to create mood and depth for an image like this:

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About Danny Dong
Danny Dong started wedding photography in 2008 and was able to quickly grow his studio from scratch to a high end wedding studio in the San Francisco Bay Area within 5 years time. In recent years, Danny has received awards from many international photographic competitions and his work has been well recognized by the industry.
As a wedding photographer, Danny focuses on every detail and every moment unobtrusively. Danny specializes in Stylized Unconventional Wedding Portraiture, however still embraces tradition with wedding photojournalism and capturing moments and emotions. He incorporates his bold sense of fashion and unique style to create classic, timeless images. Capturing the true spirit of his clients, Danny creates a comfortable, candid atmosphere allowing subjects to relax and be themselves.
Danny started teaching and sharing his photography vision and skills through international seminars and workshops. His workshop in Asia is rated one of the most popular wedding photography workshops in Asia and is highly welcomed by his students.