Where do you get the inspiration?

Lately I've been lacking inspiration. I haven't taken any photos for over 10 days. My thoughts on this post is to list some of what I do to get inspiration and hope to get some comments on your thoughts and tips on reclaiming inspiration.

One of the first things I do is to browse the web, just looking for some beautiful pictures.
On one hand this could be somewhat counterproductive if you both lack inspiration and at the same time is a bit depressed because of this. Then thoughts like "Wow what a beautiful picture - I can never achieve something nearly as good" But on other hand you can think "Wow what a beautiful picture - I wonder how he/she achieved that. How can I achieve that with my equipment? Right now I've been watching some of von Wong's youtube channel and I have to say, he is a great source for inspiration.

Sometimes it's a good thing to go on a walk in nature not thinking about angles, composition, what would be a great picture, gear, camera settings etc. Just go out and enjoy nature and all it's beauty. I've still not seen any photo that trump nature.

If you don't have to consider money, go out, buy some new equipment like a new camera, a new lens, filter or something else. Or take a photo workshop in a foreign country.

If you are like me and don't have limitless amount of money, choose gear that limit your shooting. Like only bring a 50 mm lens. Or a even more challenge choose a fisheye or a 400mm lens.

Join a community with specific topic, perhaps a topic that is outside your comfort zone. Like if you mostly shoot landscape, join a beauty shoot community or the other way around.

I've joined +The Arcanum and I'm in +Glenn Guy cohort. There I get a lot of inspiration, mostly from my fellow cohortians but also from other people in The Arcanum both masters and people in other cohorts. And this hangout thing on Google, what a great thing. I can sit up here in the north of Europe having a video call with people from all around the world, talking about photo and everything there around.

There you have some of my source to inspiration. Now, please enter some of your idea's in the comment field.

Please visit my page www.larssonsphoto.com to see my photos and buy prints.

Wish you all a great weekend
Fredrik

HDR

You who have followed me know my love for HDR. It's when you take several different exposures on the same objekt from to dark to light and then putting it together via software like Photomatix and you get an image that covers more light range then only one exposure could do. This is especially good when you are shooting indoors but have light from a window lighten up part of the picture.

This is true in the picture bellow, it's indoors an old stone church in northern Öland, Sweden. If I had exposed for the dark parts the windows and the lighter parts would have been blown out, totally white. If I on other hand had exposed for the lighter areas the darker parts would have been completely black. This is a 5 exposure HDR, processed in Photomatix, Lightroom, and Viveza.

The church is an old stone church about 750 years old called Källa old church. I have some more photos from this location and will show them in a later post where I also will do a bit more detailed post on my process.

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If you want to se some more of my photos head over to:

www.larssonsphoto.com

Wish you all a great weekend