3 Highly Effective Exercises for Creative Photography
The most difficult aspect about photography is how to achieve unique images with your own individualized style. As a beginner, it may be necessary to capture it all so that you can figure out what it is you really like to photograph. Once you figure out what you like to photograph, developing an individualized style using creative photography may be the next step. Even seasoned photographers may find themselves wishing to expand on their style due to changing technologies, lifestyles, or just a newfound passion for something different.
Here are three exercises that may help you explore different styles.
Minimalism
Minimalism allows for a fresh break from the constant flow of chaos and visual information that we are subjected to all day. In photography, it is the practice of capturing simplicity and using a minimal number of objects and elements when creating a composition. Look for bright blocks of color, interesting geometric patterns or lines, a lone subject in a large environment.
Minimalism in this photograph gives a sense of the enormity of the storm in a barren landscape.
Minimalism under foggy conditions @Redwood Forest National Park, California
Minimalism with a single dominant color, Big Island, Hawaii
Long Exposure
In my opinion, long exposures are just fun! They can result in beautiful artistic images. It is important to have a tripod if you plan to keep your subject sharp while you capture the movement of other elements. If you do not have a tripod, create camera movements during the exposure.
Long Exposure: This six minute exposure captures the movement of the clouds while the main subject stays sharp.
50+ Second Exposure @ Bahia Honda, Florida
Panoramics
Don’t have a wide angle lens? Do not fret! With the amazing capabilities of photo-merge in Photoshop and Lightroom, you too can get great results even with hand held images. Panoramic images allow you to capture the landscape’s vastness. Photograph left to right, in manual mode, with a normal or telephoto lens and with manual focusing.
Viti Crater, Iceland
Vestrahorn, Iceland
Utilizing multiple capture to create a panoramic using photo merge in Photoshop or Lightroom results in a large file that can be printed much larger than taking just one photograph and cropping for a panoramic.
Whatever direction you choose to go, go out, have fun and experiment with creative photography. And feel free to share your own ideas in the comments below.
About Author Christine Hauber
The current that underlies Christine Hauber's work is the concept of serenity in a world of chaos. With 25 years of professional photography experience, she continues to be attracted to the simplicity of the minimal and thus makes every effort to be a faithful visual recorder of the world around her. She wishes for her images to distill scenes ranging from the ephemeral to the eternal, from the abstruse to the symbolic. As a dedicated artist, she strives constantly to explore and expand her definition of the splendor and mysterious in life and nature. Her images have an ethereal and enduring quality.
Christine's work is published in various books, magazines and websites and has been printed and hangs in homes and offices worldwide. She teaches private photography workshops worldwide focusing on the needs of each unique client.
