The following idea is adapted from a project called "365 Days" at digital-photography-school.com, an amateur photography website by Jennifer Jacobs. Jacobs' idea is to have the photographer take a self-portrait every day for a year. At the beginning of a photography class, a student could begin taking one self-portrait every day. She should take these portraits in different places, with different lighting, using color, black and white or other effects. It is important to maintain similar dimensions for each portrait so that they remain comparable. The professor may implement further guidelines, such as all portraits must be taken indoors, at the same time of day or with the subject wearing a different accessory in each photo. By focusing on one subject--themselves--photographers will become especially skilled at the nuances in portrait photography.
For this exercise, the photographer will need a dictionary in a language she is unfamiliar with. She should flip through the dictionary randomly and choose ten or fifteen words that sound pleasing to her. Using the randomly chosen words as picture titles, she will begin by photographing people, places or things that she believes relate to the word. After taking five initial pictures for each word, she will define the words and discover their true definition. The photographer should then analyze whether or not her assumptions about the word and her photographs match. Now with the true definition in mind, she should take five more photographs for every word and compare.
This idea is modeled after Jennifer Jacobs' Scavenger Hunt project on digital-photography-school.com. The photographer should ask ten or fifteen people to name either a concrete object or an abstract idea, such as "lady smoking a cigarette" or "peacefulness". The photographer's job is to then take those suggestions and capture them in a photo. According to Jacobs, this project helped her begin to look at ordinary things in a new way. Attempting to capture "peacefulness" will encourage the photographer to observe people, nature, architecture and other ordinary objects, people and places that she might have overlooked.
The following is adapted from photography themes found on Bob Estrin's site, bobestrin.com. The photographer will find a busy place in her city and attempt to photograph it once everyone has left. City centers, popular gathering places, public transportation stops and restaurants are some examples of places that look most natural when populated. The photographer should visit the chosen place at a strange time of the day, such as in the middle of the night or very early in the morning. She should photograph these places empty to encourage her to focus on the ordinary in new ways. She will learn to capture stillness where she is more comfortable observing life and movement, proving that there are two sides to everything.
This exercise is inspired by Bret Culp photography at bretculp.com. The idea is to photograph things in states of decay, things that are in the process of being reclaimed by nature or things that have experienced disaster. If the chosen site is decaying rapidly, the photographer can photograph it over a long period of time, documenting the slightest changes. On the other hand, the photographer may travel and photograph many different sites that illustrate the concept of impermanence in different ways.