Claire Gillo lines up four seasons of assignments for you to try your hand at over the next 12 months
It’s time to bid farewell to 2023 and say hello to 2024! The new year is always a great time to start afresh and to reassess your ambitions and aims for the year, and that goes for your photography just as much as anything else – and especially if you have some new kit to play with.
To inspire you to shake things up, we’ve curated 24 fabulous photo projects for you to try throughout the year. The idea is that you should aim to tackle one project every fortnight, and in doing so explore different genres, and develop new skills that will help you to grow as a photographer.
To make them easier to follow we‘ve grouped the projects into themed seasonal categories, starting with winter, but you can mix and match as you see fit. You can also adapt our suggestions to suit your own shooting and editing style, and feel free to put your own creative stamp on them.
Whether you manage to tick off all 24 projects or just a few, we’re confident that the tips and techniques on the following pages will help you to take your photography to new heights in the new year!
WINTER
01 FABULOUS FLORA
You may think that spring and summer are the best times of year to take stunning garden shots, and while this is true, the winter garden also offers plenty of interesting photographic opportunities. Look for structural and skeletal plants such as dead thistles or cow parsley to shoot as your main subject. You can get great results by getting down low to compose your shots, so use a knee pad or old cushion to save your knees from getting dirty and wet on the ground.
3 TOP TIPS
1 Convert your images to black and white. This style of photography lends itself to the monochromatic medium, as your winter garden shots should all be about the form and structure of the plants.
2 Isolate your subject. Think about your background, and about how to make your subject stand out – a wide aperture setting will help you do this.
3 Consider how you’re going to present your images – a double or triptych can work well.
02 BLEAK LANDSCAPES
Instead of waiting for the perfect golden hour scene, embrace the dull weather by shooting bleak and minimal winter landscapes. Misty conditions are ideal – use negative space to aid your composition. This type of project can be shot in both rural and urban locations, so wherever you live, you can achieve great results. Trees work particularly well as a main subject, but so do man-made structures such as water towers and power plants. Have a look at the work of Hilla and Bernd Becher and Josef Koudelka for some inspiration.
3 TOP TIPS
1 When converting your images to black and white, it’s easy to over-boost the contrast and make the blacks too dark and the
