The power of self photo assignment
Especially when you’re new to photography and you don’t know yet exactly what you want to shoot, or you want to improve your skills, self assignments are there for you. They’re not only a great way to practice specific skills, train your eye, but also fun to do. They’re simply just like a game.
So instead of walking around, sometimes without a purpose, and struggling with finding an interesting subject, I recommend trying self assignment.
What is a self assignment in photography
Imagine you go out and opt to shoot only specific objects, use only one specific technique, only one piece of gear, or focus on one visual aspect.
It can be for example photographing a specific color (my all the time favourite), making a self portrait a day, using one particular source of light, shooting with long shutter speed or putting your subjects in natural frames. You can also study a favourite photographer’s work and - for a learning purpose - try to copy his style.
You can make it as easy or as difficult as you like.
What is the meaning
Such a self assignment, first of all, will push you to go out and shoot. There is no other way to get a bunch of shots of people in yellow jackets (for example) than finding them on the streets and taking a photo of them. It boosts motivation and pushes to practice.
Practice is a straight way to improve your skills. Imagine you ask yourself to take a serie of 10 successful panning shots. Most likely it will cost you a little time and dozens of shots to figure out what shutter speed is best for a different moving objects. You will also have to learn this specific panning move with your camera.
And - from this moment on, your brain will focus now on moving objects, more than ever before. You will see them everywhere.
Using one shooting technique or specific visual pattern (like using leading lines or subframing objects), or learning one specific piece of gear (think one focal lengths) has one more advantage. Later on it will let you implement these in your photography in a very easy, natural and actually playful way.
No matter what your niche is, or which techniques you mostly use.
My favourite self assignments
Whenever I am out and about but lacking inspiration, I give myself an assignment to photograph a certain color (orange and red are my to go colors). Great exercise for the brain and the eye.
And I always come back home with at least a few photos that are visually appealing - since you can make red and orange subjects popping out of the pictures almost effortlessly.
It’s also amazing how the perception changes when given such a task - suddenly you start seeing everything in that chosen color.
Lately, when taking pictures for my long term project The North Sea, I try to take photographs of people without showing their faces.
This self assignment gave me a little more confidence in photographing strangers and added new images to my project, which are a new approach in my rather empty seascapes. Win win.
Talking about The North Sea - this project is, from definition, actually a self assignment as well. I started photographing the sea and the coast, not only because it’s been always my favourite place to be. I was searching for a subject which would catch my attention for longer, so I could take pictures of it on a regular basis in order to improve.
What was a simple exercise on the beginning, turned into a constantly growing body of work about Dutch coast, sea and people connected to them.
And last but not least - my one photo a day in 365 days assignment which I started this year - so far the biggest, the most challenging and - after just 20 days - already totally worth all the effort.
I spoke about it here, but I also feel like it might be interesting to give a little update periodically, so expect one after a month or two.
And now - get that camera, go out and shoot, shoot, shoot. And have fun!
Thank you for your time and see you in the next one.
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