As photographers, every so often, we will hit the dreaded brick wall of creativity. The tank goes empty, and we feel about as imaginative as a sack of rocks. There are few things more frustrating than being in the middle of an assignment and feeling that wave of doom come over you, taking away what little inspiration you had left as it recedes. In order to combat this malaise, Ted Forbes over at "Art of Photography" has introduced his new Photo Assignments series.
The concept is simple. Every month or so, Ted will introduce a new assignment on his YouTube channel, challenging photographers of all skill levels to flex their creative muscle in ways they might not have thought of before. By doing so, he hopes to not only unlock some latent creativity in all of us, but to build a community of photographers who are sharing work and learning from each other.
This first challenge, "Variations," is an assignment to go out and take a series of photographs of a subject in up to ten different ways. In his video, he explains the rationales behind completing such an assignment as well as giving examples of variations in art and music. His near encyclopedic knowledge is invaluable in explaining the assignment as not only something fun to do, but also as a legitimate way to express your own art. I regularly find myself searching Google for much of the information I consume from his videos.
Head over to the channel now and get started on your own contribution to the community. I plan to participate, and I hope many of you will as well.
