Finding inspiration for photography can be a challenge over time. After you’ve taken thousands of pictures, you may start to feel like you’ve either done it all, or your well of inspiration may simply seem to have run dry.
When we reach that point, it can be a challenge to find a way to reinvigorate our imaginations and conceive of new perspectives to capture with our lens. Thankfully there are ways to rekindle our passion and help our mind to become alight with new concepts for photography.
1. Find A Mentor
A mentor is someone who can help teach and guide you as you develop your skills in your craft.
Having a mentor enables you to hone your creative skills faster. Their insights will expose you to various knowledge that could take you years to arrive at on your own.
Through a mentor, you’ll learn how to avoid the pitfalls commonly experienced by beginners. This, in turn, will enable you to refine your art quicker than doing it alone.
While traditionally, your ‘mentor’ has to be someone you personally know, in modern days, your options are more diverse. You can find your mentor in many places, such as Youtube, blogs, podcasts, and books.
When finding an ideal mentor, look for someone who has the results that you want and then learns from that person. Study his or her work, habits, and values.
To find a mentor, you can start by checking out local and online photography communities.
You can also begin by reading about history’s most celebrated photographers. Take the time to study their work, writings, and accounts. Keep a folder for any helpful information you find and review them regularly.
Something to keep in mind, while ‘absent mentors’ are an excellent place to start, a personal mentor is always better.
The best mentors are those that are involved with the work you do and are invested in your improvement. They are the ones who want to see your creativity grow as they guide you in your shared passion for the art form.
A personal mentor can also provide you critical feedback. Their criticism and insight about your work can be invaluable to your creative development.
Once you find a mentor, take their lead before those of outside sources. This will help you keep from becoming overwhelmed.
Further, always give your mentor the benefit of the doubt. Remember any advice that seems strange or in conflict with your instincts that come from your mentor is coming from someone with greater experience.
When you start achieving better results, you’ll be able to incorporate your knowledge and experience into the field, and eventually, you may become a mentor yourself.
2. Teach Others
Consider volunteering as a mentor and help budding photographers learn and become inspired.
You can go through schools and charity organizations, or even just with a friend.
Sharing your knowledge will not only serve to help cement concepts in your mind, but it is also a great way to find inspiration in your field.
As the student asks different questions, you will get a new perspective on the art you’re so passionate about. It’s one of the best ways of learning.
Also, during the process of teaching, you’ll find opportunities to try out things you hadn’t considered before.
Your student will almost certainly offer new perspectives that will challenge the way you look at things you considered foundational concepts. Photography is a creative art, and fresh minds tend to be more experimental than those who have been practicing their craft for a while.
When deciding to volunteer, it’s vital that you consider the realities of taking on a student. As with all jobs, examine the cost and time you’ll need to spend in taking on this new responsibility.
Exhaustion is the enemy of inspiration, so take care not to spread yourself too thin. Remember that you have to help yourself before you can help others, so don’t take on a student if you’re not ready.
3. Explore Collections Of Photographic Work
The works of celebrated photographers provide rich material for inspiration. This is especially so if you take the time to explore the full breadth of their work.
For instance, rather than studying their images individually, learn about them as collections. Doing so will reveal to you the subtle nuances of their style and imagination, often unclear from a single image.
Further, when learning about their work, study them within the context in which they were created. Remember, no image is created in vacuity.
Social backdrops such as culture, politics, and economics all have a direct influence on what, why, and how images are made.
Learn as much about the lives of the creators of the art your studying. Doing so can help you understand their craft, and by extension, your own.
Finally, the study of books that cover styles of photography beyond your own. There is always something you can learn from these resources, even if they aren’t specifically about your kind of photography.
4. Engage in Your Community
Inspiration isn’t just about having new ideas; it’s about being excited about what you’re doing.
Connecting with people who share your passion provides you with the support and motivation you need to develop as a photographer.
As we form friendships in the community, we benefit from having our goals and dreams sustained every day.
Surrounding ourselves by those who understand our worries and struggles give us boosted confidence to pursue our passions.
Other than support, our communities also provide us with inspiration by allowing us to serve. Insight comes more natural to us when our work becomes about more than just ourselves.
So, start making strides to be involved in your local photographic community. You could gather with your community in virtual venues like forums and chat rooms or personally meet up with your local artists.
These connections will allow you to aid new photographers, learn from more experienced ones, and experience camaraderie as you share ideas and experiences.
5. Work With A Creative Partner
When you work closely with someone who shares your vision, you’ll reach heights, you may not have been able to on your own.
Having a partner who shares your passions provides us with an abundant source of ideas, excitement, and support.
A creative partner will also hold you accountable not only to yourself but to someone else. This protects you from failing to honor your commitments to yourself and your goals.
There is something about keeping commitments to others that are far easier than keeping promises to ourselves.
If we don’t take photos, no one is going to fire us or harass us when you start slacking off. But, our sense of obligation to our partners help keep us motivated when we’ve told someone that we’re going to do something.
The opinions of others can have a powerful influence on our behaviors, and if it’s the right people that influence can be a positive one.
6. Find a Muse
“Finding our Muse” is a concept presented in almost every aspect of creative work, and it can be an essential part of improving your photography.
Your muse is your source of inspiration. It is the person, place, or thing that sets your mind alight with the fire of ideas and creativity.
You can have a host of muses, and each of them can inspire you in different ways.
For instance, among my muses is Zion National Park in Utah State. The entire area is astoundingly beautiful and full of potential for inspiration.
The entire location has an ethereal, otherworldly feel that helps me feel connected to the Earth and inspires me in the direction. Whenever I want to do a nature-centered shoot, I visit this place.
Another one of my muses is Oahu. It’s my go-to place whenever I need to revitalize creativity into my work.
Finding your muse, or a host of muses will help keep your inspiration fresh and alive. It will help expand your creativity, sometimes even beyond the bounds of your photography career. The most powerful of muses can influence and shape many aspects of your life.
7. Remember To Have Fun
When we’re just starting with photography, we get to experience it with no external pressures.
But, once it becomes a more significant part of our lives, we begin to start to worry about what others will think of our photography.
Before you were a professional, you focused more on experimenting with your images than concentrating on what will pay the bills.
Before you had an audience, you had complete freedom to do and create as you please. There’s little risk of sharing whatever you’re happy with since there are no apparent consequences. As your presence grows, things can begin to change.
What was once a source of joy slowly becomes a cause of obligation and worry. The validation we once sought so stringently now becomes the chains that bind our inspiration.
It’s not impossible to recapture the magical period where we don’t worry about what others will think of our images.
One way to do this is to engage in photographic activities solely for the purpose of enjoyment. Setting time aside to play with our cameras enables us to unshackle ourselves from creative pressures.
That release lets us tune in to what truly interests us, inspiring us to approach our photography more authentically. We become excited about taking photos again, and this excitement translates into creativity.
8. Travel With Your Camera
Travel photography can be one of the most inspirational experiences you can have. Your travels will bring you through unfamiliar areas that can help inspire and refresh your mind.
Where you go can be influenced by where you live. If you spend your days in a city, go out to the country to get fresh inspiration. If you live in the country, then the hustle and bustle of the city may provide you with a refreshed perspective.
While you’re traveling, don’t spend your time looking for the perfect photo, instead focus on those things that really interest you. The best images come from the heart.
When you travel, remember to bring a proper set of equipment with you. That is, carry everything you need to capture the environment and take advantage of the inspiration it brings.
Resources:
24 Tips on How to Take Great Photos When Traveling
15 Tips for Planning Your Next Photography Trip
Packing Guidelines for Your Next Travel Photography Trip
9. Revisit Old Sites
Discovering a new subject or composition in a location that has been already exhaustively covered can serve to inspire any photographer.
We’re all familiar with that rush of exhilaration we feel when we have uncovered hidden gems in places that are familiar to us.
There are almost always other angles that you can take advantage of that you might have overlooked during your first visit.
Try visiting the same site at different hours of the day. The changing quality of light throughout the day can have dramatic effects on a space.
As the sun moves through the sky, the colors and shades that bathe an area can shift from warm reds to cool blues and every stage in between.
As the ambient light change in tone and color, it alters the way your surroundings appear. This can inspire you with new ideas for new ways to shoot your subject.
This is why you can never visit a site just once; you need to see it multiple times in different lighting to make the most of it.
You’ll rarely encounter the perfect shooting conditions during your first foray to the area. By making multiple trips, you’ll be sure to get the best pictures.
10. Make Shooting A Habit
Regularly producing work builds habits that serve to keep your photographic enthusiasm and creativity aroused.
When you shoot consistently, you develop habits that keep your creative mind in tune.
This, in turn, makes it effortless for ideas to come. It enables you to always looking at your surroundings with a photographer’s eye.
It also increases the likelihood that you’ll always be prepared to capture incredible shots. Many a photographer has lamented the loss of a beautiful photo because they didn’t have their camera with them.
So, investing time to photograph consistently to stay inspired and on top of your game.
Resource:
5 Reasons Why You Should Aim to be a Prolific Photographer
11. Have Faith In Yourself
Knowing that we have what it takes to reach our goals and that we can create amazing work will keep us feeling inspired.
One of the hardest things for any creatives to do is to remain confident in themselves.
This is especially true after a project falls through or doesn’t turn out as they hoped. In these cases, we can lose faith in ourselves and seek out validation from others.
While respecting and listening to others is essential to the learning process, we also have to remain true to ourselves.
Whenever your confidence is dwindling, instead of looking externally, look internally for inspiration. Get a clear idea of your motivations and goals. Try to remember your “why”.
Your “why” stands as a North Star in your sky, one that can direct your life towards your vision of the future. It provides you with a sense of clarity that will help keep you moving forward despite adversities.
The stronger the connection you form with your why, the better you’ll perform. Even when trouble gets in the way, you’ll always be able to correct course towards your goals.
When you bring this internal clarity together with the external actions, you’ll find great inspiration.
12. Take Up a Different Form of Creative Outlet
Consider deriving inspiration from creative activities outside of photography.
Your new creative pursuit can come from many places and doesn’t necessarily have to be artistic. It could be programming, learning a new language, adding new recipes to your repertoire, or even acting.
Creating experiences with a new medium can help to improve your performance as a photographer in different ways.
Being creative, in whatever form it takes, introduces you to new ideas and concepts. It provides you with unique sources of inspiration you can later incorporate in your photographic work.
Further, new experiences you help to improve the plasticity of your mind and the scope of your talents. A nimble mind with diverse backgrounds has a greater ability to see things through many lenses and identify potential within them.
This is something vital that adopting new creative mediums brings to you. You learn to look at things in different ways and make connections that didn’t exist before.
Creativity is a holistic event, something that doesn’t categorize itself into one pigeon hole. Your many creative pursuits will eventually become synergistic and will be apparent on everything you do.
13. New Mediums Can Inspire Us
As we mentioned above, it doesn’t have to be photography that drives your inspiration. Try listening to music, visiting museums, or walking in the woods to help rekindle your creativity.
Austin Kleon has been quoted as saying “Steal like an artist.” Everything we take in can be a source of new ideas and creativity. Like creating an original recipe, the ingredients and experiences we find elsewhere can come together to create something wholly unique.
Consuming new sources of inspiration goes far beyond merely observing art, however. We can listen to our friends, take a road trip, experience new music, or read a book. The point of this process is to connect with the world around you and take in further information that can influence your art.
Movies are a great interdisciplinary source of inspiration. Music, framing, colors, and lighting are all vital components in creating the feeling that you get from a movie. Taking these elements can inspire us to create new and exciting images.
We also benefit from reading. Children’s books and fashion magazines are two of my favorite sources of inspiration for photography.
It doesn’t matter whether what we’re taking in is directly related to our art. Reading about different ideas can serve to bring new us new concepts that we can incorporate in our work.
Taking in the creation of others can help us to recapture our own inspiration. It fires off thoughts that we may not have had before encountering them.
14. Read Books On Photography
Read different books about photography and post-processing techniques.
Reading books on photography is a powerful way of discovering new concepts you can apply to your own work.
If you find that I’m mentioning books a lot throughout this work, you shouldn’t be surprised.
Books are humanities way of transferring information and knowledge onto others. And there is a great deal of expertise to learn throughout your creative journey as a photographer.
Constant education and research are two prominent ways to keep your inspiration alive.
15. Be Present
Take care not to overthink opportunities that come your way. Doing so can result in you missing out on something amazing in exchange for something familiar.
Though it’s important to plan ahead and make decisions based on practicality, always leave room for your creativity to run free.
You don’t always have to think your photographs through before you take them, sometimes you can allow spontaneity to drive your shutter.
This may require you to learn to let go of bias, to avoid thinking about the work you’ve done and the work you plan to do.
By taking a photo of what inspires you, when it inspires you, you may capture images that are more authentic and unique.
16. Never Stop Challenging Yourself
As we progress in our artistic pursuit, we’re going to master things that were once challenging for us, and what was once inspiring will become routine.
Continually challenging ourselves will help keep the work novel. It will give us new types of influences to incorporate into our work.
Whether you try a new piece of lighting equipment or seek new areas to photograph, you’ll be keeping your mind creative and fluid.
You don’t necessarily have to go far to change up your experience and take on new challenges.
For someone doing nature photography, taking up macro photography can be a great way to explore their environment differently. If a whole fresh perspective is needed, they can take on portrait photography to face new challenges.
These changes mean that you’ll be working with new equipment, working in new environments, and learning new techniques. All of which will help you grow as a photographer.
Learning something new is an exhilarating experience that can serve as a fresh breeze through your mind. Every change introduces ripples that will alter what we do and how we think about the work we’re doing.
One of those challenges you can undertake can be passing your knowledge to others. The fresh perspective new photographers can bring to the art can help serve as a new kind of challenge. How do you impart your knowledge to them without affecting their vision?
Conclusion
Staying inspired may be a challenge, but its one that we can embrace as we walk our paths as photographers. Throughout our careers, we’ll encounter low periods that will require us to seek new inspiration to relight our passion for photography.
Hopefully, when you encounter such struggles, you can refer to this article to aid you in finding your inspiration again.
