Need help taking more pictures

[JClishe]

This may sound strange, but I'm struggling with not taking enough pictures. I know that I need to take more pictures in order to improve, but I run out of ideas of what to take pictures of. Have other beginners gone through this, and is there any advice that you can provide?

I travel alot and even thought of doing something to capture each of my trips on camera, even if it's only taking a picture of my hotel room but I just have never been able to figure out how exactly I want to do it, so I've never done it.

Bottom line is I think I spend too much time overanalyzing how to shoot more and not enough time actually shooting, and I'd like to turn that around.

 

[Gaerek]

I used to have the same problem. You just need to force yourself to shoot things you wouldn't normally shoot. When I started seeing the results, I realized there were literally millions of things to shoot. Here is an exercise to try that might help.

Go into your backyard, or some other relatively small and/or enclosed area. A park, town square, or something similar would also work. You don't want the area to be much more than maybe an acre or so, and I would even put it at closer to a half acre. The smaller the better (within reason). Give yourself a time limit of an hour that you cannot change. You must stay here for an hour. Now start shooting. After about 5 minutes, you will have run out of the obvious stuff to shoot. Now you're going to have to think about what to shoot and start looking at things in different ways. By the end of the hour, you should have some pretty interesting shots of things you wouldn't have even thought of.

Something to keep in mind, at probably about 10-15 minutes in, you'll start to get frustrated because you can't think of anything to shoot. Push through this, and don't give up. By the end of the hour, you may just want to keep shooting. Doing this exercise every once in a while (in different locations) may help you with your problem. It helped me a lot. It'll get you thinking about looking at things in new and interesting ways. I hope this helps.

 

[Bitter Jeweler]

You can look anywhere to take pictures. Your kitchen, even. Set up a still life of random objects and work on lighting or getting the perect exposure. But keep shooting, that how you will learn. Things to shoot are everywhere, but you have to find the creative shot to make them interesting.

 

[Sherman Banks]

Just click that shutter button as many times as you can. If you find the pictures you're taking aren't up to your standard, find the reasons why and correct them. If you need inspiration go grab a magazine, browser flickr pools, or just dedicate some time to learning something new about shooting or about post production. The thing I have found to force me to be creative is starting a 365, but it takes a lot of effort if you want each day's shot to be better than the previous. Most importantly, take pictures of stuff you like and don't worry about anyone else's opinion if it hurts your photography. You're documenting your life through your lens and I think that in itself is an important thing to remember. Keep shooting and you'll see you aren't as bad off as you think.

 

[KmH]

This may sound strange, but I'm struggling with not taking enough pictures. I know that I need to take more pictures in order to improve, but I run out of ideas of what to take pictures of. Have other beginners gone through this, and is there any advice that you can provide?

I travel alot and even thought of doing something to capture each of my trips on camera, even if it's only taking a picture of my hotel room but I just have never been able to figure out how exactly I want to do it, so I've never done it.

Bottom line is I think I spend too much time overanalyzing how to shoot more and not enough time actually shooting, and I'd like to turn that around.

It's not about how many pictures you take and it sounds like you're making it more complicated and difficult than it really is.

Approach it this way.

Quit taking pictures.................and start making images.