So, I promised a blog post on this, so here it is.

I like to challenge myself, or use little prompts to make me create something different. It's so easy to fall into a rut by following what works and is well practiced, but it's exciting to try something new and certainly helps to keep the love alive! I speak about my camera like I'm in a relationship with it, maybe I am haha!

So, I found this photo journal by Henry Carroll absolutely full of prompts and challenges, and as soon as I flicked through it I felt so excited like I wanted to just go out and try it all at once, but forced myself to take it slow. One challenge at a time, reflect on it and see what I learn and to simply just enjoy the process.

So the first one I chose was "Turn form into rhythm."

The idea is to see not objects, but shapes, colours, patterns, empty space. So I decided to photograph our dining chairs, and this is how it turned out:

I was striving to to emphasise the flow of the chairs, and their texture, and to create a sense of pattern and rhythm between them as the colours flow through from white to grey to black.

I then decided to see if I could push this further, by introducing movement and see if I could exaggerate some distance..

For this image, I set up my tripod and used a longer focal length to compress my background. I manually focused on the chair at the end for high contrast and set a slow shutter speed. Then, as I pressed the shutter, I zoomed out, warping the angle of the image to a less compressed, wider angle, to give the feeling of a tunnel narrowing towards the end, and motion blur in the rest of the image.

Playing with still life is a great way to practice your photography skills - it's not going to run off or be worried about whether an image is flattering or not, it's not going to ask questions or judge you. You're totally free to spend as long as you like trying things out, and if it doesn't work it's not going to complain if you'd rather try again another day. I honestly can't encourage you enough to pick up your camera, get to know it a little more and try things out.

And if you need a little confidence boost to get started, just get in touch and ask me about my Photo Walk classes!

#learnphotography #clairebemisterphotography #challenge #surrey #woking #guildford #familyphotographer #weddingphotographer #photographyworkshop