The Importance of Good Taste to Being a Successful Photographer



There seems to be a black hole of information on the topic of taste when it comes to photography, despite it being critical for what most of us strive to achieve. In making this video, I discovered why it’s such an avoided topic.

If you own a shop, sell a product, or in this instance, work with still images, then your personal taste is going to be one of the biggest factors in your success. Granted, in my day-to-day work, I am hired by art buyers and creative directors, and I don’t personally make the creative decisions all that often. However, I am more often than not hired because of my personal work, the curation of my Instagram account, the aesthetic of my studio, or my personal take on life (being mad about photography and cycling is a big selling point in photography). Being a photographer means that you are judged from the moment you enter the room until you leave. You are surrounded by creatives looking to hire someone who they can push their vision through, and they need to know that you are the right fit for them.

In this video, I try to delicately offer advice on how to achieve a desirable taste (a good taste) and the importance of this, how drilling down into a single genre and a subgenre within this will help you find your style and showcase your visual taste, as well as increase the number of bookings that you receive. 

I believe that taste is something that is formed over time, I was a chav in my youth (not sure what the US equivalent is), but I have done my best to absorb as much as possible, and it is perhaps the aspect of my photography that I work on the most. Anyone can take a photograph with a phone, and with a very small amount of training anyone can recreate the technical aspects of a studio photograph, but knowing what looks best is something that only a few look for.

The topic of taste can often be like treading on eggshells. It is very hard to tell someone that they have bad taste or that they perhaps are trying to achieve a goal where their personal taste, beliefs, and perspective just don’t match. Hopefully, I avoided putting my foot in my mouth too much while getting the point across. 



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