My 52-Week Photography Project is Complete!

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My 52-week photography project is now complete! Here are some of my favourite photos taken during my project:

 

If you would like to improve your photography, are looking for some inspiration and/or a photographic challenge, I highly recommend trying a photography project. I found that my photography grew by leaps & bounds over the course of my one year project. Here are a few tips for your photography project:

Frequency

Choose a frequency that is doable but is also enough of a challenge to make you grow. I chose a 52-week project since a daily project was a bit too much of a commitment for me while a monthly project wouldn’t provide enough growth in my photography.

Topic Ideas

Choose topics that interest and excite you. When you’re passionate about a photo shoot it often comes through in your photos!

Check out photographer Denise’s Love’s blog on 52-week projects if you need topic ideas. She was the inspiration behind starting my project, and I used some of her suggested topics when I needed ideas. Thanks, Denise! 🙂 You can also ask your friends or family for random topic ideas or join a photography club that gives you photographic challenges. 

Variety

Try a variety of different photography genres. Since my project was about improving my skills as a photographer and getting experience, I experimented with a diverse selection of genres. Action, portraits, travel, infants, astrophotography – the list goes on and on! Many of the skills and techniques you learn with one genre can be used with other photography genres too.

Accountability

It is a great idea to have some sort of accountability during your project. Tell people about your project and find some way to share the photos. I found it really rewarding sharing my progress, even when the photo shoots didn’t quite turn out. Also, knowing that I have people following my journey really gave me the extra incentive I sometimes needed to complete my topic each week.  

I shared my photos on a photography blog which also posted a link to the blog article automatically on my Facebook page. Other options for sharing include Instagram, Flickr, and other social media sites. I also enjoyed talking about the photo shoot and sharing tips/challenges that I was experiencing along the way. Which leads me to my next point – the photos do not have to be perfect to post.

Imperfection

Strive for good photos and post your best work from each week’s photo shoot; however, don’t worry if a photoshoot didn’t turn out quite a nice as you were hoping. The whole point of this project is that it is a learning experience. I know my family and friends enjoyed seeing the improvements in my photography over the course of the year. 

This project also helps you overcome feelings of trepidation (or outright terror) at the idea of sharing your photos with friends, family and random strangers. Sharing my photos often feels like baring a piece of my soul with the world. It can be scary! It gets easier the more you do it, especially once you really start to see improvements in your photography.

Learn

Taking courses, reading books/blogs/articles and watching YouTube videos on various photography topics can also help you improve your photography. I often targeted my learning towards a particular week’s project so that I could be more prepared for that specific photo shoot. For example, if your next topic is Astrophotography, you may want to read a few ebooks, try an online course, and watch some webinars/videos on astrophotography.

Here’s a couple of resources that I found really helpful as well as a few links to my blog articles with more info:

Those are just a few suggestions – there are so many courses available on a variety of different photography genres and topics.

 

I hope you give the 52-week project a try. Have fun! 

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