A pictures of a dog peeing on the information sign in the middle of the beach, which looks like a desert. Pastel, orange hues make the photo looking out of space.

I've touched on this before - on developing your own style, finding a niche, in order to resisting trends and expectations when it comes to the act of creating and expressing... well, yourself.
Today, while digging through my archive looking for an image to post on social media, it hit me again.

It all started with a photo of my dog peeing on an information board at the beach. That photo happens to be the cover of my “The North Sea” project. It’s the one you see on top of this post.

It’s one of the stranger memories from the summer of 2024 - taken on a casual beach walk with my wife and our dog.
At first, I wasn’t super happy with the conditions. The sky was dull, slightly hazy - pretty typical for the warm summer evening on Dutch coast. The light wasn’t exactly my favourite.
But as the sun began to set, the sky shifted into this odd pastel-orange hue. Combined with the raw, rugged landscape of the Zandmotor - a vast stretch of engineered dunes - it created a scene that felt like Martian.
As I was taking a photo of the information boards, my dog decided to pee on them. The cherry on top of an already surreal frame.

Search for patterns

As the Instagram post I’m talking about was meant to have a bit personal twist about making life-altering decisions, I wanted to pair it with a few extra photos of road signs - an allegory for choosing your own path.
I went through some old hard drives from the early days of my photography, and it turned out there are dozens of them. Maybe even hundreds.

Those photos were buried among traditional landscape images I was trying to take and enjoy at that time.

A rugged Scotish landscape - train track in the valley. Road signs on both sides of the track.

It felt like a glass of cold water thrown in my face. Because despite seeing myself as someone who doesn’t give in to outside opinions, or trends, I had clearly fallen into the trap of making images that, for some reason, felt appropriate.

And yet, I already knew what really drew my attention. All I had to do was listen to that intuition.

Back then, it felt completely pointless - what’s the value in taking photos of road signs, the kind we all pass by hundreds of times a day?
Where’s the craft in that? The aesthetics? The message? The artistic twist?

My perception was cluttered, noisy with ideas of what I thought was right.

Make it personal

Only now, after putting together a small series of my favourite road signs and information boards from across Europe, something important clicked.

These photos are stills from my personal road movie!

A road sign - turn left - with a rugged Irish landscape at the background.

And even though it may not seem like it at first glance, this is one of the most personal photo series I’ve ever assembled.
At the same time, it carries a message that’s deeply universal.

It doesn’t just document all the places I’ve been.
It’s also a record of my evolving visual language, shaped over time. My own way of seeing the colors I’m drawn to, the compositions I go for, the details that catch my eye.

A road sign - Go Mall - Slow - in the moody surroundings of Irish countryside.

It’s an allegory of the road - as the place we find ourselves in life. Through signs, commands and prohibitions which literally or visually say: go ahead, don’t stop, turn, don’t turn, no entry, stop - it tells a story that unfolds every single day, millions of times around the world.
It’s a story that everyone can relate to.
It’s also the record of stories that never happened, but could have.

How much I could’ve missed if I had never taken those “silly” road sign photos - or never rediscovered them on my hard drives.

A picture of a Stop sign, crossed by a Coca Cola sign. The image is divided into two - bright wall and a blue sky.

Trust your guts

The whole thing made me reflect on just how crucial it is to listen to your intuition when creating anything.

Our guts know more than we do. They know why we reach for the camera in the first place.

Each of us has a story worth telling. And it’s all too easy to drown it out by chasing trends. Booking flights to one of the top 100 photo spots won’t help. Neither will copying images that “work” for someone else.

In this whole process of finding your niche and style - but most of all your purpose, meaning and voice - what truly matters is simply pausing for a moment and having a look within yourself.
It almost sounds like a no-brainer, but no matter what kind of work you create, the only ones that will ever feel truly right are the ones that come from your guts.

Below a randomly selected pictures of road signs and information boards which I enjoy looking at:

A street board from Berlin. Taken on the crossroad of Kreuzbergstrasse and Mehringdamm.

A road sign standing in between the plants. The look of the building and flower pots indicates the picture has been taken in Spain.

A rusty garage door with a "no parking" sign.

A board hanging on the gate which says: "No parking. Don't even think about it"

An information board covered with sand. Only a piece is sticking out from the sand. Footsteps toward it.

A red "Stop" sign standing next to the building with a red window blinds.

A photo of several, crowded road signs standing next to each other.

A warning board hanging on the gate. There's the sea behind the gate.

A road sign on the beach. It says: "Plage Beaurivage".

I created a FREE guide (well, a mini-course is a better word), which will help you make more compelling, clean pictures.
It includes a little bit of theory, example images and practical tips/exercises.
Do you want to start making minimalistic, clean images that stand out? That guide is for you.

Download your guide here

Featured