Creativeness

ShootHoops · Jun 15, 2006

Well everybody, I've never been all that creative and now I've found myself struggling to conjure up ideas. There's not much to take pictures of in our apartment. I'm not able to go anywhere during the week at all. So when I do get the chance to take some shots, I'm rusty and my creative juices just aren't flowing. I wanted to ask, what do you all use for inspiration? There's enough junk in here to think of something, but it's just not "striking a chord" I guess. Any suggestions?

Digital Matt · Jun 15, 2006

Get yourself a desk lamp, some flowers, and a piece of foamcoare that is black on one side, white on the other. You'll have two different colored backgrounds, a little light, and great subjects. You'll be busy for hours on end. Set up by a window too, and take advantage of that great light.

Got a chess board? Chess pieces are always fun. Once you create a nice mood with your backgrounds and light, you'll find that almost anything looks good to photograph.

ShootHoops · Jun 15, 2006

Ooh thanks! Sounds fun, hehehe.

DocFrankenstein · Jun 15, 2006

The proven method is to study the classics. You need to find them, figure out why they are great and then try and emulate them. So, hit your local library.

Alternatively a guy I know photographed two forks on a platter for four months. He had some cool pictures in the end, but he was never the same after he was done.

And it's creativity, not creativeness.

markc · Jun 15, 2006

Try some exercises. Personally I find that limits actually help creativity. Set your camera to a wide open aperture and shoot a bunch of stuff at a narrow DOF. Don't worry about composition; just get used to seeing with that in mind. Then set it to f22 and shoot a bunch that way. Go back and duplicate some of the same shots you did at a wide aperture and compare them. Do the same with very fast and very slow shutter speeds of something moving, like water out of a faucet. Do the same with wide angle vs. telephoto.

Take shots putting the subject at one of the "thirds" intersections. Try to get as many elements in the image to line up with a thirds line. Shoot a bunch of stuff with the subject centered. Shoot some with the subject right at the edge. Find a mirrored surface and play with placement of the subject(s) using that.

Pick a subject outdoors and take the exact same shot of it every day for a month at the same time of day. Record what the weather was like.
Shoot the same subject over the course of a day, once every hour, from dark to dark. Do the same thing on another day when the weather is different. Do the same thing inside with no lights on near a north facing window, a south facing window, etc.

You may end up throwing them all away, but it gives your eye practice. And who knows, you might end up with a keeper in there.

niccig · Jun 16, 2006

In the same line of thinking as markc, try checking out the bi-weekly assignment sub-forum: http://www.thephotoforum.com/forum/forumdisplay.php?f=46

Some of the themes are things you might have to take on a weekend (like cityscapes), but there are lots of cool ideas for ways to photograph the same old things in new ways. I look here when I'm feeling lazy

I actually think I may use it when I start my photo class in the fall, since the syllabus doesn't make any mention of taking photos of certain subjects or themes. You might try starting at the beginning and do each one.