Generate INFINITE Ideas for Your Photography Projects

stop think of a favorite song lyric now think of the type of images you're most interested in creating combine those two things into a single concept you just developed a potential idea for your next personal project and it took less than five seconds and i'd be willing to bet you're already starting to picture the finished product in your mind [Music] save this video like it bookmark it come back to it and re-watch it as many times as you need and subscribe to this channel pause this video and do all those things right now because in this video i'm going to give you a ton of prompts that you can use to develop ideas for your own personal projects now whether you're a seasoned pro mid-career or just starting out on your photography journey one thing that helps to fuel our fires is the pursuit of personal projects personal projects allow us to explore our creativity without expectations and without client approval when you're showing your portfolio to photo editors art buyers and producers they will often ask to see your personal work and you better have some these people want to know what it is that makes you tick how you work as a photographer how you see the world and to get a better sense of your creativity when you're not simply shooting to pay the bills personal projects can and should be part of your marketing strategy but they can and should also be something you just do for yourself work you create to hang on your wall or just to feed your soul personal projects give you the space and freedom you need to experiment learn and discover for many people trying to develop concepts for personal projects is incredibly difficult so today i'm going to try to help you develop some ideas for your own projects and hopefully give you some parameters to put in place to help you define the scope of your personal projects as well so first let's talk about where you can find inspiration at the start of this video you found inspiration in a song lyric that's just one method you can get seeds for your ideas from songs poetry movies tv shows podcasts youtube videos magazine articles photos newspaper articles and pretty much anything else if you see it and it makes you think of an idea that's inspiration you just need to sit down and actually think of where to get some of those ideas from and how to actively look for them and then write them down so here are some places where you can get ideas from for your projects and this is by no means an exhaustive list galleries museums time periods objects cultures and subcultures popular culture design and architecture different occupations social causes flavors and tastes what what flavors inspire you what tastes inspire you personal belongings little trinkets that you may have lying around the seasons and seasonal items your favorite holiday candy what kind of candy do you like what are your obsessions what are other people's obsessions furniture geography topography family history diseases health textures fabrics words and alphabets patterns tattoos meals even children's artwork so including the few i mentioned before the list you now have more than 30 places from which you can look for inspiration for your ideas from where you can draw inspiration for your ideas now you have some sources for inspiration you need to make it personal you need to take that inspiration and make it your own you can do this by combining your inspiration with some parameters these parameters can be techniques subjects or situations that you've been wanting to learn or explore they can be creating a collection of images with a specific audience in mind they can be images in a genre or specialty that you've been meaning to explore they can even be limitations that you impose upon yourself when you're creating the project so starting with an audience you want to begin by thinking about who's going to see the finished work or who you want to see the finished work maybe you want art buyers our producers and photo editors to see your work maybe you want gallery curators to see your work maybe you want to create a series that celebrates your cultural heritage or create a project that you only show to one person or even to no one but yourself having a viewer in mind helps you clarify what it is you want to say and accomplish with the project you might also choose to experiment with some techniques you haven't done before or revisit some techniques that you haven't done in a long time you can also focus on a specific set or type of subject such as only shooting groups of three people now limitations may be anything you want they can be technical such as limiting yourself to one specific lens or they could be creative such as using a strict approach to color blocking they can even be spatial such as going to one location and photographing strangers here's another quick not even remotely exhaustive list of some ideas for techniques subjects and limitations that you might choose to use now write down the ones that resonate with you tell a complete story in one photo freeze action groups of a specific number of people or subjects wildlife nature environmentals vibrant colors cleanliness or messiness compositing using costumes designing a specific wardrobe or look for your series of images athletes of weird sports camouflage your subjects in the environment light exclusively with gels create images that are full of metaphor and allegory build a completely custom set show the passing of time in a still frame frame your subject within the image focus on symmetry use negative space create long exposures work with only agency models use alternative compositions and perspectives create a series of high key images or a series of low-key images use projection light painting use mirrors use cinematic lighting techniques light the scene and then stick the subject in there but don't light the subject make something ugly fill out your background use only available light use a single light setup use a 12 light setup use only one prime lens shoot only five frames of any subject photograph 50 strangers in one day create a series of product photos that require focus stacking or create a series of images that are intentionally out of focus or under exposed or overexposed do something you're not supposed to do intentionally now take everything that you've written down and create three separate columns put all your inspiration and ideas in one column all your genres and techniques in another and all your limitations in a third now pick one from each list and start making combinations you'll quickly start to discover ideas for projects that will jump out at you and will inspire you to create fresh new work that is truly yours and not simply a derivative replication of someone else's style so i want to just take a quick minute to show you two of my personal projects one that i've been doing on an ongoing basis over a number of years and another one that i did in one afternoon this first project is of reenactors they're portraits of reenactors that i've been doing on location i take an assistant with me who holds a light on a post while i'm photographing the subjects the first time i went out and did the portraits of the reenactors i used this modifier which is a 21 inch beauty dish it's a white beauty dish with a sock on it which is a diffusion filter so i went out with a friend of mine with this light with the head on a monopod pole and a battery pack and we shot those portraits actually with a 60d and that was the first set of images that i did the next year when i went out i took a white seven foot parabolic umbrella also with a diffusion filter on the front of that and these are the images that came from that and i got a wider variety and mostly because we had a little more time to shoot for the second project i wanted to capture a series of portraits of runners who were running a relay race i set up down near the beach and it was pretty windy so i used this modifier again it's a 21 inch white beauty dish with a with a sock on it and it has some sandbags to keep that in place so it wouldn't blow over i went with my friend eric you can see in this photo just holding up a piece of white foam core as the backdrop i stuck with a 50 millimeter lens once everything was set up i didn't change the settings i wanted to make sure that all of the settings were consistent across the series of images so that you weren't focusing on any differences between the images you're only focusing on the emotional state of the runners themselves so get back out there and start creating work that's important to you it's the first step towards making work that is fulfilling and meaningful and finally if you found this video helpful please share it with your friends and colleagues and you can get inspired right now by checking out the amazing work of all the photographers featured in my ongoing series 5 to follow just click right here go ahead click it