Originally posted by Cerebum I work in a small market town and I have photographed so much of it. I try to mix things up by using different lenses but I still find myself uninspired. It could just be me. What do you guys do to get yourselves out of the doldrums?
Just a few random ideas you might consider:
(1) You say you've photographed so much of your town, but have you merely taken general scenic shots, or have you picked individual elements and tried making a project out of them? A not-very-imaginative example might be to photograph only street signs, or perhaps door knockers, or maybe old buildings. Perhaps use just one lens for consistency, and make it harder for yourself by picking a focal length you don't normally use.
(2) Look for free or inexpensive attractions nearby that you can visit (TripAdvisor is a good place to look for these things, otherwise just Google them)... Historical buildings and ruins, parks etc. It also looks like you're not too far from some docks... Lots of boats, machinery, other marine-related things to photograph? You're also very near the Forest of Bowland. Should be plenty of landscape opportunities there, I'd think, and some opportunities for pano stitched scenes?
(3) Take some skyline silhouettes at dusk around your town.
(4) Do you have a garden? If so, set up a bird table and/or bird bath - perhaps some hanging feeders too. See what birds you can attract, and photograph them.
(5) Try some still life and product photography with items around your home. Ornaments, candles, pen-kives, watches, jewellery etc. Lay them on simple backgrounds - pillow cases, clothing, towels, that kind of thing. Pick background colours purposefully, to match or contrast with the subjects. Place your subjects near a window for natural lighting, or use a desk lamp. Buy a cheap bunch of flowers from your local supermarket, arrange them in a vase, and photograph them against one of these backgrounds. Play with the direction of the light, the angles you shoot from, etc. Still life can be a lot of fun, as there's just as much art in arranging the subject as there is in the photography
(6) Following on from (5) above, using a reversing ring and a wide-angle or normal lens, take some extreme macro shots of various objects and textures.
(7) Work on your post-processing. For instance, take some random high ISO shots and learn to optimise your noise reduction skills. Or try converting to black and white and see if you can manually recreate the look of old newspaper clippings, that kind of thing.
(8) There are plenty more things you can do - you just need to be creative and think outside the box. But if you're still lacking inspiration, choose a new photographic skill that you'd like to learn and master, then buy or borrow a good book on the subject, or look up tutorials online, and work methodically through that learning until you've nailed it. It's very satisfying picking up a new skill.
(9) If none of the above does it for you, and you can't think of any other ideas, embrace the slump and take a break from photography altogether. Maybe just for a couple of days, maybe a week, perhaps even a month - until you miss it. There's nothing wrong with doing that. I do it frequently, and it works for me
Last edited by BigMackCam; 08-14-2018 at 01:07 PM.