Fave 5 is a regular, pretty self-explanatory feature that runs every Thursday on TLF where I give you a list of my five favorite items on a given subject.
It’s only Thursday, but I’m already looking forward to this weekend. Sure, it’s been an especially long week at my regular 8-5 gig, but I’m excited because it’s also a three-day weekend, and the extra day means that I have no excuse for not getting an extra day of photography in this week. I’m especially looking forward to using my Holga since I haven’t pulled it out of my bag in over a year. I’m not sure why I haven’t, to be honest, but when I realized it was in there, it gave me the idea for this post, so I suppose that it’s not all bad.
For this week’s post, I want to focus on things that you can do this weekend for free to improve your photography portfolio, and if you’ve got an extra day off like me, you’ve got no excuse not to do at least one of these things while you’ve got the time.
- Organize Your Gear & Start Planning Ahead
If you’ve read this far into the post, you can probably guess where this one came from. It goes without saying that whenever I’ve got my camera with me, I’ve also got my camera bag and over time, I’ve thrown more and more stuff in there that I might need, but most of the time, I don’t end up taking out at all. The fact that I forgot that there was another camera in the bag at all tells me that I need to do a better job of organizing and preparing for shoots in advance. There is no reason to lug around a ton of equipment and doing so shows that while I may have an idea for a particular shoot, I haven’t taken the time to properly prepare for that shoot, and the photos that I come away with will show this fact. Don’t make this same mistake.
Planning ahead for each photo shoot has its own rewards in addition to saving you back pain in the future. Taking adequate time to sit down and really think about each shoot gives you an opportunity to think about what you’re hoping to achieve with the shoot, allowing you to better focus your work once you begin on site.
The simplest way to organize your gear is to create a dedicated space in your home or office to house all of your equipment, and only pull out the items that you’ll need for the particular shoot that you’ll be doing. By leaving everything in your bag at all times, it’s easy to fall into bad habits and not plan properly, and as I mentioned I’m just as guilty of this as the next person.
- Your City is Calling Your Name
I have another confession. I have lived in Atlanta for 17 years now, and I can safely say that I haven’t been to or seen half of the great sites for which this city is known. For example, I’m getting off from work on Monday for Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, and I have never been to the Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial site, which is literally less than one mile away from the office that I am sitting in right now. If you’re interested in travel photography, there is no better place to build your skills in this area than to photograph your own town or city.
A sight along my daily commute.
The great thing about photographing your own city is that it offers so much to you in addition to the landmarks, and you’re not constrained by time the way a tourist would be. There are several places along my daily commute that I have been dying to photograph. I took some time this past weekend to finally shoot one such place, and one of the resulting photos is to the right. Don’t forget that you can look beyond just the normal landmarks, you can check out websites like Eccentric America or visit the regional forums at Weird US to find some unusual things, places and people in your area. If you live in or near a big city, there are always events going on that you could explore as well.
If none of those things are your cup of tea either, be creative or grab a friend and make a game out of it. You can snap numbers that can be used for a perpetual calendar. You can see how many things that you can find that have both red and blue in them. The whole point of this exercise is to explore your surroundings and practice your art.
- Shoot Some New Portraits
My First Born Dog
I don’t care if it’s a friend, a child, an animal, or yourself. For the folks out there that want to try their hand at portrait photography, this is your weekend to do it, no more putting it off. In a lot of ways, this one is just like the shooting your city one from above. How many people around you do you have some really good photos of? I’m talking grandma’s-got-a-copy-framed-on-her-bedside-table good. The great thing about portraits is that they don’t have to be really serious and brooding shots unless that’s what you want. Kids, especially, will love all of the attention that you’re giving to them, and the fact that they can still be playful and silly while doing it just makes the final result that much more genuine and heartwarming. Again, the idea is to be creative and explore your own personal limits and goals.
If you need some inspiration, you could have someone stand behind a piece of glass or window (or yourself in front of a mirror) and draw strange and extravagant mustaches, beards, and hats with a dry erase marker. Grab your significant other and take turns trying to express in picture form the little things that you love about each other. For example, does their lip curl or eyes light up in a certain way when they’re really happy as opposed to just somewhat happy? This weekend, try and capture that moment.
- Do Some Graffiti
I’ve mentioned before how much my family and I love doing light graffiti, or light painting if you’ve got some weird issue with the word graffiti. It’s easy, it’s fun, and the only limit to what you can create is your own imagination, and of course, there’s the whole part about not having to worry about any leftover paint when it’s all done as well. As I mentioned in the linked article above, The Photo Argus did a great write up last week on how to do light graffiti, so I won’t try to explain it again, but if you’ve got your camera, a flashlight, a tripod and a dark room, you’re equipped to do this right now.
If you’re a bit more adventurous or just looking for an excuse to buy a new camera, you could also try camera toss photography. Camera toss photography is exactly how it sounds, but if you really need more information on how to create this type of art, check out this how-to on Camera Toss (The Blog). Why would anyone want to do this? The resulting photos can be absolutely stunning.
- Read As Much As You Can
Read, read, and then read some more.
By now, I know that you’ve read your instruction manual and you’ve added some great photography blogs to your Reader subscription. This time, I’m asking you to pick one book off of this list from Digital Photography Basics and reserve it at your nearest public library right now. Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to read as much of that book this weekend as you possibly can. I suggest that you go through the entire list before you make your decision, since some of the selections are on specific types of photography that may apply to you more than others. I’ve just gone through and reserved copies of Understanding Exposure and Within the Frame for myself, so you’re already one step behind!
If you can’t find any of the books on this list, here are a bunch more for you to try. It takes a lot more than just going out and taking pictures to really understand and develop as a photographer, and if set yourself a goal to read even one of these books, you’ll be in a better position than you are now, I guarantee it.
Tags: Camera Toss, Digital Photography Basics, Eccentric America, Light Graffiti, The Photo Argus, Weird US
