Play to Create

Sea weeds appear through the water in a pond behind my house. The evening sunlight reflected beautifully and the wind created gentle ripples.

If you identify yourself as a fine art photographer, it is because you attempt to create photographs that are unique. Your creativity is your reality and exists with a degree of independence that is constrained only by you. How far you take that creativity is totally up to you.

Sometimes, we feel uninspired and nothing seems to be working; poor lighting, lack of interest, etc. In those situations, we can either walk away or we can challenge ourselves to dig deeper into our creativity. Occasional lack of inspiration or a bad day is inevitable, but bad days can be decreased if we allow ourselves to make the time to simply play with no expectations.

As far as flowers go, this one was not inspiring until I decided to use intentional camera movement, such as with this image.

I like to use the "around the house" scenario to describe my version of play. Think of a time when you are home bound for whatever reason; weather, obligations, etc. This is about as far away from an ideal photo opportunity as anything can be for a nature photographer. But sometimes, home can be an experimental playground for photography. Within the constraints of my all too familiar surroundings, I find that I can stretch my creativity a bit more than usual. This is when I simply play.

Corrugated glass in my living room reflects the outdoor colors in an interesting way. I flipped this vertical image from to horizontal. 

Having always been attracted to the abstract, these home experiments have been a means to create abstract images. In so doing, both camera and creative skills are being worked on. I can take these new skills back out into nature and continue seeing things in a fresh way. It is playfulness that I take out there, the idea of viewing a familiar or mundane thing as something visually appealing.

Play with light, composition, or camera technique. Study abstract photography images from others and get inspired. Take the most boring object in your house and make it something new and interesting with your photograph. Do this when you are feeling constrained or uninspired, and then lose those feelings.

A building reflects on the pond behind my house. I threw small stones in the water to create interesting ripples.