The Importance of Personal Projects!

In my opinion, it doesn’t matter what kind of photographer you are, whether you’re a commercial photographer, a portrait photographer, a fashion photographer or even a hobbyist photographer, I would always recommend working on personal projects.

When you work in the photography industry, especially in advertising, you can often find yourself working to someone else’s brief. An art director or client has an idea and you work together to help them realise that idea to promote a brand, product or service. It’s a collaboration but the original idea usually starts with someone else. So it’s important, as a creative, to find the time for personal projects to create work that is exactly that… ‘personal’. Work that YOU’RE passionate about, work that is inspired by YOUR ideas and YOUR interests and not necessarily with anyone else, even the end viewer, in mind.

I have found so many benefits to working on personal projects. A Personal project can give you direction and motivation and can give you a chance to experiment technically and creatively, maybe even in a completely different medium than photography (I write, I sketch and I am always trying to create in some way!). They are a great way to stay inspired and challenge yourself to grow as a photographer and a creative. It doesn’t matter whether a project lasts a day, a year or a lifetime, if you have a theme or…