How to Find Inspiration for Your Photography

Photographic inspiration doesn’t always strike when we need or want it to. But if you need to take some photos, or you’re just feeling the itch to get behind the camera, and you’re feeling stuck, what do you do? For myself I fall back on the ABCs of photography to give me the push I need.

I’ve been blocked many times, having a creative urge, but not knowing how to act on it, and as a result have read lots of articles about how to inspire and motivate yourself to “get out there” and take some photos.

The advice I got from them is pretty consistent, and really helpful: look at your old photos; look at photos from other photographers; try recreating a photo of another photographer; read a photography book or article; create a list.

It’s the last item, create a list, that inspired my ABCs.

For me, the ABCs of photography is a literal list of ABCs. For each letter of the alphabet I try to find something to photograph. A is for apple, or animal, or armadillo. Or maybe it’s the letter A in a sign or graffiti, or in the shape of fallen twigs. Maybe it’s A is for abstract.

B is for an actual bee, or it can also be a book, or a bear, or the color brown, or any other interpretation of B.

So not only does the list give me a direction, or a mandate, if you will, it also leaves lots of room for creativity to flow. By allowing the interpretation of the letter to be as far-reaching as something that starts with the letter, or the letter itself, or the shape of the letter, I’m given creative license.

Once I hit on this idea, I found there were three ways I could use the list concept.

One is an actual list. List the letters of the alphabet and work through them, starting with A and ending when I get to Z. I can write what photo I took next to each letter and keep the list as a record (or not).

Another way to work through the ABCs is to write each letter on a piece of paper, and put them in a jar. When I’m feeling photographically blocked, I can reach into the jar and pull out a slip of paper and get to work with whatever my letter is.

Some of the harder letters, like Q and X, seem daunting, but that’s kind of what makes it so fun and helps to ignite creativity. As I’m walking around with my camera in hand, I’m looking at everything around me for something that fits my letter.

I’ve found that in doing this, walking around looking for a certain letter, that I end up taking a lot of photos of things that don’t have to do with that letter in any way. Even so, though, that’s a success, because the purpose of pulling a letter in the first place is to get unblocked and be inspired to take photos.

The third way to use the alphabet method for inspiration is to actually pick the item for each letter, then try to capture it with the camera. The letter can be easy as in F is for flower, or R is for round, or more difficult as in J is for jump.

I have another version of ABCs of photography in which I write on a piece of paper something other than a letter, for instance a color, or abstract idea like “growing” or “small.” In a lot of ways this is easier and more conducive to creativity. A lot of things could be considered small, or growing, and there are a lot of shades of yellow or green or blue.

Other ways to play the inspiration “game” could be with emotions (such as happy, sad, lonely), textures (such as soft, hard, hairy, plush), or any other intangibles (such as cold, hot, windy).

The point of these is to inspire myself when I’m feeling uninspired, not to make myself feel bad if I can’t come up with anything. As a result, I tend to make my “assignments” pretty easy, but not so simple that they bore me, and keep me blocked.

If you’re ever feeling uninspired photographically, and don’t want to be, consider checking out the ABCs to spark your creativity.