Embracing Your Photographic Vision: How to Find Your Style

Most photographers reach a point where their technique is solid but their work does not yet look like theirs. They know how to light and compose, yet they feel lost among endless inspiration online, unsure what makes their photos different from anyone else's. What they want is a vision: work that people recognise as theirs before they see the name.

In this In the Limelight conversation, I talked about exactly that with two South African photographers: fashion photographer Grethe Rosseaux and Johannesburg photographer and workshop host Meghan McCabe. As I said at the start, our industry might be a little too gear obsessed and not vision obsessed enough. Here is what we discussed.

Video: Embracing Your Photographic Vision, CameraStuff "In the Limelight", CameraStuff Shop.

What Is Photographic Vision?

For Meghan, vision is how you see the world around you and how you add up the elements in front of you to create an image. It also means understanding your subject, whether that is wildlife, motorsport, or aviation, knowing your goal for the shoot, and knowing what gear will get you there. Seeing a bridge at night with red buses passing on her travels, she did not mind that the shot had been done before; what mattered was making it her own.

Grethe summed it up in two words: creativity and enthusiasm. She encourages photographers to look for inspiration outside other photographers' work, inwards to the things that move them, then break those down into colours, shapes, emotions, and atmospheres to build their shoot concepts.

I split it into three parts:

• Knowledge: keep studying composition, colour theory, and light and shadow. These "basics" never stop being useful, however experienced you are.
• Empathy: put yourself in your subject's shoes, and think of yourself as solving a problem for them, not just taking a picture.
• Individuality: put all your interests, like music, film, and books, in a blender and look for the common threads.

Conrad's Advice: "You matter. What you have to say about the world, how you see the world, how you interpret things. Don't be afraid of joining a conversation and expressing yourself."

It Takes Time, and That Is Normal

Grethe has been shooting for 18 years, ten of them professionally. She remembered comparing her early work to photographers a decade into their careers and feeling inadequate, without realising she was looking at years of practice, trial and error. Meghan picked up her first camera in 2012 and has since moved from professional motorsport to wildlife, aviation, teaching, and six months photographing on a cruise ship.

Both agreed that you never close the door on learning, and that every bad shoot, broken piece of gear, and success adds to your vision. Grethe also suggested having a creative outlet away from the camera; for her it is playing the saxophone. Meghan added that sometimes you should leave the camera behind and just be present.

Conrad's Advice: "Get yourself out of that comfort zone, because if you trap yourself in that familiar zone, it does breed complacency, and complacency is the death of all things, especially as a creative person."

Learn From Others Without Copying

We are all influenced by what we see on Instagram, Pinterest, and TikTok, often without realising it. Meghan's approach is to take elements that resonate, adapt them to who you are, and always add a little of yourself. Grethe works differently: she mostly avoids looking at other photographers when building a concept, and uses reference images mainly to show her team the lighting and look she is aiming for, often from her own past shoots.

Her trick is to take a familiar idea and ask what people would not expect, like shooting a little black dress somewhere far from a red carpet.

I suggest splitting your questions into how and why. Most people ask how a photo was made, the settings and lights. Fewer ask why it works. Unpacking a photo's composition, colour, and story is analysis, not copying, and it gives you building blocks for your own work. Keep it purposeful too: like Chekhov's gun in theatre, every prop in the frame should earn its place.

Make It Personal

The most powerful work in the chat came from personal meaning:

• Grethe's ultraviolet shoot grew from her graphic design background, Pantone's 2018 colour of the year, and her fascination with the light spectrum. She lit it with a black light, which looks bright in person but is very dim on camera.
• Her Phoenix shoot was tied to her grandfather, a big influence on her pursuing art. She put it off for years, then shot it after a fire near Pringle Bay, in gale-force wind and heat. She did not like the image at first; today it is one of her favourites.
• Meghan's opera portrait was a ten-year goal. She first saw the singer perform in Phantom of the Opera in 2012, finally sent him a message on Instagram, and he said yes. They met for coffee, did a shoot, and he later invited her to photograph him again.
• Meghan's Victorian shoot took place in a Victorian house museum she first visited years earlier, with the museum's custodian in character and Meghan's brother as the second model.

Grethe's tip: keep a bucket list of shoots, people, and concepts you want to tick off. I would add a step: write down why you want each one, because the why shapes the concept and the technique.

Be Kind to Your Older Work

Looking back, Grethe would only change the colour grading of her early fairy-tale shoot; the blue split-toned shadows were a sign of the times. Meghan would move the boom stand she had to edit out, and add a sidelight to fix a hotspot. Neither regrets the images. As Grethe put it, honour the artist you were, because that person did the work that got you here. Dissect your old work to learn from it, but do not hate on it.

I shared my own turning point. Early on, a friend told me that my lighting was skilled, but he could not see me in my photos, and the models looked bored. My next shoot was just a conversation with the model, camera in hand. When I loaded the images, the complex lighting was still there, by second nature, but now the person was too.

Getting Through Creative Blocks

Everyone has days when nothing feels right. Meghan sometimes escapes to a game reserve after a hard shoot, and once came back to a set of images two years later to find some of her best work. Grethe lets a shoot rest overnight, sends the team a test edit, and reminds herself that creative blocks and impostor syndrome are usually signs of growth.

Both stressed looking after your health. Grethe finished a shoot after injuring her knee on beach rocks, then went to her doctor. Meghan turned down a second six-month contract on a ship after her health suffered on the first.

My advice: talk about it. Friends, family, and people outside photography often see what you cannot, and the creative world works best as a community.

Find the Light That Feels Like You

For Grethe, light is everything. Told as a student never to shoot in direct midday sun, she did exactly that, with an entry-level camera and a car windshield sunshade as a reflector, and fell in love with hard, contrasty light. Her bold style, bright colours, and high contrast reflect who she is. She also noted that South African light is warmer than in the northern hemisphere, and sees that as something to embrace.

Meghan describes herself as less technical: she reads each location and wings it, often using a large reflective umbrella outdoors and an umbrella softbox inside. I started with off-camera flash out of necessity, because my first camera could not handle low light, and learned to attach meaning to each quality of light: bold, hard light for strong statements, soft light for gentle personalities. Learn the principles, then make them personal.

Advice for Photographers Finding Their Voice

• Meghan: just shoot, across different genres, and learn what your gear can and cannot do before buying more. She started with an entry-level Nikon and kit lens at a low-light drifting event.
• Grethe: stop creating for likes. Tune out the internet and create for yourself and the people who pay your bills. She also shared her concern about the ethics of AI-generated imagery.
• Me: do not hide behind the camera. Use it to announce yourself and say something, because the world needs your individuality.

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Conrad Knuist

Head of Marketing and Photography Specialist

Conrad Knuist is Head of Marketing and Photography Specialist at CameraStuff, South Africa's specialist camera and lighting retailer. With over 18 years of hands-on experience across portrait, event, and commercial photography, Conrad hosts CameraStuff's In the Limelight conversations with South African photographers.

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