10 challenges to improve your photography

Photography is often a discipline fraught with plateaus. Improving often comes in waves but can sometimes drag out to the point where your progress stalls. When this happens, what was once a vocation can become a drudge, and moving forward comes as a point of marked discipline rather than a passion.

It’s a shame too, because you’re always going to remember the images you took that spurred you forward; built your confidence and motivated you to improve. There’s a few reasons a creative can lose momentum. The most obvious one is that you’re running out of things to learn; the more advanced you are the more niche and specialised your progress needs to be which often comes with great expense for little return. Sometimes it comes as a result of not knowing where to focus (do you get better technically or creatively?), sometimes it happens because photography eventually becomes predictable, and you see your work looping itself. Whatever the reason, plateau’s come as part of the discipline.

Eventually progress will show so long as we’re patient. In the meantime, I have a few ways you can challenge yourself whilst making it fun, in the process of experimenting you may very well learn a thing or two. These are techniques I still use to test my abilities. You’ll need a friend with you to push you (think of them as a necessary evil, try get someone who you know will be able to push you), you’ll need your gear and your wits. Quite simply, you’re going to challenge your partner to a photo comp, the details can be up to you (time, location, forfeit etc.). The aim of the competition is to handicap yourself in some way, to force you to think differently about photographing your immediate surroundings. You can do these on your own but having someone next to you will hold you accountable. To get you invested in the process. I’d also recommend having some stakes so you force yourself to try.

All of the challenges listed below are instigated by someone saying the challenge title, at that point the rules of the game are in effect until you have an image to work with or the rules of the games are exhausted. The games are organised in order of technical difficulty to help you understand where you or your partner should start. Pick 3 games to challenge your partner, and get them to pick 3 to challenge you, put them side by side and learn from one another. Who had the better composition? Who has the better technical prowess? How can you better one another, how can you advise each other?

Challenge 1: Instinct

You have 60 seconds to capture an image. Anything you can do in that time is fair game (change lens, setup a tripod etc).

This game will test your ability to stay calm and think clearly when there’s limited time. Often a subject will move before you’re ready: how does having a time limit on your process effect how you think and how you shoot? If you need to make it harder, change the game to 30 or 10 seconds.

Challenge 2: Impact Radius

You have 10 paces of any distance and in any direction from where you stand when ‘Impact Radius’ is invoked. For this you need to use a prime lens, or to lock your zoom lens to one of it’s extents and use that.

This game will force you to consider you composition and to not rely on using a zoom lens. Think about how you can move your body to effect the outcome of the image rather than just zooming in and out to compensate for laziness.

Challenge 3: Landmine

At a random point in your shoot, someone will yell ‘Landmine’. You take as much time as you need, but you don’t move. Anything within reach is fair game for this challenge, but you don’t move from the spot. You take whatever image you can that’s as creative as you can make it, the moment you move from the spot the challenge is over and whatever you’ve taken is whatever you’ve taken.

This game will force you to think creatively when you’re limited geographically, you’re not always going to be able to get closer or further away from a subject. How do you adapt? If your competitor is cheeky they’ll invoke the landmine where they know you’ll get overwhelmed or disheartened by what you see. Can you make something out of nothing?

It goes without saying but DON’T invoke a landmine in the middle of a busy road or somewhere where being immobile will threaten one’s health. We’re trying to take pictures here, not die.

Challenge 4: Pick n Mix

Your partner gets to pick the lens/ body combination for your next image. Get them to make it a combination you wouldn’t usually favour. Any camera and lens combination is fair game.

Can you get an image when you have less than ideal kit? Landscapes are usually taken as wide angle, can you make a telephoto lens work? Are you using your kit as a crutch to relieve pressure from your creativity? This challenge will make it obvious. Let’s stand tall together.

Challenge 5: That’s Subjective

Quite simple: your partner picks the subject in your next image… A puddle, a statue, a shadow. Make is as abstract as you want.

How do you approach a subject? How do you interpret where you are? What opportunities do you see? How do you see the world, this will question all of it, especially if it’s a subject that’s quite abstract. How do you take a photo of a crack in the sidewalk?

Challenge 6: Curator

Your partner is your subject, and you want to give them a new profile picture. One catch, you have to curate and direct the image entirely. Position them in a flattering way, understand the light and how to best use it to your advantage.

This one tests your ability to use what you have to your advantage when you have more control than just your camera.

Challenge 7: Theme

Get your partner to make up a theme for your next image. Respond as you see fit.

This one is simple; how do you respond to a brief? A few examples of a theme could be: texture, light, emotion, colour, water, reflections…

Challenge 8: Run the Bracket

Take a series of 5 consistently exposed images, however each image is calculably 1 f stop away from the previous one according to the either camera’s aperture, shutter speed or ISO.

Technical compensations are inevitable here, the bigger point is that this challenge will force you to adapt creatively, depending on how you choose to stop the camera down. These images don’t need to relate to one another, but bonus point for a consistent theme.

Challenge 9: Shuffle your settings

Swap cameras with your partner, change the camera setting to manual, input some settings of your choice (make it a challenge for them, however you estimate their abilities is up to you) and hand the cameras back. Take a picture without changing the settings you’re given.

This one tests your technical understanding of the light in your environment, and how the settings impact that. But rather than responding by adjusting settings based on a composition, you’re going to adjust your composition based on the settings. This will force you to rethink how you see the world, and it’ll start to force you to think of exposures around you rather than composition opportunities. One caveat: it has to be possible to shoot with the settings: if it’s a sunny day don’t be setting their ISO to 8000. Photographer’s still have to obey the laws of physics, let’s not take the piss.

Challenge 10: One Shot

Like Eminem says, if you had one shot, or one opportunity… In one moment, would you capture it, or just let it slip? In this game you can do anything you like. Choose the best kit, walk around for an hour until you see something you like. but the next time you press the shutter you will have your image. What would you take a picture of if you were shooting film and you were down to your last strip?

This image needs to be taken shooting Manually.

Make it count!

This game will force you to consider everything before you press the shutter; composition, light, focus, exposure, timing. How does that make your rethink things? Is there something your forgetting to consider? Don’t be Neville Longbottom.

Try some of these challenges, if you find one that’s particularly challenging for you, then you’ve made yourself aware of where there’s room for improvement. Chase that down and you’ll improve creatively and technically. If you’re finding all ten to be too easy, then combine challenges and do them simultaneously.

Comment below if you have any other challenges you use to get better, tag me in any results you get from them. Let’s grow together.