9/10/23

Read this article: FastCo Design Good Taste is a Myth and write a 200-300 word blog post describing your taste/visual preferences and what has inspired them.

I’ve been a photographer for over a decade now and the longer I stay in the business, the more and more I hear people saying to me, “I can always tell your style!” or “I saw this and immediately knew it was you!”. Now I can say for a fact that I have never considered what my “style” was. 

I do have a process when I shoot and edit photos. I prioritize color and contrast. But I have never deliberately manipulated an image to look like my others. I just know that I love dynamic images that show me as much range in the spectrums of color and light as possible. But why?

As a Saint Lucian, I grew up in a place surrounded by a deep cerulean sea and skies. My mother had carefully curated her garden with orange and green bougainvillea trees, a dark green sweet lime hedge that bloomed small fragrant white flowers in March. There were Yellow buttercups, and mangoes that went from small yellow flowers, to green, then red, then orange ripe fruit and so much more. The people I knew were also as diverse and vibrant in color as my surroundings, and so it is no wonder that my primary inspiration would be what I already knew. 

That is why, when I moved to NYC, I found a new challenge in creating work that inspired me. With all of the dull grays of steel, concrete and asphalt, and the impressive, but aged, antique architecture, I sought to find the color and contrast I knew. However, with a lack of, I found something new to replace, and where possible, to enhance my composition style.

My primary focus might be vibrant colors and eye-popping contrast, but with tools like shapes, patterns, leading lines, texture and symmetry, I can still create images that catch the eye and represent the dynamicity I strive to portray.