A place to politely discuss the tools, technique and culture of photography.
This is not a good place to simply share cool photos/videos or promote your own work and projects, but rather a place to discuss photography as an art and post things that would be of interest to other photographers.
I've never been in photography school or anything, but the photogenius challenges on his youtube channel made me think outside the box
He would do a tutorial (how to take a black and white photo in camera, double exposures, panoramas, etc) and then we would do them and post the pictures to social media (the Facebook group or Instagram.
It meant a lot to me and gave me something to do during the pandemic
Grab a photo from a photographer you like and replicate it exactly. Model, background, lighting, styling, postproduction, lens choice, cropping.
Literally try to make it so when you see the photos side to side it’s hard to distinguish them.
It’s hard but very fun and will force you to really master the technical aspects. It will change your future jobs forever.
52frames.com they give a new assignment weekly and give you a community to be a part of. Big rec from me.
The first time I had to shoot a job on pure JPEG, no editing. Had to bake in the exposure and white balance manually and nail it as the photos were going right to publishing straight out of camera.
I challenge anyone to go shoot full manual(including white balance) in JPEG and find how good of a photographer you actually are.
It's not really fun to find out all the times you were "shooting for post" you were actually using RAW as a crutch to mask bad fundamentals(as I found out), but it's a powerful lesson.
I remember seeing something a portrait photographer would give as an assignment. Basically you have to stand in a 3ft sq box, and your job is to take at least 150 portraits without leaving the box
Photographer’s Playbook has “assignments” from all sorts of professors and professionals.
Commercial photog here and one of the toughest assignments was first year shooting ‘black on black’. A small shoe sized box that was painted or gaff taped fully black then in studio shot at 3/4 angle to camera with some ‘down angle’ to see the top and using only one light. (one test was one light and using mirrors for bounce etc and another was using only a flashlight with a long exposure while painting the light)
The goal was to not have any side ‘merge’ with the black surrounding areas and light the edges in just enough fashion to showcase the shape without merge all the way around the box… absolute challenge and one that a few class mates and I still laugh at how hard it was but also showed just how much understanding light and how to use/manipulate it matters… this pertains to commercial product photography prob the most but the lesson apply to any object of any size. How can you show its dimension without allowing any one side to merge into the same tonal range and flatten the image.
For landscape the well lit foreground that separates from the middle ground and the background also does not merge with the other elements…. And on and on…
I will never not forget the critique of that assignment where any tiny amount of merge was pointed out.
It’s late here, can you guys upvote this or comment? So i can be reminded of it tomorrow and read you interesting suggestions!
Thank you! 🙏🏻
How about weekly prompts? I've learned plenty since starting a little over a year ago because every week is a new challenge prompt. 52frames.com is the site. It's 100% free and full of non-toxic members/photographers willing to provide feedback and critiques.
Thanks for the rec. 👌
Second this! Really fun and helped me branch out of my comfort zone and experiment with new things.
Thanks, I’ll take a look
Go out and shoot somewhere you've shot before...but do it at a time that you never would normally. I shot my neighborhood at 4 in the morning and it was a totally different vibe and style than normal. Got one of my faves I've ever shot too.
Solo trips that you can dedicate yourself to shooting was game changing for me.
Following a 76 year old presidential candidate around every corner of America through a year long nation-wide campaign.
Portraits in studio. How to use a flash meter to setup the lights and how to direct a model. The most difficult part was directing the model.
Something I always think about from a class I had in college is to photograph the weather. Whether it be the seasons changing or the weather affecting the how people dress in relation to that or how storms/droughts play a part to the landscape.
Rain can result in really cool reflections at the right time of the day. Snow can create a beautiful canvas and how people interact with snow is fun.
Keeping an eye out on the weather is something my "photography" eye is always thinking about, and we always have weather!
This wasn’t really an assignment but some advice I found was (if you have a zoom lens), look at your metadata and see what focal length you tend to gravitate to. I like more compact setups so after looking at my metadata, I typically shot around 37-45mm. Now I shoot primarily on my 35 and 45mm primes and I think my work is much more congruent.
A book nobody reads anymore. It covered hyperfocal distance and the mathematics behind f-stops and why 18% gray is important and the inverse square law and focal length and foreshortening of distances and spherical aberration and …
… things few people seem to want to learn any more.
I was a photographer at news agencies (Reuters, AP, AFP) and finished my career as photo editor for some big newspapers (remember those?) and a huge newspaper chain. Two challenging assignments: 1) look around for a very familiar subject in your locale and photograph it in a way that hasn’t been done before 2) find a completely new subject in your community that hasn’t been seen before. Local subjects are the most challenging. Don’t expect me to send you on overseas assignment unless you are good with local humans (always people, always challenging) one assignment I remember was to photograph teenagers in their bedrooms. Access is usually your biggest challenge. Good luck!
Not so much an exercise but a really simple concept that I came to late in life.
-Every picture should have a very discernible foreground and background.
It may not be for every picture… and it’s something I was definitely doing a lot of the time anyway… but being obvious what your foreground and background are is a really simple piece of compositional advice that just clicked for me. You’re build a little visual stage play; there should be different things going on.
This sub reddit doesn't appear to be current but the assignments are all still posted, I found them a wonderful way to improve.
https://www.reddit.com/r/photoclass_2022/
It's going again in 2024 at r/photoclass
The most infamous assignment at my photo school was simply called the “36 people assignment”.
This was at the beginning of our 3rd semester in “small format class” (but was more like an intro to photojournalism.) We had just started shooting and printing with color negative 35mm film (moving from mostly b&w medium format). We had just learned how to use an off-camera flash.
The assignment:
Go out and find 36 people. They need to be total strangers (obviously, myself and others cheated using some friends and family)
shoot a portrait of each person at least 3/4 crop, if not closer.
use a 35mm camera with a wide lens (28mm or wider). This forced you to be physically close to the person.
Photograph them using color negative film (100-400iso)
Use an off-camera flash. Either handheld with a remote trigger or hotshoe/pc cord, or with a light stand. (Vivitar 285 HV preferred)
get “caption info”: their name, age, what they’re doing/why they’re where they’re at, and an interesting fact about themselves
process your film (free at my school’s photo lab)
make color darkroom contact prints of all your rolls
make 11x19in prints of your 5 best portraits (color darkroom/enlargers with a CN process roller machine. Chems/processing free, but you pay for paper)
You have 3 weeks to turn all of this in. It amounts to about a 1/4th of your grade.
I had been majoring in photojournalism up until this point. Bombed the assignment. Realized I’m way too socially anxious. Changed my major to technical photography (called biocom), then changed again to commercial photography.
For light: pick a subject like a statue or a building, and take pictures at different times of day.
For composition: taking fine arts classes, especially design. I feel like most photography classes only touch on really basic design concepts behind the “what” of making a composition work without going into the detail of “why”.
Made a handshake agreement with a local brewery that also owns a couple food trucks and a restaurant. I have been friends with the owner for a few years, and we're both former military, so clear and honest feedback is a given. Every month I had a shot list, and the default was "happy people eating and drinking." Boy, did I deliver some screwed-up work in the beginning! Of course there were good, usable images in there too. But she took the time to point out why some images were not usable for her marketing needs.
A few examples:
• The dude sipping on a pint in the biergarten with a corporate beer coozie on his glass.
• The bubbles on the inside of the glass on some staged shots I did at home. (Look up 'beer clean glassware')
• The harsh shadows and inconsistent white balance on some of the food photos.
I learned a ton about lighting, mood setting, commercial food/drink photography, and finding willing volunteers to be ad-hoc models. We're still working together, and I have more confidence that I can deliver images that meet her needs. I've learned other skills from other gigs, of course. But saying yes to her offer was one of the single best things that I can point to as improving my overall range of knowledge.
I was looking for much the same as OP but needed some structure. Took a university level continuing ed class where I had to shoot a different prompt every weekday for five weeks. It was hard, challenging, at times infuriating and the best thing (and the best work) I’ve done in years. Had great instructor and classmate feedback, took me back to basics and taught me a few things when I thought I really knew it all. Invigorating and humbling all at the same time.
Shooting a roll of medium format at night. College professor made us do this and it taught me so much about metering and exposure as a newbie photog. I also did a self-imposed project working only with found images (images that I didn't take). That was super fun to see how I would change or add to an image for which I had no preconceived meaning.
For about 3 months, I went for a walk nearly every day, and every 200 steps I’d stop and take a photo, no matter where I was. This was a great exercise in not being precious about needing every photo to be great, and the ways that looking closely can uncover beauty and hidden things.
I took a job a year ago to capture the human connection at our local week long festival, they wanted vendor/customer interaction and not just a bunch of merchandise pics. I’d never done anything like that but they loved what they got and I was hired this year but with a bigger role with lots more photos requested including covering a concert.
I have never taken a photo class, but I will say that collaborating with other artists can be a very rewarding experience if you need to shake things up a bit.
u/AlistairInIreland I copied your question and pasted it into ChatGPT. Here's what it suggested:
Absolutely, I'd be happy to suggest some structured assignments that can help you break out of your routine and see photography from a fresh perspective. Since you're already an experienced enthusiast, these assignments are designed to challenge you and encourage creative exploration:
**Limited Gear Challenge:**
- Restrict yourself to using only one lens or one camera for a certain period. This limitation can push you to explore different compositions and perspectives with the gear you have.
**Storytelling Through Sequences:**
- Instead of capturing isolated images, try to tell a story through a series of photos. This could be a photo essay on a theme that interests you, and each image should contribute to the overall narrative.
**Embrace Minimalism:**
- Challenge yourself to create powerful images with as little clutter as possible. Look for simple compositions, negative space, and use minimal elements to convey your message or emotion.
**Time-Lapse Photography:**
- Experiment with time-lapse photography to capture the passage of time in a single frame. This can be especially effective in landscapes, cityscapes, or even capturing the changing light throughout the day.
**Photograph the Unfamiliar:**
- Explore a subject or location you know little about. This could be a cultural event, a different neighborhood, or a subculture. The challenge is to capture the essence of this unfamiliar territory in your images.
**Monochrome Challenge:**
- Shoot in black and white for a set period. This will force you to focus on tonality, contrast, and composition without the distraction of color.
**Photographic Alphabet:**
- Challenge yourself to find objects or scenes that form the letters of the alphabet. This not only sharpens your observation skills but also encourages you to see ordinary things in a new light.
**Reflections and Shadows:**
- Concentrate on capturing interesting reflections or shadows. This can add a layer of complexity and creativity to your compositions.
**Selective Focus:**
- Experiment with shallow depth of field to emphasize specific elements in your frame. This technique can create a dreamy or intimate mood in your photos.
- Choose a photograph or painting that you admire and try to recreate it in your own style. This exercise can help you analyze the techniques used by other artists and incorporate them into your own work.
Remember, the key is to approach these assignments with an open mind and a willingness to experiment. They are meant to push you out of your comfort zone and encourage growth in your photographic skills.
My professor just gave us an assignment called constructed realities. It really helped a lot of us break out of our habit of just shooting candid shots! We had to construct a scene for the camera that relates to community (it's our semester theme). I was actually struggling very much until I decided to focus on the route of lack of community I had growing up. So for my constructed images I took one photo of a Polaroid I manipulated of my mother and I where I drew a black figure across her, and another photo of my birth certificate being burned. I still have to take two more shots, but this assignment has helped me dig deeper and become extremely vulnerable within my photography for the first time ever!
I found a lot of the early drill assignments in my high school photography class were really effective. I still find myself coming back to some of those lessons.
Lock yourself in the bathroom with a 50mm and don't leave until you've taken 100 shots. - teaching how to work the scene, find something interesting in the mundane and the everyday.
Photograph the alphabet. - learn to see how things can look like other things, shooting with intention, learning about observing the world for how it can be made to look, not for how it is.
Photograph a series of symmetrical shots, asymmetrical shots, pure texture shots, silhouette shots. - learn to make your photo about one primary element. Is it about shape? light? subject? texture? pick only one and run with it.
Tell a story with a photo. - I always sucked at this one. But this makes a picture worth looking at instead of being some stock photo.
number 5 probably doesn't matter so much any more, but: Push your T-max 400 to 1600 to open up a new world of low-light shooting.
This was years ago. I had to shoot three guys in a field on 4x5 chrome film but they needed it to be at like f/32 with studio-type lighting. I had to get a 12’ x 12’ scrim and a frame and high roller stands and we had to use sandbags and stakes in case it was windy.
I used two Speedotron quad-tube heads with two 4800 watt second packs. We had a diesel generator. The cool thing was that when I’d trip the shutter and fire all eight flash heads, the generator would rev up. It was the coolest my camera ever sounded.
I learned mainly that some art directors are fucking insane.
My first teacher he made me spend a whole day photographing an egg, watching where the natural light fell throughout the course of the day. It was so slow and so tedious but by the end of the day I understood the purpose of the lesson. Now I find myself looking for where the light is on objects just throughout my day just to see where the light falls, when and how it changes. It helped me a lot in learning the nature of light and how it interacts with things.
Take a photo EVERY HOUR on the dot, give or take a couple minutes. Don't try to set up the shots before.
Took some incredibly boring photos but also got a few interesting ones as it forced me to really pay attention to my surroundings in a new way. One of my fav shots (picture of my dog sticking her tongue under the fence over green grass) happened during this assignment.
Live Concerts, shooting from “the pit”, between the security rail, front row and the stage.
Not sure what you shoot with, but I've found learning about what my camera can do has taught me a lot. As an example, focus stacking. I never had a reason to do it, but the camera could so I learned to do it and assemble it in photoshop and when I eventually really screw with macro photography I'll already have that skill down.
My photography teacher in high school made us take a picture with an ice cream carton as a makeshift pin hole camera. Only took one picture (obvi) but I’ll always remember it
I did a timelapse project of my local city, starting not long after I'd just got into photography. I learnt SO much about when to shoot, how to shoot and how to edit. If I did it again now I feel it would be even better. Link on instagram
I disagree about the comments on weddings, I've done a few of close friends and family and loved them...but I hate the culling after.
One I find interesting (but haven't yet tried myself) is to take 36 pictures of the exact same subject, but try to shoot them as different as possible.
Join a photography club. Monthly assignments and you post a couple of your best ones and learn how to improve and/or hear how good you already are. It’s fun.
For like a year I dabbled into food photography as a hobby and really tried to go as deep as I could down that rabbit hole in my spare time. Youtube, some books, etc. Trying to make photos every chance I got.
Although I have done years worth of professional work, and knew how to light, etc., the very pre-meditated, small scale, thoughtfully lit food photography really upped my game in a number of areas.
Street photography wasn’t really getting me anywhere (personally) either did landscapes. Tried portrait photography and just found what i’m good at. I’m good at, you guessed it, taking portraits of people.
Started by walking around school campus one day and asked people if they want me to take portraits of them for ₱5.
I love using full manual, so manually focusing on fast moving subjects is hard. But in portraits they are very still which gives me enough time to properly focus. And you can’t forget about the beautiful BOKEH. Using an ND filter is a game changer to me. Even for my clients. Gives my photos some vibe to it that everyone agrees they like.
UPI sending me to cover Beirut in the mid 80s.
You got to be creative, curious and assertive. At first, you got to set your assignments yourself. I got 3 assignments I set myself as I am getting back into photography.
Got a few here, and each of them teached me and leads me into the world. https://www.tumblr.com/bb95vie-photography