Stuck in a rut? Or just looking for some new ways to get your creative juices flowing? Either way, here are some suggestions that may turbocharge your creativity no matter what genre you love.
Stuck in the mud
There’s a children’s game called Stuck in the Mud. When you are tagged, you must stay in place. The player who is “it” must run around and tag as many players as possible. When the others are tagged, they become “stuck in the mud” and cannot move and must stand with their legs and arms apart. The only way to be freed is for a player to crawl through their legs. The game ends when everyone has to be tagged and “stuck in the mud”.
Not to worry, this is an article about photography. One such game for us photographers is to take a cue from this children’s game. We can remain “stuck in the mud” and try to photograph as many different subjects, perspectives, techniques, focal lengths, and so forth. The purpose of this game, as you might guess, is for you to slow down and investigate your environment fully. What do you see? Check out all the details. There are quite a few if you slow down and take the time to look.
Use your creativity and pick a specific color
For an entire day, try to photograph one single color. I love projects like this because they make you think differently. And they also make you think about it as a series of photographs or, well, a project. It gives some definition and meaning to a photography outing. It also gets you to slow down and pay more attention. Sense a theme here?
Photograph in black and white only
This fun approach is especially valuable if you don’t photograph in black and white typically. When you begin to “think” in black and white, what you are often doing is thinking in a pure sense about shape and texture and composition. It can also eliminate distracting colors and place the emphasis back on the subject. This can only strengthen your photography.
Use unusual lenses
This is one of my favorite ways of turbocharging my creativity. This is particularly effective for me when I am distracted emotionally or otherwise. To me, grabbing a Lensbaby or a fisheye is instant creativity. It forces you to view everything differently. It creates new avenues for composition. And it’s fun.
Fill the frame
Fill the entire frame with something, usually a subject or texture. This is typically different from how we typically photograph and can lead to a lot of interesting images. I like to look for subjects with repeating lines or patterns.
Help others
I sometimes refer to these projects as my “do-gooder” projects. I’ve helped photograph the Tibetan Transit School in Dharamsala, India, for instance. My photographs were largely responsible for raising $10,000 for a water filtration system for the school. Why? People connect emotionally when seeing people in need.
Other projects you could do would be to volunteer to take photos of dogs, cats, pigs and other animals in an animal shelter. This can help homeless animals find good families. This puts your photographic skills to great use.
