How to start
“In the beginning, there was nothing. And God said, “Let there be light.” And there was light. There was still nothing, but you could see it a lot better.”
For the first 1000 pictures or so, I'd say just play with your camera and shoot away. Try to learn and master the basics of photography technique as outlined in previous chapters. Then just go out and shoot. Anything. Ants on the pavement. A lightpost. Random people. Cars. Animals. Food. Plastic bottles. Garbage. Take your pick. The important thing is that you learn in the process. Someone once said that the difference between a great and an average photo is intent. This means that you should aim to have an image in mind when you snap away. Try and re-create a photograph you really like. Analyze it and try to understand what the photographer did to get that light, that angle that shadow.
Beg, borrow & steal
Consume other people's work. Find photographers whose work you like and then try and copy their style and give it your own twist. Nothing, absolutely nothing in the art world is truly unique. Everything has been done before a thousand times over. But that doesn't matter. To your audience, your work is unique. No one knows all the stuff out there. To be clear, this is not an encouragement for plagiarism or copyright infringement, but merely an advice to not be intimated by other people's work.
Share your work
With Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, Flickr, etc, you have dozens of digital sharing capabilities at your finger tip. Tag pictures with relevant keywords to ensure maximum reach. Interact with your audience. Avoid falling for the usually deceptive feedback of close friends and relatives. They always mean well but will rarely tell you the truth. Seek out photographer platforms and ask for feedback. Learn from it.
A word of advice on Instagram likes. The number of likes on your picture means less than you think. There are just simply widely acceptable norms for what is deemed 'beautiful' and just because 5 million people like the picture of a sunset, that doesn't mean that your fine-art-chair-in-an-empty-room picture is less pretty. Don't get too hung up on number of followers or likes.
But do share your work. Don't be the Vivian Maier type photographer, who kept all her work stashed way in an attic, only to reach accidental post mortem fame.
Make time
Find time or make time. Use your phone. Involve your family. Shoot at work. On the way to work. During errand runs. Combine vacation shoots with street photography. There is always something to discover. There is always time to shoot stuff.
Find something you really enjoy
Find something you like. Something you could look at for a 1000 times without getting bored. Try and center your photography around that. If you let's like say cars, then go and shoot cars.
Previous chapter: Postproduction