So what’s the best way to cultivate that illusive concept of style with which so many aspiring photographers grapple? “The best thing you can do is look at a lot of images,” Dominique suggests. “The more you put in your mind the more distinctions you can make.” By doing this, he says “you’re looking at fuel or nourishment for your art; you’re looking for elements.”

New technology also makes developing a style more dynamic, according to Dominique. “Photoshop is your new darkroom,” he says. “You have to master that to master your art, in my opinion.” And that may be more daunting than in the days of the darkroom, but truer and more exciting. “Where you had five choices before with film,” he says (referring to the finite recipes of film, developer, and paper), “now you have 5000 choices. I hear a lot of people talk about the ‘good old days of film when it was more honest’.” “Yeah,” he adds, “but that wasn’t a big artistic choice on your part.”