Defining a Photography Project

What is a Personal Photography Project

Defining a subject or message that you can repeatedly shoot that has a purpose, message or end goal.

What Makes a Good Photography Project

Accessible- This is why I chose street photography. Living in a big city, idyllic seaside landscapes weren’t easily accessible to me. Choose a subject that you can reach regularly. 

Plenty to shoot but with variety - An ability to shoot your subject or idea regularly with each shot having its own uniqueness and weight. 

Purpose or Message- Your purpose or message doesn’t always have to be super profound and innovative sometimes your purpose can just be to learn how to use your camera or to learn a specific photography technique.

Ideas for Photography Projects

Whilst arguably there are no new ideas there are ways of getting influence from your environment and other artists that can offer a more innovative and contemporary commentary.

Some ideas to consider:

Explore different genres of photography- Explore easily accessible genres include Food Photography, Street Photography, Portrait Photography, Landscape Photography and Product Photography.

Focus on a particular area of photography- Rule of Thirds, Patterns, Colour vs Black and White, Texture, a particular style of lighting.

Do something original in editing- Try colour grading your photos differently. One of the last editing trends being orange and teal. Create the next.

Take photos of the people around you- Getting something that's truly authentic and unbias is impossible however what makes photography such a skill is the idea of portraying something or someone as close to the truth as possible. What I mean by this is if you’re photographing your family consider what's around them, what their wearing, their expression, is this indicative of there personality.

Focus on colour. - Focusing on capturing a particular colour. This will help give you a purpose but also expose you to different photography genres.

Try taking a photo every day of the week or every week. - This is a great, fun photography project and like I explained in a previous blog post can help to affirm positive life experiences.

Check out my post on Photography as Therapy

Photograph your city or local area.- Very often new photographers think they have to take pictures of things that are beautiful for it to be considered a beautiful photo, that's not the case. Your local community provides endless opportunities for beautiful photos, you just have to spend timing finding them.

Photographing your pets.- This is an easy one who doesn't want to take pictures of their cute dog or their cats piercing eyes or if you're like me your snakes leathery skin.

A to Z- Be creative and try and photograph things that look like each letter of the alphabet. It may be difficult, but the end result can be very rewarding.

My Photography Project Ideas

Photographing Pride- Focusing on another message that is very close to my heart. I think it would be an interesting project to document the difference within the LGBTQ spectrum and bring more coverage to LGBTQ culture. Additionally, having only recently come out, I think it will be an interesting documentary due to the newness of my exposure to the LGBTQ community.

Street Performers - I feel like sometimes we forget about the people that bring life to the streets and give the cities we live in an identity. With this project, I would also like to speak to the people and build a case study about them.

Monochromatic Landscapes- This project is less profound and is simply some of the pictures I’m attracted to most.

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If this inspires you to start a photography project I would love to see the results. Follow me on Instagram or message me via the contact section of my website with your end portfolio of work.

Happy Shooting ;]