Think you know what kind of fine art photography you like?  Are you sure?  You might be surprised what your fine art tastes actually are.  Fortunately, there’s a rather easy way to find out just what your particular taste is in fine art photography.  It shouldn’t take more than a couple of hours to complete either.

When you’re just starting out, you have some ideas of the kinds of photos you like.  Some of it is based on what your parents liked and displayed in your home.  That’s unavoidable.  Some of it is your own personal tastes which might have nothing to do with your parents’ tastes in fine art.  If you would like to find out what your tastes are, then use this method and you will find out what you like.

1. Get a Pinterest Account

If you don’t already have 1, get yourself a Pinterest account.  They’re free and will be essential to completing this test.

You can get a free account by signing up here.  Fill out the necessary account details and get to the point where you add pins and boards.

If you already have a Pinterest account, then use your existing account for this test.

2. Create a Board

If you just signed up for Pinterest, you will need to create your first board.  You need this board to collect several different samples.  This is where they will be stored and you will come to look at patterns.  Instructions for creating your first Pinterest board can be found here.

If you already have a Pinterest account, you will need to create another board.  It can be public if you like but I would recommend that you make this particular board a secret board.  If you need instructions on making a board secret, look here.  You can also enlarge the photo to the left in lightbox to see the secret board switch.

Ultimately, it doesn’t matter if your board is public or private.  Choose either option you want.  You can even make it a temporary board and delete it after you’re done with this exercise.  You just need this board to complete the test.

3. Fill Your Board

Now comes the easy and enjoyable part.  You need to fill the board with pins of photos.  If you don’t know how, use this tutorial to learn how.  Assume that price is no object for this exercise.

The first thing you should be thinking about is if you like the image.  The second thing you should think about is whether or not you would hang this picture, or otherwise display it, in your home.  That second part is really important.  The whole idea is to figure out what kind of fine art photography or other fine art you would display in your home.

This is also not a board where you should be pinning cute photos of kittens or puppies or babies unless you would actually hang those on your wall.  I love them too but they’re not often wall art for a reason.

Go out on the internet and pin photos to your board.  You can now easily go out on social media or do a Google image search.  It’s probably a good idea to have “safe search” turned on especially if you are at work when doing this test.  You might be surprised at what some people will pass off as fine art.

It might take a couple different tries with a couple different places before you find a good source of fine art photography you like.

Make sure to fill your board with a good 50 or more pins to get a more accurate idea of the kind of fine art photography you care for.

4. Analyze Your Board

Now that you’ve got several different kinds of fine art which you feel you would display on your wall if money were no object, take a good look at what you’ve got.

Analyze for patterns and themes.  Here are some examples of patterns or themes you could look for.

• Do you see a lot of landscapes or do you see more abstract fine art?
• Do you see more color or monochromatic (black and white) pictures?
• What kinds of color do you see? Is is more vivid or muted?
• Do you tend to choose pictures with animals or people in them?
• Do you see more of a bright and airy feel or a dark and moody feel?

Art is very subjective in nature.  You may find patterns and themes in your fine art preferences which I haven’t thought of and you didn’t imagine to start with.

If you don’t feel that you can’t find any strong themes or patterns running through your board, then repeat the exercise of adding more pins.  Keep doing so until you can recognize these in your pins.  It will eventually emerge if you have enough pins to work with.

Congratulations!

You’re done with your test/experiment.  You’ve just figured out what kind of fine art photography/regular fine art to display in your home on your wall.  It wasn’t that hard at all.  Now you know what your fine art taste is.

Now as you go shopping for fine art, keep these patterns and themes in mind.  You will understand better why you are drawn to a particular kind of art.

If you happen to be in the market for fine art photography, then check out our store.  We’ve got several landscape photos up for sale in several different sizes with matting and framing available.  We hope to see you there.