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A personal photography project is a series of images sequenced to tell a specific story. Usually, a story which the photographer has a great passion or emotion towards. The project can range in the number of images and amount of time. Or from simple subjects (Elias Weiss Friedman aka The Dogist) to complex, global initiatives (Sebastiao Salgado’s Genesis).

Why Start a Photography Project?

A personal project is a great way to expand beyond a single image into more complex story telling. You’ll learn to plan, shoot and edit a sequence of photos to convey a story. You can experiment with different styles, techniques, and gear. These may be outside of your normal shooting but might be what you enjoy rather than what would pay the bills.

Personal projects aim to be a creative break from your standard paid work. They allow the photographer to expand on a subject which they feel passionate about. Personal projects are also intended to be self-motivated and fun! They interest the photographer first, so shoot only for yourself. You have the ultimate creative control here.

How to Start?

Find a Subject

Start with a passion, whether large or small. You will always have a unique voice and story to tell, and keeping that story close will create a strong body of work. You might be a part-time musician or maybe you volunteer a few hours at a local non-profit. Great! Shoot their stories from an insider’s perspective. Or explore your neighborhood. You can do a story on a local business or business owner – shooting them at home, work, on days off, etc. There are ideas all around us, it is up to you to get out and find them.

Short or Long-Term

Short-term projects are good for starting out in photography projects. You don’t need to commit long-term, but it will get you thinking about the process. This can span a few hours or days. Even a few months can be short compared with decade-long projects. Bruce Davidson shot his project Circus over 4 months and Brooklyn Gang over a summer. Long-term projects are more popular in photography because complex subject matters need time to develop. Yet, the time commitment and editing of images into a cohesive project can seem daunting. A great example of a long-term photography project is Josef Koudelka’s Gypsies. He spent 9 years traveling with a Roma community and photographing their society. His 9-year immersion in the project created beautiful images. Another great long term project example is Nicholas Nixon’s The Brown Sisters. A yearly portrait of his wife and her sisters, this ongoing project has spanned 40 years of their lives. Studying well-known photographers and their projects is helpful when beginning your own project.

It is important to understand how much time you plan on shooting this project. Whether 1 day or 10 years, it’s important to have a general idea of how long this project will take you. This can change as you go along depending on subject matter, but have a general timeline in place and be aware of it.

Equipment

First, you should nail down your subject matter before getting into equipment. You may need different lenses if you plan to shoot indoors vs. outdoors. Or when shooting something generally close up or far away. Or even your expected lighting conditions when shooting. You may also need more portable equipment if your story takes you out away from civilization or on a long trip. This is for you to determine, there is no right or wrong answer here, only the vision of you the photographer.

Just make sure your equipment stays consistent throughout the duration of the project. It will help the images flow together and achieve a uniform sense. The focus here is the subject, not the variety of lenses you have and techniques you practice. If you want to showcase a specific piece of equipment or skill set, pick one and stick with it. You’ll have other opportunities in future projects to show different skill sets.

Editing Your Work

Aside from post-processing, you’ll need to edit and sequence your photos. The goal here is ensuring you don’t present too many or too few images. You’ll want to find the least amount of images required to tell the full story. Most likely, you’ll take way more than necessary, which is fine. It’s better to shoot too many and spend longer sequencing, than realizing you have gaps in your story. Don’t limit yourself to a set number of images, just let that come with the process. Lay out physical prints, and begin arranging them in order, pulling out any excess images. You’ll find this process easier than it sounds.

If you find you have too many images and cannot edit further, walk away. Removing yourself from the process will ensure you come back with fresh eyes. Some photographers swear by this method of letting photos “marinate”.

Also, getting your project critiqued by a trusted photographer friend can also be beneficial. They don’t have the same connection to the project, and can give an unbiased opinion.

Publishing

When you’re finally ready to share your images, it’s time to publish your project.

There are many publishing options, and you’ll find one that works best for your project. Some options include printing a book, exhibiting in a gallery or posting to social media. A printed book is a great portfolio piece when meeting with potential clients. You can even send the book to publishers to get a book deal. As long as it is right for you and the project. You can also exhibit in a gallery. It could be challenging to find a gallery willing to showcase your work, but it could be great exposure. Social media is quick, easy and will reach the largest audience. But some may find it does not convey their story the right way. You need to ensure the publishing process you choose is right for the project and your vision.

There are no rules here, just stay true to your vision and tell a story you are passionate about. You have control of what you present to the world, make sure you enjoy the process as much as the final outcome.

Suggested Further Reading

Below are just a few of my favorite photography books for further inspiration. Keeping photo books around can help for inspiration and continued motivation.

Bruce Davidson Subway
Robert Frank The Americans
Josef Koudelka Exiles
Willaim Eggleston’s Guide
Trent Parke Minutes to Midnight
Martin Parr The Last Resort

There are many ways to become an excellent photographer. Though some begin their practice through formal education, such as high school or college classes, many modern photographers are completely self-taught. Ultimately, how you acquire your photography knowledge is of little importance compared to the results you achieve. However, through my own experience and education, I have learned that there’s one technique that is guaranteed to improve your creativity as a photographer: restrictive projects.

While most photography classes wisely make heavy use of restrictive projects, this learning method is not necessarily the most intuitive nor the easiest for self-taught photographers. The basic idea is to impose strong constraints on a key element or variable within photography, then take loads and loads of photographs within those constraints. When first starting out, restrictive projects often focus on technical elements, like only using f/2.8, setting all exposures to over one second, or the eternal first assignment: manual focus and exposure only. While these are excellent ways to get to know the ins and outs of your camera, the same principals can be applied to creative thinking to bring your photography to the next level.

My absolute favorite restrictive project, one that I inevitably return to when I feel my creativity slipping, is location restrictions. As you can probably guess, this just means deciding to spend a large chunk of time only shooting in one area. It’s important to choose an area that’s the right size, has enough visual material to work with, and is different from your usual locations. The size and challenge of your area should be chosen depending on your own aesthetic, skill, and experience, but it’s best to keep the area size to something you can see all at once, not an entire town or the like. It’s also important not to intermingle a restrictive project with your regular work, but to focus all of your creative energy on this singular location for as long as you can.

Recently, I took it upon myself to only shoot on one small, industrial block in Brooklyn for a weekend. I was shooting film (both color and black and white) with an Olympus XA, a very simple, compact rangefinder that further limits my freedom and forces me to think laterally. The photos throughout this article are all from that weekend project.

You probably won’t like all of the images you shoot during your restrictive projects, and you may not like any of them. However, that’s just a sign that you really are challenging yourself. That challenge is what makes restrictive projects so effective. With this type of exercise, you aren’t after fantastic results, you’re going for self-improvement and growth. Professional photographers often get bogged down by their work from taking the same sort of images over and over because clients expect a certain aesthetic from them. While a long-time wedding photographer is likely very good at taking outdoor group portraits thanks to years of practice, that type of repetition can also stymie the creative flow and ultimately cap one’s potential. Usually, the reaction to a creative rut is to free yourself from any limitations and go take photos of whatever you fancy when you get the chance. While this kind of exploration is also important, developing the ability to see subject matter in multiple ways can free any practice from monotony.

Creating limitations for yourself isn’t always the easiest thing to do, so below are some ideas for potential restrictive projects that you may find helpful, organized thematically. If one of them sounds easy, don’t do it. If one of them sounds extremely boring, don’t do it. The best restrictive projects are the ones that are intriguing and intimidating at the same time.

Example Restrictive Project Assignments:

Locations:
- Only shoot on one city block
- Only shoot within reaching distance of your own house
- Only shoot facing towards the sun
Subjects:
- Only shoot objects smaller than your shoe
- Only shoot the ground
- Only shoot photos with the sun in them
- Only shoot manmade objects that are green
- Only shoot people without photographing their faces
Camera settings:
- Only shoot with the aperture wide open
- Only shoot with something in the foreground out of focus
- Only shoot at the minimum focusing distance for any lens
- Only shoot a telephoto lens while indoors
- Only shoot vertical panoramas
Physical techniques:
- Only shoot without looking through the viewfinder/screen
- Only shoot crouched down
- Only shoot from the hip

Hopefully, one of the above “assignments” will trigger your intrigue while still feeling difficult to accomplish. Regardless of what restriction you choose, the most important part of this practice is determination. It’s not enough to take photos of one city block until you can’t think of any more good shots to take. In fact, that’s precisely when the project begins. The goal is to take photos past the point of creative exhaustion; when you can’t possibly think of anything else to take that wouldn’t be either repetitive or terrible, keep shooting. Eventually, you will always get a second wind and find new perspectives or personal aesthetics that you never thought existed, and that is when you truly grow as a photographer.

Tag: projects

How to Start a Photography Project