Confusion and lack of motivation are inevitable. If you're in the middle of a creative block, don't worry. You might need a few simple exercises to refresh your mind and discover a whole new world of photography ideas.
Prompts for photography can be anything interesting that you love photographing or exploring new themes and ideas. The motive here is to get your camera out every day or whenever possible and photograph something new. This will help one get inspiration for photography and work on their creativity, for example, look at things differently and capture them from different perspectives, look at the beautiful little things around you, and improve your confidence in photography.
1. Take Photos Of Everything Through Mirrors
We're used to seeing the world from a specific angle. To spice things up, change the way you look at the world by photographing reflections only. Use unusual mirrors and pieces of glass to keep your photos unique.
2. Capture Reflections in Water
Annie Sprat
This classic shot type can be applied in so many ways. You don't need to wait for a rainy day, you can even pour a bit of water out from a water bottle and get close enough to it to create a compelling reflection.
3. Use A Wide-Angle Lens To Take Vertical Photos
Wide-angle lenses are often used to take horizontal pictures and mostly landscapes and architecture. If you use them vertically, you'll get unusually distorted portraits.
This is a fun way to change your perspective and play around with different shooting styles.
4. Capture Your Favorite Places With A Polaroid Camera
Use any analogue camera to take photos of your favorite places. If you love instant gratification, use an instant camera.
This activity will ground you and force you to look at your favourite locations from a creative point of view.
(The locations don't have to be extravagant. In fact, keep them as simple as possible to improve your creative thinking skills!)
5. Photograph Every Member Of Your Family
There can never be enough photos of your loved ones. Take photos of every member of your family, from oldest to youngest.
You can accompany each photo with stories about their lives or simply use the images in a special photo album that posterity can cherish in the future. Think of it as an opportunity to freeze special moments in time.
6. Create A Fake Analogue Effect
If you don't have an analogue camera, why not re-create a visually aesthetic vintage effect in Photoshop? You can use free online resources to create light leaks, dust, scratches, etc. There are some interesting plugins for photoshop that let you do it in a click and a few slider adjustments to get the look you are going for.
This will improve your editing skills and teach you how to enhance simple photos.
7. Make Simple Subjects Look Unique
Many photographers (including myself) like to look for unique subjects in their work. Sometimes, the best way to inspire yourself is to do the opposite of that: find unique ways to photograph simplicity. Try to take unusual photos of everyday objects like plants, cups, and books.
8. Photograph Different Shadows
Instead of taking photos of a person or thing, focus on its shadow. Shadows may be simple, but they can also be emotional if you photograph them correctly. They're a great opportunity to learn how to see potential in things that other people overlook.
9. Purposely Take Out-Of-Focus Photos
Sharp, clear photos are often a priority in every photographer's life. If you're feeling uninspired, maybe you need to loosen up and break a few rules. If you're photographing a person, take blurred photos of them or focus on their background instead.
10. Use The Square Format
There are many photographers who stick to a specific format in their work. Some like panoramas, while others focus exclusively on the square format.
For this exercise, simply crop your images so that they're square. The limited space will force you to think about symmetry, boundaries, and composition in an entirely new way.
11. Take Photos Behind People
Murad Osmann is a famous photographer who takes photos of his wife during their travels. The images are unique because they rarely feature his wife's face.
You can follow Murad's lead and take photos behind people as they work on their hobbies, travel, or simply enjoy everyday life.
12. Re-Create Old Family Pictures
Look through old family photos and find images that you'd like to re-create using modern equipment. You don't have to be in the pictures, although it would be cool if you re-created your own childhood photos!
13. Document a Stage Of Life
Pregnancy, childhood, marriage, etc., are all very special parts of life. If you're looking for a long-term project, find a person whose journey you'd like to document.
You could photograph the stages of pregnancy, a teenager's experience in high school, or your own personal journey during a specific period of your life.
14. Use Simple Backgrounds For All Of Your Pictures (Or Not)
If you spend a lot of time thinking about backgrounds, switch to very simple ones. If you already like using simple backgrounds, try to pay more attention to them. Do the opposite of what you're used to.
15. Re-Create A Metaphor
There are many clever metaphors and similes out there. Make a list of your favourite ones and try to re-create them using simple objects.
16. Shoot In Black & White Mode Only
Shoot in black and white mode to remove colourful distractions and see the world from a fresh perspective. Change your camera settings to take only black and white (or shoot black and white film). Then, take photos of everything you usually photograph for a week.
17. Re-Create Your Photos With A Smartphone Camera
Look through your portfolio. Do you have any photos that stand out to you the most? Try to re-create them using your smartphone camera. You can use an advanced camera app. The simpler it is, the better.
18. Use Long Exposure Photography Techniques In Your Backyard
Annie Spratt
Long exposure photographers often go to extravagant places to take pictures. Do the opposite of that. Take photos at home, in your backyard, or in the simplest place you can imagine. Look for potential in insignificant places.
19. Shoot Everything from A Very Low Angle
Like many of these challenges, this is meant to force you to see the world from a new perspective. Shoot everything from a very, very low angle. The world will look completely different, which might inspire you in unexpected ways.
20. Take 100 Candid Street Photos
And finally, if you're a fan of street photography, go out there and take 100 unique photos of people and places. Make sure the photos are candid but visually appealing. This is a fun way to introduce yourself to the genre without having to approach strangers directly.
21. Tell a Story in 4 Photos
One of the limitations of photography that often requires quite a lot of creativity from the photographer is telling a story in a single image. And while that is difficult, you can make it easier by allowing yourself a bit of leeway. Here is one that shows a quick story that was taken in the local park.
Rob Wood
22. Photograph Hands at Work
Quino Al
Photographs of hands can be surprisingly difficult to compose, but something about having those hands doing something specific can often add an element of storytelling and finish the composition nicely. While the classic is the hands of a potter molding clay, there are many scenarios where an idea like this can work beautifully.
23. Create a Faceless Portrait
There is no rule saying that your portraits need to actually have a face in them. In fact, we have talked about the faceless portrait as a challenge before. This one comes down to composition and creativity so go for it!
24: Capture the Changing Weather
NOAA
Approaching weather can be a wonderful subject for photographers and provide some extremely exciting landscape images. While storms and clouds can be a great subject for this, don't ignore tides, waves, water or wind as potential elements you can shoot.
25. Capture Emotions in Motion
Callum Skelton
As a photo prompt, it can be tempting to take ones like this literally and do something like capture somebody winning a race and celebrating. And while that would still make for a potentially wonderful shot, the photo above shows that adding your own creativity to a prompt can really create something original. Here is some more on the idea of emotion and motion.
26. Use Just One Colour
Wolfgang Hasselmann
Restricting yourself to just one colour in your images really makes you draw your attention to form, composition and light. And it can be quite challenging to even find a scene that fits the bill! But the image you can get from this simple exercise can be extremely compelling.
27. High Contrast Portraits
Richard Jaimes
We are always taught to find even and soft light for a portrait, but that is not to say that high-contrast portraits cannot work. In fact, they can be amazingly cool if done well. This prompt involves ignoring traditional advice and figuring out how to make the opposite work well in a compelling photograph.
Some Points To Focus On:
- Make sure you take your camera wherever you go so you are ready to get the shot if you see something that inspires you or interests you.
- Learn from your mistakes and find out ways to improve the image next time you get a chance to shoot.
- Do not put much pressure on yourself, but take your time and work on your creative journey at your own pace. Pushing yourself to take a photo for the sake for a daily challenge at times when you are busy can make it a task rather than an inspiration. So missing days when you are not up to it is ok.
- Make a list of more ideas and prompts as they pop up in your mind at times and use them creatively.
- Look through photography books that interest you or visit galleries to get inspired and to learn how photographers have created their photographs.
- Learn new post processing techniques like a film edit or a black and white edit, etc.
- Most importantly, learn to have fun while photographing, rather than taking it as a task. There are ideas and opportunities everywhere. So look around, sit somewhere and observe and then photograph.
7 Comments
It’s an extremely informative article and I loved it. Thanks
excellent, very informative article. tnx for sharing.
Great article, always good to have different ideas that help tend our range of photography, thanks!
I like it !!!!!!
Informative and inspiring! Thank you!
Good idea to open up the mind tks vm.
Good to know I’m not alone when seeking inspirational ideas. And these ideas certainly have inspired me. Thank you!