“A personal style is the translation of your vision into an actual work of art, into a photograph in this instance. It is the translation of your ideas into something that others can see, something that you can share with your audience, something that represents the closest rendition of your vision that you are capable of producing at a given time.
The language you are using to create this translation is photography. Photography is a visual language that uses composition, tone, color, contrast, subject, light, angle, approach and more to translate your vision into images that anyone can see.
As with any translation, something is often lost, modified or left out. Therefore, each new translation, each new photograph, is a new attempt towards a more accurate translation or towards a translation that your audience understands better. It is also a new attempt at defining the language that you are using to make this translation. As an artist expressing your vision through a personal style, you are not just sharing a message through the language of your choice. As your vision becomes more refined and more unique so does your language. Eventually, the language you use becomes yours only. You invent it as you move forward towards an ever-finer representation of the ideas in your mind.
At that point you are both the inventor of a new vision and the inventor of a new language to translate and express this vision. You are the inventor of the image as well as the author of the facture of the image. Your personal style is a visual language in a way that you use to communicate your message, your vision, to your audience.
In other words you are not just the author of the work of art. You are also the author of the visual language used to create this work of art. You are therefore indebted to your audience because if you create a new language your audience needs to make the effort of learning this new language. […]
The process of developing a personal style is a process of evolution, of continual refinement and of fine-tuning the expression of your vision. A true personal style represents the outcome of this process: a consistent and ongoing expression of your vision. First it is an approach in which the technical and artistic challenges have been resolved in a satisfying manner. Second it is an approach that demonstrates a consistent solution to these problems, a solution that is implemented in a similar manner from image to image, throughout your entire body of work.”
– Alain Briot, Achieving a personal style