50 Assignments
Ideas and nudges for when you are stuck
- Take 5 photos that have strong diagonal lines
- Take 10 photos without looking at the review in camera
- Spend the day taking only vertical (portrait) photographs
- Use a low ISO, slow shutter speed, and move the camera to make a design
- Spend the day only looking up (or down)
- If you use the camera’s screen to compose, spend the day only looking through the viewfinder, if you use the viewfinder, use the screen only
- Photograph holding your smart phone below your waist
- Create distorted photographs by photographing through bottles, plastic wrap, glasses
- Tell the story of a place through reflections only
- Spend the day using only 1 shutter speed
- Use one aperture all day, select subjects appropriate to the depth of field
- Select an area and spend an hour taking photographs in only that space
- Go back to the same place at different times of the day and in different weather conditions
- Be inspired to create photographs by a poem, artwork or listening to music
- Select an object (slice of bread, paper bag, etc.) and include that object in 15 photographs
- Use a low ISO and slow shutter speed and hold the shutter open as you run through the woods or as a passenger, drive the car down a forested road, through a tunnel, across a bridge.
- Keep a photo notebook, include ideas, places, anything
- Collect 7 objects, arrange these objects to create 3 different photographs
- Spell out a word with photographs of objects in the shapes of the letters
- Photograph a place like a contact sheet,
- See if you can reverse your lens to make it into a macro lens
- Spend the day taking photographs that only work if they are black and white
- Spend the day taking photographs of objects that start with the same first letter as you name (or favorite food, or pet’s name, etc.).
- Create photographs where one color is the dominant color
- Create a series of photograph using a limited number of objects as the subject
- Write down a series of emotions, colors and sounds on separate pieces of paper, put them in an envelope. Pull out one piece and create photographs inspired by the words on the paper
- Create an image using this phrase as the inspiration: I heard this sound
- Take a photograph, review it, eliminate one element, retake, continue this until there is nothing left to take out
- Spend the day photographing with this in mind: What would a photograph look like if it was taken by butterfly or another animal, plant, food, etc.
- Let someone else take a photograph following the directions that you give them.
- Take a photograph that you know “won’t work”
- Take photographs of a subject that you don’t like
- Play photo ping pong with a friend using your smart phones,
- Randomly select 15 to 20 of your photographs and organize them several different ways: group them by color, find all the ones containing a strong horizontal line, group all the ones that contain a circle, put all the close-up ones together, group the portrait mode ones together
- Write down 3 different ideas as seen through the eyes of: Elvis, a swarm of bees and a pack of hungry wolves
- Make “contact sheets” even with your digital files
- Select one subject (location, object, etc.) and photograph it over the course of several days/weeks/month
- Photograph a piece of white paper 20 times, you can fold, roll, or crumple it but not cut or tear the paper. Change the lighting for each photo.
- Spend the day only taking photographs that are “framed” such as the frame of a window or mirror or framing of tree branches
- Which eye is the dominant eye IE- which one do you use to focus and compose? Spend the day photographing using the other eye
- Make a list of 50 things you would photograph if you were not limited by budget, time, equipment, or creative restraints.
- Add to that list regularly
- Give titles (or new titles) to 20 of your past photographs
- Make a list of things you like, make it personal, don’t worry if it is silly or not. Continue making the list until it takes you longer than 10 seconds to think of something else to add. Review the list and see if the placement of different words together make you think of a photograph.
- For several days in a row, “shoot a roll of film”, in the digital world that would be 24- 36 photographs. Make a contact sheet of each day. After you have done this for a couple of days, look at the contact sheet. What was the subject that you found most interesting or important?
- Make a list of 50 things that you consider great. This could be music, artwork, a recipe or meal, performance, literature. Consider why you consider these great, what is in your work that reflects that?
- Empty out your pocket, purse or backpack and take photographs of the contents. Do this several times with different arrangements and different lighting.
- Shoot in inclement weather
- Hold your camera upside down
- Don’t be afraid to take chances