Everyone Can Learn And Improve Their Photography

Photography is an art form available to almost anyone, of any age. And, we now have phones with cameras with us at all times…so, what better thing to do than plan a photography project?

Document Your Loved Ones

One thing that I love to do is document my family through photography. I do this with a combination of iPhone photos, iPhone videos, and photos taken with my DSLR/mirrorless professional camera. Personally, I’ve found that the best improvement in my photography has come from consistent creativity exercises to improve my skills, and this can be true with any type of camera. So, I would encourage you to use the camera you have with you…no need to have a pro level camera…your cell phone camera is just fine to use to complete a photography project.

Goal Setting

Before I’ve start my projects in the past, I’ve first started by setting a few goals. A project may have a goal to learn / improve a skill or to gain confidence with some new equipment. Or, a goal can be to complete the project with the reward of making an album or wall display at the end.

This year I want to increase documenting my children’s stories…as they are just continuing to grow each and every day. Honestly, I think they wake up inches taller than the day before now that they are tweens/teens.

Four Of My Favorite Projects

Project 52

A project 52 is basically ONE photo a week in a set grouping. You can do this with a different theme, or skill each week. I’ve also seen photographers do a Self Portrait Project 52, or a Project 52 with the goal to have each of their children in the frame, or their whole family in the frame.

This is a perfect project to ensure you pick up your camera weekly, but is not too overwhelming in terms of shooting, editing, and culling. This can be a great first photography project. A cool display is a collage of your favorite images at the end of a project 52, or a photo book.

Day in The Life

A ‘day in the life’ photo project is where you document the entire day for one person, group, or family. This would start first thing in the morning and end at bedtime. On the day of this can feel like a challenge, but in the end seeing the creativity and the everyday photos telling the story of one day is very rewarding.

365 Photo Project

A 365 photo project is a year long photo project with the goal to create one photo daily for your project. This is the project that has always lead to the most growth for me from a photography skills perspective, and one that I’m the most proud of.

I’ve started daily shooting projects at various times, such as the start of covid…I photographed my family daily for about six weeks…but the two 365 projects (one was actually a 366 during a leap year) are two of my most proud accomplishments. I also added little ‘titles’ and a date and time stamp to mine, which was an additional layer to the task completion, but I believe adds to the story and the project as a whole.

You may think that this type of project would need to start on January 1st, but you can start a 365 project at any time.

100 Days of Summer

This is somewhat similar to a 365 project in that you work on photographing daily, but the goal is to tell the story of you and your families summer.

All of the sprinkler fun, ice cream trips, coast visits, bike rides, fireworks…capturing all of those summer activities in one photo project. I’m thinking about doing this one for the summer of 2023…so be sure to follow along on instagram (www.instagram.com/rebecca.hunnicutt.farren) to see how I’m doing with photographing and sharing the images ;) and I’m definitely going to do this as a mix of phone and big camera.

Have you done a favorite photography project? I’d love to hear about it in the comments!

And, if you’d like to learn more about how to make your photos WOW you, that will stop others when scrolling the gram, and that you’ll be proud to display in your home…check out my online course on photography composition and color!
(There’s even a preview to the course that you can download!) There are shooting exercises included which would be great motivation for one of the above photography projects.

Learn about the course

Would you like to see more of my personal photography, as well as photography education related blog posts? Check out the series below…