Choosing Your Photo Inspiration

So you’re serious about pursuing photography as a hobby, maybe as a full-time profession even. Where do you start?

What particular subjects interest you the most? What do you want to take pictures of? Where would your get the pictures printed after these photos are taken?

Try CVS Photo, or Walgreens Photo for the most competitive prices after you’ve taken pictures.

If you aren’t sure, you may draw some inspiration from the following list:

1. Start With Yourself

Why not start with yourself as your first model. Like Kim and her fellow Kardashians, you can begin by mastering the art of taking selfies. From there, you can advance to taking professional looking self-portraits.

You can take pictures of yourself in various poses in various settings from various angles, in different costumes and with assorted props. You can take shots of your body parts.

You can experiment with multiple exposures and other techniques. With yourself as your model, there’s no limit to what you can do with your imagination.

2. Use your friends and family as subjects.

Again like the Kardashians, you can take pictures of each other and your friends. As with yourself, there’s no limit to what you can do with your imagination. As with yourself, your family and friends are there ready and available for you to use as photo subjects anytime you are in a creative mood.

3. ‘Borrow’ ideas from the professionals.

At least at the start, so long as you won’t be publishing your work yet, why not try to copy the works of the master photographers. Google the galleries of Suren Manvelyan, Tom Hussey, Madame Peripetie, Akos Major, Rinze van Brug, and others who are known for their intriguing photos.

See if you can replicate their effort. Take note though that the purpose of this exercise is not to learn how to be a plagiarist but to develop a way of looking at things in different, more creative ways – like these masters did for their works.

4. Take pictures of your food.

See if you can make pictures that would make them look more interesting, more appealing. There’s a good demand for competent food photographers. If you’re drawn to this particular subject, it may be that you’ve found your calling. Visit the websites of popular restaurants to get a feel of how it’s done.

5. Shoot your dog, or cat.

Perhaps you may want to specialize in taking pictures of pets, or animals in general. Visit your local zoo and find out. See if you can make the animals look cute and cuddly, or scary, or frightened, or sad in the pictures. Photography is an art and as such you can use the images captured on film to evoke whatever emotion you may want to convey.

6. Take Photos of the Outdoor Scenery.

Take photos of the outdoor scenery in your city or town between the dusk and dawn hours. Night photography is a challenging field of specialization. If you find you are good with the techniques for making pictures look good and sharp with minimal lighting, then perhaps you may have found your niche.

7. Tag along at every wedding that will be held in your area.

Wedding photography is how most professional photographers make their living, even those who are known for their more avant garde work on other subjects. It is a commercially lucrative field. By taking pictures at any and all weddings that you can get access to, you’ll be able to build up your own portfolio, in case you want to become a professional wedding photographer too.