How To Find Inspiration For Your Photography

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Finding inspiration for your work can be tricky sometimes, especially if you’re experiencing an episode of creative block. It’s only natural to have ebbs and flows in your creativity and all photographers will face times when they feel that their inspiration has dried up. This could lead you to question whether you should even be doing photography anymore! But don’t panic, it’s normal for these kinds of doubt to creep in if you’re going through a dry patch!

What can you do to get inspiration for your photography?

People often get a great deal of inspiration when they are travelling and they take tons of pictures – but how do you keep up the energy levels of the excitement of seeing new places and cultures that come to you while you are travelling when you are at home, working or going about your daily life?

There are many practical things you do to get inspiration for your work. The key thing is to be practical and not just sit in a dark room waiting for inspiration to find you – be proactive and take the initiative by actively seeking out inspiration.

Try to look at common place situations with fresh eyes! Your workplace, daily commute or other places you visit regularly to find new sources of inspiration!

Top 7 Things you can do to get Inspired in your photography.

• Go to the movies or watch some films on Netflix at home. This may sound easy but instead of watching the film and simply enjoying the plot, characters and situations that are presented to you take a really critical look at the cinematography. Most great films have incredible composition, color balance and graphic elements that you can learn from. Find something that really inspires you and then take that new information into your own realms and start to put these new ideas into practise!

• Sign up for a local photowalk in your city. Joining in with a photowalk is a fantastic way to find new inspiration! Not only will you meet some fun new people who will have ideas, techniques and strategies of their own but as you go around with the group you’ll naturally see things in a new light and find novel sources of inspiration in your local area or city.

• Start a new project. Beginning a new project, particularly if its extremely different to what you are used to doing will naturally fill you with new ideas, inspiration and concepts. Taking on a challenging new project that will force you to learn new things can really help to get the creative juices flowing.

• Get online and study the portfolios of other photographers. Learning from and reviewing the work of your peers is a brilliant way to find new inspiration if you are struggling in your own work to keep it fresh and bursting with vitality. Once you find some photographers whose work fills you with inspiration then follow them to get regular updates on their work. Now this doesn’t mean you should copy what they are doing but you can certainly learn from them and pick up little gems of inspiration while you are at it!

• Take the evening off from your normal routine, get some great food and listen to your favorite music! That’s right, letting your mind wander while listening to music can be a superb source of inspiration for many artists, including photographers.

• Head down to your local art galleries and museums and appreciate the work of others. You might get some sudden flashes of inspiration while enjoying the work of past masters!

• Try out some new lighting conditions. Have a go at working at night around the city. Experiment with light trail photography and try some new settings. Sometimes creating limitations in your work can lead you to focus on new elements of photography and can light up the spark of your inspiration when it’s least expected.

Try Setting Yourself a Challenging Project or Go Back and Revise the Basics of Your Photography Practice.

• You could set yourself a real challenge! How about creating and putting on an exhibition. Choose a subject that you aren’t used to working with and put on an exhibition! Finding new subject matter can really help you find new inspiration and focus in your work.

• Go back to the basics. If you’re struggling to find new inspiration it might be a good time to get back to basics and really fine tune your technical knowledge and skills. Learning more about exposure techniques can often spark chain reactions of new ideas in which you can find new inspiration for your work.

Something you can do any time but can be especially helpful when seeking new inspiration – Try this Trick.

Another clever little trick you can try is to select an ordinary, everyday object from your house. Then take 5 different pictures of it making each one unique! Try to do this every day for a few weeks with a different object, making each picture 100% unique and as different to the others as possible! This will be much harder than it sounds and you’ll quickly find that your inspiration comes flooding back!

Inspiration – The Essential Ingredient For All Great Photography.

Inspiration can be an elusive friend that is sometimes there in abundance but at other times is harder to come by. Having some tactics and techniques to fuel your inspiration is an important thing for photographers, whether you’re an amateur or a working professional. Finding things that work for you is essential but be prepared to try new things as well, because you never quite know where you’ll find your next burst of inspiration from!

What inspires you as a photographer?

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