A New Year is here so it’s the perfect time to consider a new photography project!

Photography projects are fantastic for photographers of all levels and of all genres - they help keep us feeling motivated and creative, and also improve our photography skills or just try something new.

In this episode, I’m going to share 5 different photography projects you can do that aren’t a project 365, but that will see help motivate and inspire you to pick up your camera through the year.

So if you want to do a photography project this year, but a 365 seemed a little too daunting, I’m betting that one of these will be perfect for you!

Plus, I even have a free download for you that will help you with one of the photography projects, so be sure to download that too if that particular project interests you.

Ready? Let’s dive in!

#1 - Create A Prompts Bag

This is such a simple idea for a photography project, and it’s perfect for you if you want to have a lot of flexibility around when and where to take your photos, and have a lot of versatility around what type of photos you take.

Full disclosure, this one does take a little bit more to do upfront, but it really shouldn’t take you terribly long, and then you’ll have everything you need for the year!

For this project, you will need to create a bag filled with different prompts inside. Then, when it’s time for you to take a photo, you simply need to go into this bag, and pull out the prompt that tells you what you will be shooting that day.

So literally all you need is some kind of bag or container, and a few sheets of paper to write your prompts on.

The prompts themselves can be entirely up to you. For example, you could put in easy one word prompts, for example, sky or leaf, and all you need to do is go out and photograph the sky that day, or find a leaf to photograph.

The other type of prompts you could include are photography-related skills, for example, different lighting conditions such as low light, or different compositional tools such as the golden triangle or framing.

Another type of prompt would be different photography genres - if you currently shoot many documentary style photos, you could pop in a prompt to shoot a macro photo or a landscape, or get out there and try street photography!

Finally, you could even put in more unusual photography techniques - for example, shooting with a glass ball, or taking a deliberately out of focus shot, or freelensing.

So you can see, this project will definitely keep you interested all year long because it will never get boring, and you’ll get to try a whole load of new things.

The only other thing you need to decide is how often you are going to take your photo - you could do it daily for a 365 project, or you could do it weekly or monthly. There’s also nothing to stop you having a photography “day” each week and pulling out 7 prompts to do at once.

I know that creating the prompts can be a bit of work upfront, but the good news, I’m going to share my prompts list with you as a free download, so that you can either just print it out and do the same prompts as me, OR you can use it as a starting point for creating your own list, swapping out some of the prompts to ones that suit you better.

Go here to download my FREE photography prompts list here!

#2 - A Day In The Life Project

This is the project for you if you want to not only improve your photography skills, but also help you capture memories of your everyday.

A Day In Your Life Project is another very simple concept - you simply have to take images throughout the day for one whole day, from beginning to end, and capture the everyday moments that happen during that day.

This will not only give you an excellent keepsake of your life, but it will also improve your photography skills! Because you are taking photos for a longer period of time, you will find that you are naturally having to shoot in different types of lights, and in different locations, and also have to think about how to make each image a little different.

Although there are no set times you have to take pictures, if you feel you work better with structure, aim to to take an image every hour or so. In fact, you can set a timer on your phone to go off every hour to remind you to take one if you’re forgetful like me!

Also, there are no set days this needs to be - you can either choose a day at random each month, or plan to do it for special occasions such as family members birthdays, christmas, first day of school, halloween and so on (you’ll usually find you can find a special occasion each month if you look hard enough!)

#3 - A 10 on 10 Project

This is a really manageable project that anyone can do, and perfect for you if you are really busy and don’t have the time or inclination to pick up their camera every day.

For this project, the idea is that you take 10 photos on the 10th of the month, every month of the year.

First thing to note is this doesn’t need to be 10 on 10 - it could be 11 on 11, or 12 on 12. Or you could say you’ll take 10 photos on the first day of each month, or the last day of each month, or the second Tuesday of each month.

The days and numbers of photos don’t really matter - choosing a specific day of each month will simply give you the prompt that it’s time to pick up your camera - 10 on 10 is an easy one to remember, but do what works for you. And if you miss taking the 10 photos on the 10th for whatever reason, just take them on the 11th or 12th - it really doesn’t matter, so don’t get too hung up on the dates side of it!

For your 10 photos, you can take photos of anything you want.

One idea is to go for a photo walk and take 10 photos of whatever you see that grabs your fancy during that walk - try to mix it up with some wide angle shots, and some detail shots, and you could even throw in a portrait there too!

Another option would be to take one everyday object, such as an egg, or a doll, and photograph it in 10 different ways. You can see some examples here!

#4 - Kids Were Here

If you have small children and your goal is to document your family life, this one is perfect for you. It’s also really, really good if your kids aren’t exactly fond of having the camera trained on them 24/7!

The idea is to take a photo of anything you see that reminds you that “the kids were here”.

This could be things like little notes left to you, the play truck lying in the middle of the stairs as a potentially trip hazard, a half eaten bowl of food or their cute little wellies lined up at the door. Essentially you are taking photographs of daily, little, mundane things that says “kids were here”

This site “Kids were here” has some great examples of these type of photos, so check that out if you want some inspiration.

#5 - Monthly Skill Challenge

This is perfect for you if you are still learning photography, and you want to see growth in all areas of your photography skills.

For this project, you choose a particular skills to work on and practice for an entire month.

For example, one month you could have “aperture and depth of field” as your skill challenge, and you would need to take photos each month that use different apertures and give you more of less of the scene in focus. By the end of the month, you should have a fantastic understanding of how to change the look of your images just by switching up the f-stop you use!

An idea for another month would be “black and white”, where your goal is to take images all month long that would convert well into black and white. This particular skill will help you see the world in tones, which is a fantastic skill to have in itself, and also help you fine tune your black and white conversions in Lightroom to make them the best they can be!

Don’t forget I have that free download for you if you want to give the prompts bag a go -you can grab it below!

One final thought I want to leave you with - when taking on any photography project it’s important to know right now that you will forget to do it sometimes, or life will get in the way and derail your project, so give yourself some grace and some wiggle room.

If you forget to do your prompts one week, or you forget to take your 10 photos on the 10th, that’s OK! You can do them the next days, or make up for it by doing 2 prompts the week after. Please don’t let a missed prompt or session mean that you give up for the entire year!

I hope you enjoyed these ideas, and you’ll be using one of them for your project this year!