Creative challenge for the photographer for 52 weeks

2024 Author: Malcolm Clapton | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 03:44

If you want to improve your photography skills, try this one-year challenge from American photographer Dale Foci.

This challenge does not have a specific start date. Choose any time convenient for you and get started. Each week you need to complete tasks from three categories.

1. History … Any good photographer can take a beautiful picture. But not everyone is able to tell a story with this snapshot. Tasks from this category will help you not only to see and convey the beauty of the world around you, but also to tell something more.
2. Technique … Technical skills in photography are as important as creative ones. As you complete these tasks, you will experiment with the camera settings and the functions of the graphic editors.
3. Inspiration … The assignments in this category give full play to your imagination. The tasks themselves can be understood both literally and figuratively.

1st week

History: the rule of thirds

It is necessary to mentally divide the photo with vertical and horizontal lines into thirds, placing the important parts of the composition at the intersection of these lines. Although this principle of composition is known even to novice photographers, not everyone knows what to use it for. But he's great for telling a story.

2nd week

Technique: untreated

Do not use any graphic editors. Try to take an expressive photo without processing. And don't cheat! Be sure to save this photo until the end of the challenge.

3rd week

Inspiration: earth

The earth should inspire you this week. Your photo could be a landscape, soil with plants, or something else.

4th week

History: mirror

Try to tell the story using a mirror.

5th week

Technique: 10 frames

Take ten frames of the same scene. Let each frame be taken at a different angle, from a different distance and with different focus settings. Don't post all ten photos, choose the one you like the most.

6th week

Inspiration: sweets

Try to get inspired by some pastry, but don't show it in the photo.

7th week

History: something forgotten

Tell the story of a forgotten item.

8th week

Technique: last frame

Imagine you need to take a great photo, but you only have one frame. No second chances.

9th week

Inspiration: still life

You won't surprise anyone with a couple of fruits on the table, try to get creative with the task.

10th week

History: perspective

In this case, think of perspective as a relationship between subjects. If you want to make things harder for yourself, experiment with a changed perspective. This technique helps to make objects in the frame larger or smaller, closer or farther than they really are.

11th week

Technique: Tone Splitting

This is a way of processing a photo where one shade is applied to the shadows and another to the light. Tone splitting, along with color correction, is often used in the media to give a photograph the desired mood.

12th week

Inspiration: Orange

Get inspired by orange or oranges. Or both.

13th week

History: golden hour

Golden is the hour before sunset and the hour after sunrise, when the sun paints everything golden.

14th week

Technique: Panning

Usually this technique is used to capture an object in motion. In doing so, the photographer follows a moving subject using a slow shutter speed.

15th week

Inspiration: solid

Decide for yourself how to interpret this.

16th week

History: Leading Lines

Leading lines are one of the most important compositional techniques. These lines can be, for example, roads, fences, bridges, rows of buildings, rivers, or trees. Tell a story using leading lines. Just don't take pictures of the rails, it's too commonplace.

17th week

Technique: loop lighting

This is one of the most common lighting techniques in portrait photography. In this technique, the light source is positioned slightly above the eye level of the person in the photograph. Because of this, a small shadow falls on the cheeks from the nose. Try this technique.

18th week

Inspiration: purple

Get inspired this week by purple, the color of magic and mystery.

19th week

History: surroundings

Tell the story of your immediate surroundings, such as your front yard. Give viewers a glimpse into your daily life.

20th week

Technique: sky overlay

Sometimes the sky just doesn't want to look good in photos. Try replacing the sky in your photo with something more interesting this week. For example, browse Flickr photos that are available under Creative Commons licenses for the sky that suits you.

21st week

Inspiration: soft

Just as with "hard", you yourself can decide how to understand this word.

22nd week

History: Geometric Shapes

Triangles, circles, squares are all great compositional elements of an image. Try to tell a story with them.

23rd week

Technique: f / 8

Take a portrait at f / 8. Try to make the person stand out from the background, not at the expense of depth of field.

24th week

Inspiration: green

Green symbolizes life, nature and hope. You can get inspiration from almost anything.

25th week

Story: toys

Tell a story with toys or toys.

26th week

Technique: light graphics

You need to take pictures in the dark. Place the camera on a tripod, set a slow shutter speed (30 seconds) and paint with light. Flashlights, LED strips and laser pointers are especially good for this technique.

27th week

Inspiration: Communication

We live in an era of continuous communication, so inspiration literally surrounds you from all sides.

28th week

Story: a portrait disguised as a landscape

Take a portrait, but disguise it as a landscape. Tell the story of the person in the photograph using the environment. Deceive the viewer.

29th week

Technique: water droplets

To get a good photo of water droplets, you need the right lighting, macro photography, and a lot of patience.

30th week

Inspiration: family

A family portrait is too easy. Let's make it harder for ourselves: there should be no people in the photo.

31st week

Story: frame in frame

Another classic composition technique is to frame your subject so that one frame appears to be in another. Trees, doorways and window openings can become such a natural frame.

32nd week

Technique: high dynamic range

This is a technique for combining multiple photographs of the same subject, taken at different exposures. Due to this, the image looks brighter and clearer.

33rd week

Inspiration: High Key

Usually portraits are made in a high key (light tonality), but you can not be limited to this genre. In such a photo, there are no thick shadows; soft uniform light falls on the subject.

34th week

Story: stranger

In a photo, tell the story of a stranger using your surroundings.

35th week

Technique: stitched panorama

To do this, you need to glue several photos in a graphic editor. To complicate matters, you can try creating a blurred background effect (bokeh effect, or the Brenizer method).

36th week

Inspiration: low key

A low key (dark key) is the opposite of a high key. In this technique, a small, most important part of the image is highlighted. The photo should be dominated by dark tones.

37th week

History: balance

This is another technique for building a composition. Balance in a photograph can be achieved with color, tone, or placing multiple objects side by side.

38th week

Technique: 50mm

Take a photo with a focal length of 50mm. It doesn't matter if your lens is fixed or variable.

39th week

Inspiration: water

Get inspired by any kind of water.

40th week

History: bright colors in black and white

Try to communicate something vibrant with black and white photography. Do not photograph flowers.

41st week

Technique: levitation

This is partly a camera trick, partly Photoshop. Take two shots: one with the model (for example, standing on a chair), and the other with only the background. And then combine them in the editor by removing the chair.

42nd week

Inspiration: Music

There are no restrictions here. Get inspired and get creative.

43rd week

History: movement

Capturing movement in a photo is not easy. Use movement to tell a story.

44th week

Technique: ND filter

Use a ND filter and set your shutter speed to 30 seconds or longer. Especially interesting with such settings will be a water landscape or a busy city street.

45th week

Inspiration: cold

Decide for yourself how to interpret this.

46th week

Story: landscape foreground

Usually portraits tell about something, but a landscape can have its own story. Try to render it using the foreground of the landscape as the “model” and the background as the background.

47th week

Technique: unusual bokeh

The bokeh (blurred background) effect is interesting on its own, but this week try creating bokeh with an unusual shape.

48th week

Inspiration: human body

The human body has inspired artists since time immemorial. May it be a source of inspiration for you this week.

49th week

History: working time

Regular time is one hour after sunset and one hour before sunrise. The sky during this period is usually painted in beautiful blue and purple tones. Tell a story with these colors.

50th week

Technique: full processing

Go back to the photo taken in the second week (which you did not edit at all), and edit it in a graphics editor.

51st week

Inspiration: fear

Try to convey fear in your photographs in a way that makes viewers feel it too.

52nd week

Story: your story

Tell your own story.