Top Ten Action Plans for 2006 (7)

"Do you feel like you've run out of good things to photograph? Don't worry. It happens even to professional photographers. One of the best ways to get inspired about taking photos again is to take a look at the work of others. With any luck, looking at some other photos will spark your own creativity and get you snapping the shutter again." -- From the site Digicams.

And it is true. We all experience those times where we feel more like automatons instead of creatives. I can tell you what I am do (and am currently doing) to get the creative juices flowing again.

Get Inspired (DAP7)

I used to shoot hundreds of rolls a week back in the day. Editorial shoots, advertising, fashion... and all seemed to call for a different format. I shot 4x5 and 8x10 for still life and product, 6x7 Mamiyas for advertising clients and 35mm for most of the fashion I did. And occasionally I would shoot a Speed Graphic with Polaroid 55 for some shoots of people and location. Each camera would have its own feel and would be a catalyst in itself.

These days ... 35mm Canon 10 / 20D's. I found myself getting stale. I had tricks that I would natrually fall back to and make acceptable images. Acceptable. BFD...

I am still shooting the camera, but treating it differently on each shoot I do. I am also working with some models to try to push me back to making images that I really love, not just acceptable.

Here are some suggestions for you:

1. Visit your local art museums and see things that artists are doing in other disciplines.
2. Listen to music you don't normally listen to. ( I listen mostly to jazz and classical, but have recently tried country... Toby Kieth Rules, man!) It is a difference that may show up in my work as I move on.
3. Look at some old magazines at the Library. See what some of the masters were doing 20 - 30 years ago. Newton, Penn, Avedon, DeMarchelier... all were making remarkable work that can drive some inspiration our way. There are hundreds. Try going back even further to 1880, or 1920...
   
4. Shoot with point and shoot's. Grab a little Casio, or Olympus and carry it around for a month. Shoot something every day. Shoot at the grocery store.
5. Shoot subject matter that is outside of your comfort zone. If you are a people shooter, try a series of still lifes based on the personalities of friends. Fashion shooter? How about a series on firemen at local station houses. (You know I am just tossing these out to get you to think, not making absolute ideas.)
6. Take a road trip... Ahhhh... a road trip. I love 'em.
7. Shoot from angles that you don't normally try. High, low, ground level.
8. Take a favorite song and illustrate it with images
9. Do a story in pictures of some place near your home, or civic group or...
10. Just shoot. Pick up the camera and shoot something

Subject matter is somewhat a sticking point with a lot of photographers. It must be cause I hear it so often. "What would I shoot?" There are many sites online to help you with inspirational ideas and there are a few consultants out there that can force you from your comfortable fox holes of 'acceptable images' into the wild and wooly world of creativity.

Grab a sheet of paper. Start by writing out subjects you don't normally shoot in a column on the left. Then write a corresponding column on the right of subjects you normally shoot. Now read the top left subject with each of the right column subjects. What may happen there? You can see and hear ideas that may sound strange, even comical... but every once in a while you will say a pair of subjects and the light will go off and ... voila... inspiration.

Of course inspiration in and of itself is not enough. You must now follow through. Make a plan for developing new images for yourself, your book, your Web site, your walls, your stock collection, your print sales, your fine art gallery submissions... wow... there are lots of places to show these new pieces. That should be inspiring as well.

Tomorrow: Web Marketing Tips to Increase Your Visibility

Previous:
Selling Prints and Fine Art (DAP6)
Taking Stock of Your Stock (DAP5)
Web Design Options (DAP4)
Flickr… more than just a photoblog. (DAP3)
Show More Pictures (DAP2)
Be Found on the Search Engines. (DAP 1