Creativity Exercise: Produce a Photo Series
What is a photo series I hear you ask? Well, it's simply a group of photos that come together to create a common theme or story. You can choose from themes that last all year, to a photo series that you can take and put together in a hour, so this exercise can last as long or as little as you want it to!
Below you’ll find some ideas for themes for your series, along with tips for putting your images together..
Before You Begin: Choose Your Series Theme
Your very first step in creating your photography series is to choose a theme for your series. It has to be fairly common and easily accessible, and preferably simple! Obviously this means you could take pictures of just about anything, but just some random examples to get you going:
Feet
Clouds
Windows
The colour blue
Sweets / Candy
Street signs
In my driveway
Laughter
Dining Room Table
Leaves
A public bench
You want it to be something that you can easily visit or see regularly, otherwise it becomes too difficult and time consuming - for example, choosing a carousel might be a great idea in theory, but you will struggle to see too many of them in your day to day life, and therefore take five years to complete your series :-)
So, keep it simple and you'll get on much better.
Keep focused on your theme
You may be tempted to start becoming abstract with your interpretation of your theme - for example if your theme was windows, you might photograph eyes as the "window" to the soul
(OK, that was an awful example!)
In a word: don't.
You want to keep your series laser focused, so that someone viewing the series can instantly tell what the theme is.
Get Shooting!
Now all you need to do is get out there and start capturing your subject.
If your theme is a location (for example Dining Room Table or Beach) you can try to photograph from the same perspective for each one, filling the frame in roughly the same way. So, take a bird's eye view of your dining room table every day for a week, showing the different activities that happen there, and try to frame the shot in the same way for each one.
Or you can photograph one single item in different settings. For example, if your subject was feet, you could photograph the day in the life of your feet - from cosy slippers, to being in front of the fire, to running down the beach. You could also shoot down on your feet to get the same perspective.
Or you could visit one location - say your favourite part bench and photograph it as different times and in different ways. Same goes for a window in your home.
I hope you can see from this that they are so many different ways to approach this!
Here's an example of a simple theme of "yellow"
Remember to focus on the series as a whole
The goal here is not simply to create a set of individually great images, but images that are stronger together as a series. This means that images that might not be particularly strong when viewed on their own are fantastic as part of your series.
Now put them together!
The next step is to bring your images together in a series. You'll need at least four photos, but try to get six or eight images, that all work together to form a series. Remember, you want them all to look good together, and for the theme of your series to be instantly recognisable.
Why not keep going?
There's no need to stop at the end of the month - you can carry on with this challenge to the end of the year and beyond if you wish! It can be amazing to see the changes that take place in certain locations throughout the year - the light will change, the people may change, the items on the table will change, your footwear will change - and you will find that you will get more creative too!
If you want to get your hands on even MORE ideas, you can also download my free guide and get even suggestions for photos, exercise and projects you can do from home. Click on the image below to download your free copy!
