July 2019 - 63tRy a new genRe
Part of the fascination of photography is that there are so many genres
and techniques to try out. That’s part of the fun. Even experienced
photographers have a comfort zone of subjects and methods that they
are well-known with. Anybody can learn a lot by trying a new genre.
For example, if you’ve never photographed a stranger before then
why don’t you look for a model from your city and collab with them.
The whole effort of finding a suitable model and coming up with the
concept of a shoot and capturing the photos will be difficult and
informative.
Build a PhotoBlog oR weBSite
What do you do with your images after you’ve captured them? Uploading to Instagram, Flickr or 500px is one
thing, but an interesting challenge is to set up your own website or photoblog. If you have no idea how to do this, don’t
panic, it’s fairly easy once you know how. You can use WordPress or Pixelpost to set up a photoblog with an absolute
minimum of programming knowledge. The instructions for both are
easy to follow. And if you don’t want to buy your own domain name
and a hosting plan (essential in order to have your own website) then
Wix, WordPress.com or Tumblr may be the answer. The essential
thing here is to make over your own personalised area on the web
for publishing your images.
The best approach is to be critical of your work and only post
your best images. Online portfolios are usually judged by the
strength of your weakest images. Remove the pictures if you are not
confident about it, to improve your portfolio. A website or photoblog
can work well if you have a long-term project to publicise. Check out
various portraits of photographers as an example. An added bonus,
if you’ve never done this before, is that learning to create a website
or blog may be a useful skill to add to your CV.
cReate a PhotoBook
Do you print your photos? Try printing some of your
favourites on an A3 printer and you can hang them on
a wall or create a wall of photos for you. But what after
creating the frames and prints? One solution is to make
a photo book instead. There are well known photo
book service online who will print it for you and you can
customise them. The quality from the best companies is
extremely high.
Designing a photo book is not just a topic of placing
imagess on pages. It will force you to edit your images,
look for themes, put images on the same spread and
learn about graphic design. If you have a long-term
project a photo book could be a great end product and a
nice reward for the hard work you put it in.
Another reason to like the concept of photo books
is for the legacy. Books are easier to give out to friends
and relatives than prints. You can create a significant
collection of your best images that people can look at for
many years to come.