If you've been wondering why your photography isn't improving, you're not alone. Since the beginning of September, I've been setting a group of just over sixty people a photo prompt every day. Complete beginners, people who have enjoyed photography for years, phone shooters, DSLR owners, all mixed in together. We're now a couple of weeks in (ends 30th Sept), and it's been really interesting to see what's happening. On day one, someone in the group messaged to say they weren't sure they'd got that day's prompt right, and hoped that was okay. It was, of course. Getting it 'right' isn't really the point of the exercise.
You Don't Need to Feel Inspired First
A lot of people believe they need to feel creative or inspired before they pick up a camera. I think that's back to front. Inspiration tends to turn up after you've started, not before. By the second week, something had started to change for a lot of people, and it wasn't really that their photos had got better, although they had. It was that they'd started noticing things before they'd even lifted the camera. One person told the group she'd spotted something out of place in an ordinary scene and said, "I guess that's the point, seeing differently." She hadn't gone looking for that moment. It found her, because she'd spent two weeks training herself to notice.
It Was Never About Taking More Photos
Some people in the group are sending one photo a day. A couple send several because they can't decide between them. What matters isn't the volume. It's that every single day there's one specific thing to look for. That's a small thing, but it removes the hardest part of practising anything creative, the moment where you're standing there with a camera and no idea what to point it at. Nobody in the group has to face that moment, because the topic has already been decided for them before they leave the house.
Wherever They Are, the Same Thing Is Happening
What I'm finding genuinely interesting is how differently noticing is showing up depending on people's actual lives. One participant has been photographing shapes and light in a factory. Another travels into London several times a week and started seeing the "splash of colour" prompt everywhere on her commute, a coat, a door, an advert on the Tube. None of them needed a quiet weekend or a scenic location. The change is happening in car parks, on commutes, in kitchens, wherever people already are. That's really the whole point. You're training an ordinary eye to make ordinary things a bit more extraordinary.
Give Yourself One Thing to Look For
You don't need thirty days for this, and you don't need a formal challenge either. Pick one small thing to look for tomorrow, a shadow, a reflection, a splash of colour, and just see what you notice by the end of the day. That's really all it takes to start. If you'd like to learn more about developing your creative eye and noticing more, my Composition workshop runs right through to Christmas.
You might also enjoy this blog post:
How to Improve Your Photography Composition and Develop Your Creative Eye
This particular challenge has a couple of weeks left to run, but you don't need to wait for the next one to try this yourself. If you'd like to know when future prompts and challenges are happening, sign up to my email list.
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