Photography is all about trying to capture the beauty in anything that you see, we all experience life in our own unique way, and photography gives us the opportunity to share our perspective with other people. Over the years, there have been many innovative and highly creative photographers who have developed entire genres of photography that we pretty much try to copy to this day, but if you think about it, when these photographic geniuses picked up a camera for the first time, did they really know what they were doing?

The answer to that is no, of course they did not know what they were doing, they followed their instincts and tried immortalizing their visual perspective. In doing so, they created their own style that people ended up adopting.

Basically, if you are trying to become a unique photographer then you do not have to follow the beaten path, instead, do what feels right to you and carve your own place in the long list of photography genres. There are tons of photographers out there who have developed their own unique ways of using the camera over the years and have ended up attracting a lot of positive attention.

While this might sound easy, developing your own niche and then having it grow is not an easy thing to do, many people will question you along the way, this can be discouraging but you should not let other peoples’ opinions get the best of you. Keep in mind that with experimentation comes failure, often more times than success, but when you do get that rare taste of success it can make all your efforts incredibly worth it.

There are a number of ways in which one can promote their style and have it appeal to people; once you become confident enough about your work then you can start your own blog to attract people who like your work. Blogging can be a very powerful promotional tool that not only lets you present your work to people, but also gives you the opportunity to catch the eye of influential people in the photography industry or (if you are lucky enough) land a sponsorship with some photography related company.

Once you have managed to establish your style and make it mainstream enough, you can happily call yourself an entrepreneur and start then start focusing on how you can grow your style and improve it.

A few additional things that can help you promote your style is to conduct surveys, figure out whether you are the first person to try this, if there is competition then how strong is it and in what form? Successfully identifying gaps and unfulfilled needs in the market can really give you a boost and make promoting yourself easier.

The last thing to keep in mind is that in order to make an impact, you need to be able to speak to your audience through your work, so be brave, be bold and think outside of the box.

Lately there has been an increase in Chinese brands popping up in all kinds of industries and providing people with rather impressive products, Laowa is one such company. A fairly recent player in the camera lens industry, Laowa has managed to make a name for itself with the introduction of its 12mm f/2.8 wide angle lens. Today, we are going to be taking a look at this company’s 15mm f/2 lens that they have produced with Sony’s E-mount kept in mind, this compact, fast and incredibly smooth lens has a lot to offer that makes the lens really impressive.

Looks wise, the Laowa 15mm seems quite small due to the fact that it is designed specifically for the Sony E-mount and that it is a purely manual lens without any circuitry in it. One of the most impressive things about its body is the fact that the lens completely metal, this gives it a very nice weighty feel and also ups the lens durability. Anyone who is into vintage looking cameras will immediately fall in love with this lens since it gives a very old fashioned cinema camera feel to any camera that it gets attached to.

Aesthetics aside, the lens also has a number of thoughtful markings on it, its focus ring is also quite smooth and satisfying to use, and the smoothness of the ring will also allow the camera to perform as a decent videography lens. Its 72mm front comes with a detachable hood that can be swapped with various filters quite easily, Laowa’s 15mm is designed to be filter friendly, which is a handy feature for those of you who like to a play around with their camera a lot.

A great thing about this camera is its spot on manual focus, the smoothness of the ring makes carrying out even the minutest tweaks feel like a breeze, the lens also manages to provide decent focusing ability in darker areas. The 15mm offers very nice sharpness as well, every area of pictures manages to remain clear and defined, and the lens manages to deliver the “zero distortion” that Laowa has advertised about their lens.

Along with superb sharpness, this lens also manages to deliver very smooth and dreamy bokeh shots, which look even more fascinating when shot from as close as 15cm from the subject (the lens’ minimum subject distance).

Overall, Laowa’s 15mm f/2 lens comes in a small yet sturdy package that delivers surprisingly good performance, a great manual focus experience and the ability to accept filters quite easily, all at a very decent price. If you are someone who can get over the fact that this lens has no electronics in it, then you should definitely give it a go.