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.

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  Minimalism in this photograph gives a sense of the enormity of the storm in a barren landscape.

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  Minimalism under foggy conditions @Redwood Forest National Park, California

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  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.

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  Long Exposure: This six minute exposure captures the movement of the clouds while the main subject stays sharp.

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  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.

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  Viti Crater, Iceland

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  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.