Shake it up.  Yep, it’s a legitimate strategy for your photography and growth as an artist.  What do I mean by shake it up?  In essence, take yourself out of your comfort zone of what you normally shoot and what lenses you normally use and do something different.  By taking yourself out of your comfort zone, you are no longer operating by rote memory, you are actively engaging your brain and forcing it to work to puzzle out how to successfully shoot a scene. Engaging your brain will in turn spark new vision, new ideas and a fresh perspective.

What are some of the reasons you may want to shake it up?

  • Visiting a very familiar location that you’ve shot many times
  • Feeling “stuck” creatively with your photography
  • You’re in the mood for something different

I just returned from my workshop on the Oregon Coast which is what spawned this post.  I have been traveling to this location for most of my lifetime…I spent summers here as a kid and then continued visiting as an adult.  It is a location and a landscape that I know intimately.  Photographically speaking, I know what I like and how I like to shoot this area.  It’s pretty baked in what I like to do here after hundreds of shooting sessions in this area.  When I arrived in Yachats for my workshop, I set about scouting for the best locations and in doing so, shot a few images for myself.  As I was driving to the coast, I was thinking about what I might like to do creatively.  Is there anything I would like to come home with?  Is there anything I want to learn or push?  I didn’t have any clear answers, but I was feeling I would like to push myself and try to find something unique.

So how do you shake it up?  I’ve written about this a bit before, but here is a refresher of some ideas that might help you…

  • Mindset – Adjust your mindset to “see” differently than you normally see.  Allow yourself to accept new and interesting patterns/shapes/textures.  Giving yourself permission to try something new is the first step to shake it up.
  • Shoot a new subject – Find something you haven’t shot before, or not had interest in before, and spend some time figuring out the best way to shoot it.
  • Gear – I’ve often advocated to change what gear you normally use at a location and try something different.  Shoot a sunset with a 400mm lens instead of a wide angle.  Or only bring one lens to use for an entire photo shoot.  Use a lens you haven’t used in a long time, the change in focal length will help you to “see” differently.
  • Technique – Try using different techniques to capture images in the field.  It could be Intentional Camera Movement (ICM) to add a painterly quality to an image.  Or shooting only in Monochrome.  Or working with shallow depth of fields to create interesting scenes and guide the viewers eyes.
  • Perspective – Allow yourself to find or create different perspectives on familiar subjects or scenes. Get low to the ground, move away from “head height”.  Shoot the backside of a flower instead of the front. Climb up high and shoot down on something.  Do whatever you can to change the “normal” perspective on a subject to create more visual interest.

Shooting A New Subject

I practiced a little bit shooting new subjects while at the coast.  Whether it was small details along the beach, or the ever-present seagulls, I push aside thoughts about “what I should shoot” and just worked to shoot different things the best I could.

Barnacles and a seagull feather on the sand

Sea foam trapped in a curl of sea grass

Kelp seaweed in golden light at the waters edge

Crab shell and wave on the Oregon coast

Seagulls in flight over the ocean waves

Seagulls at the Oregon Coast

 

Using Different Techniques

One night I decided to “see and shoot” in monochrome during the golden hour.  Doing this caused me to see the location very differently, not looking at colors, but instead at different tonalities and arranging them in a way that I found pleasing.  Different techniques can also stretch to the digital darkroom in how you process an image.  Practicing different techniques is one of the easiest ways to shake it up!

black and white photo of a rock and shadow on the beach

patterns in the sand

patterns in the sand on the Oregon coast

I deviated from my “normal” 3×2 aspect ratio in cropping this image of the sea lions. I wanted to focus attention, remove distractions and create a different feeling for the image

sea lions sleeping on a dock

 

Change in Perspective

Forcing ourself to “see” differently can be challenging.  As we move through the world, we don’t really think about how we are seeing, we just do. So for us to focus on HOW we are seeing the world and then work to change how we see is a challenge! Yet, with work and patience, it can be an amazing transformative experience!   One of the things I value as a photographer is how I see things that others don’t.  That’s not by accident, that’s due to hard work and practice in myself, to see the world around me in a different way.   I consider it a personal challenge and one that continues to push me as an artist, and as a human, to really appreciate the nuances and unique views of the world around me.

At the beach, there were only a couple of examples of me changing perspective to shake it up.  However, they turned out to be quite impactful.

When we think of bridges, how many of you think of the roadway running along the top of the bride?  Or, how many think about the support structure of the bridge and think about interesting patterns and shapes?   Well on the Oregon Coast we are blessed to have some beautiful bridges designed and built in the early 1900’s.  I simply love the arches, supports and delicate details they put on these bridges.  One morning I brought the workshop to a beach and we happened to have easy access to the underside of a bridge, which lent to some fun photographs.

the underside of a bridge along the Oregon coast

structure of a bridge

But one of the most unique changes in perspective I could get was flying my drone over the landscape.  Getting my camera off the ground provides such a unique perspective to the landscape. And, the act of composing a photograph from 100 feet up is so different for me that it causes me to really think hard and work to adjust my mental models.  It does what I need to shake it up

drone photo of a beach on Oregon coast

A breaking wave during sunset on the Oregon Coast

a breaking wave shot with a drone

 

I encourage you to shake it up whenever you can!  You might be surprised at the results.  And, I am a believer that it will help you see the world around you differently and may elevate your own creativity and photographs.  It’s worth a try, it’s free and it can be a heck of a lot of fun!