Sunset Shutterbug

Observations from this week:

• While I love cooking and eating at tasty places, I’m working on not taking all food photos! A lot of food photos don’t make this weekly summary, but that’s ok. There’s so many other things to photograph in life other than food, but it can be hard not to photograph delicious looking food, right??
• I realistically end up loving maybe 1-3 photos a lot out of all the photos I take each week. The others are fine, but some stand out a lot more for me than others. We’ll see if that changes over the next few months.
• Remember not to take photos all the time, especially when others are around. It’s important to be present with what’s going on in life and enjoy the company of others. Remember to put the camera away!

So you’re working on your photography and taking more photos but you’ve run out of ideas.

Or maybe today you’re just not feeling inspired and nothing looks interesting.

Or maybe you’re doing the 365 photography project and you need to photograph something today.

Or maybe you need photos for a social media post for a quote card but you’re tired of looking at stock photos that everyone else is using.

So what can you take photos of that’s easy, can be found literally anywhere and is interesting?

TEXTURE!

Texture is everywhere and it’s my favorite subject of choice when I don’t think there’s anything interesting to photograph.

Texture really comes alive when you play with light and angles. textures can appear flat when lit straight on, but if you change your camera angle up a bit you can get some awesome photos. Photographing early or late in the day can give you some great lighting too so experiment with the time of day.

The thing I love most about texture photography is you can create really cool abstract photos that can keep a viewer guessing what it is. It also adds tactility to a photograph and depth. Plus, if you’re someone who finds getting close to subjects challenging, photographing textures is a great way to practice getting up close and looking for the details all around us. Don’t forget, you can even photograph textures at home so you don’t need to leave the house on those rainy days when you just want to lounge around in your jammies.

So where can you find textures? If you’re stumped as to what textures to photograph, here are some suggestions:

• fabrics (clothing material, rugs, carpets, etc.)
• wood
• metal
• walls
• nature (plants, trees, etc.)

Try this out next time you’re wondering what to photograph. What’s your favorite go-to subject to photograph? Let me know in the comments!

I held a photo walk and a photo workshop this weekend so I got extra photos in this week. It’s been interesting grouping photos together and seeing different subject themes.

Some observations from this week:

• I took a lot of photos looking up! The architecture in San Francisco is really beautiful when you start looking at the amount of molding and details found in building entrances, window frames, etc. Look at buildings where you live and see if you find any cool details you never noticed before and take some photos.
• It’s crazy the amount of discarded objects/trash I find walking around or waiting for public transportation. That could make for a photo project in itself now that I think about it.
• I took an origami class and it’s such a fun activity to do! So many beautiful pieces of paper to fold with and you create your own works of art in the process. If you haven’t tried it, try it out!

Back in the day during one of the time periods I used to blog often (I started blogging back in 2001, yep, that long ago!), I’d post photos I took over the course of a week. It motivated me to photograph daily and there was a sense of satisfaction of seeing how my week looked through my photos.

So I’m planning on picking up this old tradition and will do my best to commit to it on a weekly basis. I want to do this personal project to not only improve my photography and reflect on my week visually, but to also show you my photography isn’t perfect.

My photography is far from perfect. My photos aren’t staged. My photos don’t have perfect lighting. My photos aren’t heavily processed. My photos aren’t shot with a DSLR camera. My photos are just moments of my everyday life that I take with my phone or point & shoot camera.

A lot of people struggle with photography because they get so caught up with the technical side of it. But it doesn’t have to be hard or complicated. We can focus on being creative and enjoy the process of experimenting with photographing our life. We can focus on photographing the world around us, wherever that may be.

So, how are you working to improve your own photography? What’s challenging for you? Let me know in the comments below!

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