I am in a rut, running out of ideas for my dailies. I have been challenging myself to a 50mm in 50 days challenge, but I think it is the cause of my rut. What to photograph during your routine days when nothing special presents itself.
I am finding the same thing at the moment, mostly due to the weather and being dark when I get home from work. It is times like these I look around the house, grab something mundane and try and capture it in an interesting way. I have been doing my own 50mm challenge and have found that I like photographing food with it, you could try that. Or you could search the tags page, close your eyes and pick something and then there are the weekly themes that may also offer some inspiration.
Practice a technique and take a heap of just one subject. Then pick the best.
You find if you take 600 of a single subject and you have to only pick one, it makes you really look at why you picked the one.... you can then use that knowledge when you go to take the next 600.
I'm doing an A-Z challenge, simple, but working quite effective! Each day I must find something to photograph starting with a specific letter of the alphabet, day one is A, day two is B... ect.
I'm surprised how much this makes me look around for items and objects starting with my letter for the day!!!
Try taking a series of photos of your house/neighborhood/town as if you were showing them to an old friend who cannot visit and wants to see what it's like where you are.
@agima That is great advice, and I will share in its benefit.
There are challenges on this site everyday. They always spark me, in some form or another. The alphabet, the color wheel, every item you use on a daily basis (i.e. mundane challlenge) are all great places to start.
I think mood (mojo) effects me more than anything. I try to keep excited about my camera, getting email "tips of the day" from photo blogs. They trigger a lot, and teach me something new. @dmward
No real tips from except to keep going and don't be too hard on yourself if you miss a day. I have had a few patches of no phojo and it genuinely gets you down because you invest so much of yourself in this site. I have just had a bad patch of a few weeks with no enthusiasm/phojo but it is coming back and i am starting to really enjoy it all again. I have gaps from this time that are slowly being filled!
Try playing with lighting or look through the pictures here on 365 and find one you'd like to try and recreate yourself.
I lost my 'mojo' back in April but have recently started again and I think the break did me good. I'm back and more focused than ever. And the odd empty day here and there shouldn't get you down. You can always use them later for those days when you have more than one photo you want to share.
I think the main problem isn't that people run out of ideas - it's that there is just far too much to chose from! (lets face it - if you can see it, you can photograph it)
Pick a theme to narrow it down - otherwise how can you even walk around your house, or down your drive without getting dozens of shots.
Without narrowing it down I'd never find time to do anything other than take pics (it's only just gone lunch time here in the UK - and there are already 4 different pics on the camera that would fit with my theme - so at least 3 will need binning to never see the light of day on here!!)
Take 30 minutes, walk no more than 1/4 mile, and just put the camera to your eye and shoot. Anything and everything. Especially look through the lens often to see what things look like. Things appear to work very differently through the camera which has no peripheral vision. Wait a day, and then bring them into an editor and be prepared to experiment. Light, exposure, crop, blur, contrast, B/W, toning. It's quite amazing what you might find.
Look for some festivals or gatherings/meetings in your city - - that you might not normally go to or even know about. Your mind and your creativity will be sparked with all the new things you are seeing!
@sticksandstones This I definately need to do! I have been so busy the past few weeks with family things. Normally I like to set aside time on the weekend to go our for a photo project. Hmmm, need to make plans for this weekend.
You guys are the best!!!!! I spent some time at lunch and have gathered up some ideas for some projects I can do in and around the homefront. My creative juices are starting to flow.
@agima what Brendan said - also go to Flicker and look at the ideas other people are trying.... saw a marble on glitter paper today, so plan to go buy a marble and some glitter paper for the next rainy day. I've also collected shiny jacks (from the game when we were a kid), designed a "white box", and have made the appropriate modifications for a dark room for light painting. Pretend you are your own kindergarten teacher :D
Thanks again to everyone, I did a fun project last night with oil & water. Really broke me out of my rut. I found so many interesting ideas on the web, should keep me busy for a while. :D I would add my shot from last night but don't know how to include a pic, so you can find it in my 365 gallery.
Aside from beer, which does provide a good subject, anything that hits your eye. Avail yourself of any one of the challenges on the site. Camera settings is my fav.
Similar to what @jojackson said, my favs list is full of the pics that I would like to try to reproduce. I know people on 365 often use their favs list to give kuddos for cool shots, I'm really looking for cool shots that I too can do. (So that exotic animal that doesn't live in St Louis doesn't make the cut, even if it's the best I've seen!) So on a rainy or idea-less day, I'll attempt to reproduce one of the favs in my list. Sometimes I come up with something entirely new!
Another thing I've tried, if you're a DSLR user, is to put on a lens that I haven't used much and get better with it, for example I have a fish-eye lens and a lens baby that tend to not get used often, so I might make a trip to my local park with just those lenses.
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You find if you take 600 of a single subject and you have to only pick one, it makes you really look at why you picked the one.... you can then use that knowledge when you go to take the next 600.
Give it a whirl.
I'm surprised how much this makes me look around for items and objects starting with my letter for the day!!!
http://365project.org/discuss/general/16657/i-ve-lost-my-photomojo
There are challenges on this site everyday. They always spark me, in some form or another. The alphabet, the color wheel, every item you use on a daily basis (i.e. mundane challlenge) are all great places to start.
I think mood (mojo) effects me more than anything. I try to keep excited about my camera, getting email "tips of the day" from photo blogs. They trigger a lot, and teach me something new. @dmward
I lost my 'mojo' back in April but have recently started again and I think the break did me good. I'm back and more focused than ever. And the odd empty day here and there shouldn't get you down. You can always use them later for those days when you have more than one photo you want to share.
Good luck!!
Pick a theme to narrow it down - otherwise how can you even walk around your house, or down your drive without getting dozens of shots.
Nope - pick a theme - it focuses the imagination,
This is my theme for this year:
Feeling Blue - my 365 days of one colour - Click HERE
Without narrowing it down I'd never find time to do anything other than take pics (it's only just gone lunch time here in the UK - and there are already 4 different pics on the camera that would fit with my theme - so at least 3 will need binning to never see the light of day on here!!)
Good luck with your project!!
Thanks again, this group is awesome!
Another thing I've tried, if you're a DSLR user, is to put on a lens that I haven't used much and get better with it, for example I have a fish-eye lens and a lens baby that tend to not get used often, so I might make a trip to my local park with just those lenses.