5 Step Guide How To Get Better At Photography....Without Taking Photos?

Our 5 Step Guide Will Demonstrate How To Get Better At Photography….And, You Don't Always Need A Camera

We love it and always want to learn how to get better at photography. That's a given.

Let's face it, we would not be here pursuing the veritable encyclopedic archives of Lightstalking if we were not fully into this photography thing.

We live to take photos, always looking for new angles, new ideas, new ways to boost our creativity. On the contrary, sometimes, it is possible that the actual act of constantly taking photos can hinder our creative enhancement. Sound crazy?

Occasionally, we need to step back from the actual photo-taking aspect and look at some other ways to boost our creativity.

The advantages to this are that we can often get a different perspective on the creative process than the one we are used to in photography.

Let's show you how to get better at photography by looking at 5 excellent ways to get the creative juices flowing.

1. Looking At Architecture

Architects are some of the most creative people on the planet. They mold the modern world into forms of their own vision.

As photographers, we often love to shoot architecture but how often do we step back and actually analyze what we are looking at?

Take the time to visit some iconic buildings and really look at them. After a while, you will start to see some of the compositional elements that you recognize from photography.

Leading lines,
Thirds,
Reflections.

Try to get into the architect's mind and work out what he was thinking, why did he design this element this way?
Don’t restrict yourself to modern architecture either, old and even ancient buildings were all built on the backs of creative vision.

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Architects are highly creative people. Take time to analyze their work. By antony_mayfield

2. Admire Mother Nature And All It's Beauty

Many of the rules that we use in photography stem from the natural world. In fact, one of the great compositional rules, the golden ratio, stems from Fibonacci’s observation of nature.

The golden ratio appears everywhere in nature from the number of petals on a flower to the way rabbits reproduce. Take the time to really observe the natural world around you.

This could be in a park or out in the wilderness. Look at the way different leaves seem so symmetrical and yet seem to fit a format. Look at flowers and plants, the way they are distributed.

Top Tip!

Just sitting and watching nature at it’s best will boost both your energy and creative ability.

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Sit and watch nature both from afar and close up. By Nourdine GERNELLE

Further Learning

“Understanding Light” is a fantastic course guide written by author and pro photographer Kent DuFault,
and let's be honest, we all would like to be masters of light! Our creativity depends on it.
Check it out here.

3. Observing Art Will Teach You How To Get Better At Photography

Art is all around us in the modern world. From sculptures to paintings, our visual senses are bombarded with the vision of artists.

Like so many other creative processes, you will see so much familiarity to photography but because of it's, perhaps slower more considered approach art is often much more conceptual.

Look deeply at that painting or sculpture and try to work out what the artist was trying to tell us. Look at the ways they have created the art and look for those familiarities to photography.

It might be the way the light falls in a landscape painting or the pose of statue. Observing and analyzing art is a great way to boost and inspire your inner creativity.

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Looking at art in any form can boost your creativity. By BMiz

4. Listen To Music To Inspire Your Photography

Music is human’s expression of creativity in aural form. Whist the it might not seem at first glance that visual and aural have much in common, music has the power to massively boost our creativity.

Sit or lie down in a darkened room and listen to different types of music whilst visualizing your next shoot. You find the imagery flows into your mind’s eye much more vividly and fluidly giving you a much wider range of creative ideas for any upcoming project.

Experiment with different genres of music for the same shoot and you will come up with very different visions for how the shoot should look.

Another huge advantage of listening to music is that it relaxes us and relaxation itself is another huge booster of creativity.

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Music can provide a huge boost to our creativity. By Craig Sunter

5. Watch TV And Movies To Boost Creativity In Your Photography

Some of the most visually creative work we can see today comes from the minds of film directors and cinematographers. There are so many incredible visual styles in modern film and television that it would be hard not to be creatively inspired by them.

The great thing about the creative vision of film and tv creators is that the medium is such a close cousin to photography that it is easy for us to translate that creativity into our own photography.

In the age of Netflix, it is easy for us to sit down are re-watch creative scenes and analyze why and how they were shot that way.

Summary

Creativity is all around us. From buildings to art to music, our lives are shaped by the creative vision of our peers. By embracing, learning and being inspired by them we can boost our own creativity and shape our own vision of the world we live in.

Discover what's close by to where you live, even in your own home. Just try to observe more and place the camera down occasionally.

How To Get Better At Photography – Top Takeaways

Slow down and pause to take note of your immediate surroundings – be it nature or the city. There is beauty everywhere!
Movies, art and music are all very different creative mediums, all of which, however, can serve the single purpose of inspiring us when we feel our creativity is running dry.
Are you noticing and observing the physical structure of your home, local office building, pavement slabs, road shapes?