Photography: here you will find inspiration

Photography is something we do a lot of these days. This makes sense, because almost everyone has a mobile phone with them. But now where do you get inspiration to photograph?

The art of photography

Pinterest is a place I visit every day, I look, pin and repin and recently I also created a board here about photography. There are so many sites with tips on how to take pictures in fog, for example, portraits or photograph mountain landscapes. And let’s face it, often I just do whatever.

My cameras

Now I have two cameras that I use a lot. Actually three, besides my Canon Powershot G7 X mark ii and my mobile we also have an SLR camera. I also use this one, but less.

When I go to blog/press events, on vacation or a day trip I like to have a lightweight camera with me. The SLR is so heavy and not easy to take with me. This is why I bought my Canon Powershot a few years ago. This is an ideal camera for photography. It is light, has many features and works with wifi, so you can put photos’s so on your mobile phone.

I also use my mobile a lot. Recently I bought a new phone, this was the iPhone 11 pro, partly because the camera here is so good. I take a lot of pictures in between and do not always have my Canon at hand.

Photography as a hobby

Photography then is just a hobby of mine. I am definitely interested in photography and would just like to get out there once in a while, outside, to learn and be able to do more. But where to get inspiration? I have my children, they still like it and are fine with having their picture taken, the cat always likes it and then outside. When I walk my rounds, I often come across moments when I stop to take pictures.

But I also get inspiration from books, for example.

Experimenting with the modes

By the way, I have the manual of my camera on my laptop, this is 225 pages’s and the first time I tried to remember everything, but it was impossible. These days I often grab this manual when I need it. Some time ago I went to an event that took place outside in the evening. I really had to search again how to get to night mode and looked this up again.

It was so much fun to experiment with this and it produced good photos’s.

Photo taken at night mode southern sea light Enkhuizen

Insomnia, a book and exhibition.

Recently I received the book Insomnia. With the book and the exhibition at Museum de Fundatie in Zwolle, Annabel Oosteweeghel (1969) shows the world of the insomniacs. The dark and hidden world of the night, in which most of us sleep but 20 percent of the Dutch are awake. The loneliness, the tossing and turning; nightly suffering forces itself upon you in this photo series.

It’s a book full of beautiful stories and pictures. The stories are occasionally poignant and surprising. The photographs tell the stories of the people.

This book gives me inspiration to photograph, not that I want to photograph sleeplessness now, but they make me inspired by the beautiful images to. The pictures look like they come out of movies with extras in the setting of night. By playing with light and dark, the photos’ll give recognition but also show a different world.

Working with light in photography is something I am doing more and more and through these pictures’s I am learning how it can make a difference to the picture.

Where can you get inspiration to photograph?

But now where can you find inspiration to photograph?

• Books with photos’s so, to get inspiration. Look at the light and try to copy, you learn a lot from this,
• Photograph from the eyes of your pet if you have one. Go sit at his level and take pictures, but also use the fisheye lens on your camera and see what a photo’s you make with this.
• Photographing in the dark, the same thing you photographed in the light. Shooting in the dark is difficult, but just try it. Look at the night photography mode on your camera and be amazed at the beautiful pictures you can take in the evening when it is dark.
• Really go looking. Are you a day out, look around you and photograph different things than you would normally do.
• Are you going to the market, this is the ideal place to photograph. The crowds, the chaos, take your camera with you and just click away.
• Try experimenting with the settings. Try setting a longer closing time and see what the effect is on photo’s.
• Make a photo series, think of a theme you want to create and work with it.

The exhibition

Annabel Oosteweeghel’s exhibition Insomnia is now on view at Museum de Fundatie in Zwolle, the Netherlands. The exhibition runs until 5 May 2020. All information about Museum de Fundatie can be found here.

If you love photography as much as I do, I hope I have given you some inspiration and am also curious to know where you get your inspiration.