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Stephen Walton
Photography challenges are a great way of motivating, inspiring and giving direction to your hobby. But some photography challenges just seem implausible to fit around your daily routine.
This is why iPhotography has a range 15 fun, entertaining and practical photography challenges below. You can do these tasks over a year, month, week or day to keep your finger glued to that shutter button.
For pretty much all of these photography challenges you can use any camera – DSLR to iPhone it doesn’t matter. These challenges are designed to make you think about what you shoot, not so much how you shoot it.
Some of these photography challenges you may have heard of before, but many will be brand new.
That’s because iPhotography has created some of these photo challenges from scratch. If we’ve got a downloadable cheat sheet to help you with any of these challenges, we’ll make sure to include a link.
Unless you’ve got nothing else to do with your time a 365 photography challenge (where you’re taking a photo every day) may seem impossible to stick to. Let’s start off more practical with a 52 Week Challenge.
Make a list of 52 objects/locations/themes/words and set aside 1 hour (or even just 30 minutes) every week to capture the best image being guided by that word.
To make it easier only write down words of things you’d like to photograph. You don’t want to demotivate yourself by seeing a challenge as more like a chore.
If your mind goes blank when writing your own 52 Week Challenge list, then let us do the hard work. Every Friday iPhotography announces the next theme for our weekly Weekend Challenge.
This is a photography challenge open to iPhotography course members only – but don’t worry, you can join a course here.
The theme will be announced on the iPhotography website as well as our Facebook, Twitter and Instagram feeds on a Friday. You have until Monday morning 9 am (UK time) to get your entry uploaded to the iPhotography feedback gallery and a winner will be announced in the afternoon.
We have hundreds of entries for every Weekend Challenge uploaded and you’re allowed to enter more than 1 photo.
If you do feel like a bit of a short, but intense, photography challenge then apply the same process as a 52 Week challenge but condensed down to 30 days. You’ll need to be very disciplined to make sure you don’t miss a day.
Fit it in to your daily routine (5 mins before bedtime, on your morning commute, during your lunch break).
Got a week off work and looking for something to do? How about a 7-day blast of photography?
Again create a list of 7 words/themes to get you motivated. Maybe combine it with your annual vacation and aim to shoot something new at your destination.
Shoot 10 different photos of the same subject / object. Try to employ a unique angle with each shot. Think about high and low angles as well as tilting the camera. It will teach you how to look at future compositions more creatively.
Stand in one spot and take 10 photos that are completely different to each other. Try to not include any features from the previous image. Teach yourself to look up and down as well as close up.
Attempt a creative self-portrait by setting your camera on a self-timer and placing yourself in a scene to make people wonder – if you’re in the picture, who took it? If you’ve got Wi-Fi on your camera, try some remote shooting.
3 challenges to complete and only 30 minutes to do it.
10 minutes only shooting in manual mode
10 minutes shooting at 50mm (no cheating)
10 minutes shooting with no people in your photos
You’re going to need to pick up a 35mm camera for this challenge and a roll of film. Spend a day shooting 24/36 exposures and you’ll start to appreciate the luxury of digital photography.
You’re going to need to pick up a 35mm camera for this challenge and a roll of film. Spend a day shooting 24/36 exposures and you’ll start to appreciate the luxury of digital photography.
The challenge is to start at ‘A’ and capture 26 photos that feature objects that correspond to the next letter in the alphabet. Sounds easy?
Well, good luck finding a xylophone or a zebra nearby!
This photography challenge is going to test your powers of perception and teach you how to fill a frame. Firstly, pick a colour (we’ve all got a favourite) and set yourself a time limit.
Then go on to shoot as many shots in that window featuring that one colour (and ONLY that colour). You’re not allowed any other colour in there, but tints and shades of your chosen colour are OK.
Finally montage all the final shots into a collage and share the end result online! How did you get on? Tag us in your efforts @iphotographycourse on Instagram
If all these challenges have got you excited and motivated to pick up your camera and get shooting then consider picking up iPhotography’s Challenge Box.
It’s a fun-filled package with creative photography games, tips, tasks and ideas to keep you shooting. Ideal as a little present for yourself or as a gift.
Go for a walk with your camera and find some interesting compositions. Take the same walk again with only your smartphone and improve on the exact same shots. It might make you think that it’s not all about the gear.
Use a semi-circular piece of black card and place it over half of your lens, restricting your view. Aim to create interesting compositions only using half your frame – you’ll never shoot aimlessly again!
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