How Creative Constraints can improve your photography

I often recommend that you practice as often as possible to improve your photography. But what do you do when you hit a mental blank?

One idea I suggest in this podcast is to shoot a series of photos, or a collection. And, to make them more coherent, and to challenge yourself, I suggest you use a Creative Constraint.

So what is a Creative Constraint? Here are some examples:

Technical:

• Shoot only in black and white
• Use only one lens
• Limit yourself to manual focus (or full manual operation)
• Limit yourself to 36 exposures

Time-based:

• Shoot the same scene at the same time each day
• Only shoot for 15 minutes in one location.

Subject or theme:

• Only photograph shadows
• Only photograph one colour
• Only hands or feet

Locations:

• Inside your home
• Within 1km of your home
• Only through windows

If you would like to challenge yourself further, take the 14-day challenge.

It's time for another podcast...

Please take a look at the 2026 Wildlife Calendar. It's available now.

Transcript

>> Graham: 0:08

Foreign of the things that I encourage people to do a lot is just to pick up the camera and take photographs. And with a view to adventure, travel, wildlife photography. I'm assuming that most of the time you will be doing your day job, you're at home, you're not on an adventure, you're not shooting wildlife, you're not traveling. So what do you do in order to just get that practice in with your camera and do something in the way that actually enhances your photography, gets you more creative. So if you're like me, you will have those days where you pick up the camera, you've got every intention to go out and photograph something, try some new things, and you're just waiting for inspiration to strike and it doesn't. So what do you do when that happens? So that's what I'm going to be talking about in this podcast and hopefully give you some ideas before I get into it. Please remember to like and subscribe. That would be fantastic. And also have a look at the website because there is a 14 day challenge there, which is one way of having a guided series of inspirational things to do. Some of them you'll be things, will be things you're doing already, but there are bound to be a few in there that would just stretch you a little bit and that's the whole point of it. So I really want to talk about particularly how you just approach creativity, I guess, and find ways to take photographs in your everyday environment that are, not just photography for the sake of it, but are things that start to challenge you, get you thinking perhaps in different ways. And in doing that you can often find more ideas or inspiration that you wouldn't get if you hadn't actually gone down that path. So I want to talk about creative constraints and the idea of this is to deliberately restrict your options and when it comes to photography. And that in turn can get you really thinking in a different way and in a way that you wouldn't normally, approach photography. So what are creative constraints? So some examples and they really can be anything. One might be subject matter. So you might limit yourself to trees or gates or doors or something really ordinary that you wouldn't see every day, or sorry, that you do see every day, but you would tend to ignore. So think about subject matter, think of a particular subject and start finding creative ways to photograph that subject and maybe tell some sort of a story or at least create some interest or maybe even some aha, moments in the people who are Looking at the images. Now, another thing is color. And in, fact, if you've ever been on a photo walk, when I was with. We're observers, and we're observers still do them, often we will. We call them challenges, but it's the same thing. It's basically a creative constraint. So color is a good one. You might limit yourself to a certain palette. So it could be reds or blues or pastels or even a single color. How do you go out and find one color or just look for one color in many different subjects? The idea behind this is to get you really looking and thinking about what you're looking at. And then how do you tell a story of some sort? Again with all of the storytelling? They don't have to be long stories. Little stories are fine. So another one is location. And this, for a lot of people, is possibly the best one. It was certainly one that I, spoke about during the COVID lockdowns going back five years now. and I had a little challenge, a photo challenge, which basically gave you kind of different areas you could photograph. So I was inside your home. One was immediately outside your home. Another one was in the neighborhood, as in the area you were allowed to travel when, you were allowed out. So depending on where you are, that would have varied. but for me, I was allowed to go 1k from home, 1km from home for about an hour. So local neighborhood is a great one, actually, because I always feel that once you stop and look around at, what's going on locally, you can actually learn things about where you live that you never knew before, and you might have lived there, for decades. And it's. It's a really good exercise because it makes you look. Now, I know a lot of people, and I was certainly guilty of this. when I'm somewhere else, I'm looking at everything. I'm trying to see the story in buildings, looking at where windows are blocked, in doorways, all this kind of thing. Because in those changes to the architecture, you find the story of the building. I'd be looking at landscapes, wildlife, whatever it might be. Culture, colors, what's going on, all that kind of thing. But I wouldn't do it at home. I kind of ignored what was going on at home. And in that way, I think you do yourself a big disservice, not only from the perspective of photography, but just learning more about where you live and. And really engaging in the history of where you live. And why not? Because in many ways, that's a much more personal history than taking photographs when you're traveling somewhere else. So location is a big one. Now another one is time of day. So you could shoot the same scene at the same time of day every day, once a week, maybe, once a month. And you can come up with great series of photographs. So the idea of this, podcast was actually to talk, also about getting inspiration for series of photographs. And I think, doing a series is really good idea because it gets you into that storytelling mode. if you're doing it over a period. The advantage of that is it gives you something that you. We have a challenge, I guess, over a period of time to just take a photograph and really observe what's going on. So I do like these series where you've got the same view, but maybe there's a photograph taken every two weeks. I kind of like two weeks because often there's not a massive change, or for periods there's not a massive change. But then when you go into a new season, often there can be a sudden flip in temperature and then what you're looking at. So have a think about that. But time of day is another good one. Or you might be in an urban environment and, you could do it on a day of the week, maybe at different times during the day. So maybe one photograph every hour, of the same scene from the same spot. but look at how things change and maybe even spread that, over a week. What is the difference between 9am on a Monday and, 9pm on a Friday or a Saturday? So these are all ideas that get you into shooting series that tell a story, and they'll kind of tell their own story because they're very visual. but it will not only create, hopefully an interesting series for people looking at it, but it's something that will get you thinking a lot more about your photography and how you're creating a certain look, maybe or a certain style in your photography. Now, another thing is to look at the equipment you're using. And, obviously that will involve camera of some sort. But you might want to switch to a fixed lens. So if you've got a, 50mm lens, for example, just shoot everything on 50mm. So maybe combine that with another challenge, maybe your neighborhood. But everything shot on 50 millimeters, or even one color, but on 50 millimeters. No zooming in, zooming out. So obviously that gives you another challenge in that you with the 50 mil. Actually, if you're on a full frame camera or a film camera, 35 mil, then you're looking at the normal eye view. That's a normal lens. And that's what it means. It gives you the kind of normal eye view what you would see yourself walking around. And that is quite good in one way because it gives you a way of recording and maybe thinking about what you're seeing. On the other hand, if you chose a different lens, either more of a wide angle or a telephoto, again same focal distance, so say a 100 mil. Well now you've changed slightly because you're now zooming in. So you're seeing more of a close up view of things than you would when you're shooting with a normal lens or even something longer or something shorter, wide angle, or even mix them up. Do a series one week with one lens, next week with a different lens, next week with a different lens. Again, if you have those available or if you're using the zoom lens, ah, just lock it at a certain focal length and try that. So again, these things are all designed to get you thinking and looking and working with constraints. And that's the whole idea of it, creative constraints. But the irony of them is that they can actually really drive your creativity and get you thinking in ways that you perhaps haven't done before. Maybe you didn't think you could, but you will come up with it. And then another one is compositional rules. So, I talk a lot about composition. I've done workshops, webinars on composition, composition. So things like rule of thirds, you could use leading lines. Leading lines is a nice one actually. because it gets you into the, the mindset of looking for them. And I, I like leading lines in, in photographs. I think they, they're really good for taking the viewer on a journey. However, something else might float your boat. So whatever compositional rule appeals to you, just shoot with that. Do a series of photographs just using that one compositional rule. So those are some ideas for you. Why do, why am I suggesting this? Why do constraints help you with your inspiration? Well, there's a few things. One is it just reduces overwhelm. Suddenly you're not having to worry about how far in, how far out you need to zoom. if you're using a fixed focal length, if you suddenly, if you've just got one, if you're working within a single constraint, that removes a lot of other, a lot more, the clutter. and what I mean by that is perhaps mental clutter or you might feel a bit overwhelmed looking at a particular, scene. Ah, something you want to photograph, you might suddenly get caught in the other trap of having too many options and then what you do. How do you photograph this? How do you compose it? you know, what is the, what is the purpose of this shot? What am I trying to say? All that kind of stuff, it can take that away. And I think that's quite good. It's quite refreshing to step back, really, keep things simple and just go for the one thing and just focus on that for a while and just, just shoot that within that one constraint. The other thing is problem solving. so it may be that you see something and maybe you've given yourself a color constraint, but you can't see that color there. So, how do you come up with an alternative way of approaching that subject if the colors aren't quite right? Well, one idea might be to start looking at light and shadow. How can you use contrast? How can you use the lighting? Can you give a hint of a color? You know, how far can you bend the rules on this one? And, what I mean by that is bending the rules in, in as much as going outside of the envelope, if you like, of what that initial constraint might suggest. So how can you stretch a little bit within one color? How can you maybe do something a bit more to get beyond the one color restriction? What if you're only allowed one lens and you're not in the right spot? Well, obviously you've then got the options to change position. In fact, that's generally the only position, the only option you do have often. But in changing position, what about not only getting nearer or further away, but what about getting lower or higher? Things like that. So I don't want to give you too much here, because the real benefit of this is to come up the ideas yourself. But hopefully you're seeing that there is real benefit in working within a constraint. often an advantage when you're shooting a series of photographs is that you, if you work within a constraint, you do get more of a consistent feel, when you look at the series as a whole. And that can make it feel more cohesive. It makes it feel perhaps more intentional because you've got these same elements in every image. And I'm assuming there will be a story there of some sort. There usually is. but you've got a consistency as well. And people like familiarity, they like consistency. So if you are working on a project and you're putting some sort of story together, think about that. How can you make it consistent? What elements can you use repeatedly in Every image, can you create a constraint in the way you're shooting that will start to give this sequence a particular feel? And the real benefit, I think of doing this working within creative constraints is these are real world problems. I can't even say it. And what I mean by that is we all hit times. I've just come back from a few weeks in different places photographing wildlife and there were most definitely constraints of different sorts. Where I was sometimes it was in how close I could get physically, other times it was lighting. So I was in a hide in Finland, at night trying to get photographs of wolves, wolverines, bears, and I was having to be as creative as possible, in how I was shooting to try and get a, an image that I could actually work with. And my challenge is to create one that I can come up with a version of the image that's of a high enough quality to sell as a fine art print. And that can be pretty difficult when you don't have a lot of light around. But this is this the point and I think this is where we build confidence as photographers because we move when we've got more ideas, when we've got more experience, when we've had to problem solve more. We realize that we do have the answers, we do know how to get around a particular problem. But I'm a firm believer in doing a lot of things when in one sense it doesn't matter. So it's not that amazing trip you've been planning for months and it's costing a lot of money and you probably won't ever be able to do it again. That's not the time to be learning things. The time to be learning things is when you are in your normal day to day when yeah, you, you could go out and take photographs on on the weekend or you could, you know, go to the pub or watch a movie or do whatever. You know. It's not, there's not that same urgency about taking the photographs. But when you do go out there and you are on that big trip, you will really benefit from all of the time you spend practicing, which is why, I emphasize it and not just me, but other photographers. I challenge you to find a photographer or somebody who teaches photography that doesn't recommend that you just photograph, take photographs as often as you can. Okay, so, let me give you just a few more examples of constraints. So I've really gone through a few already, but I'm just going to go back over a few others. So another one, if we're looking at the technical side of things, it could be to only shoot in black and white. Now I really like black and white. And the reason for that is that we get an image that's not what we see. So obviously we see things in color. And when you look at a color photograph, yes, you're seeing what you would normally see. But I think in many ways we overlook things, we overlook details because, if it's somebody wearing a red pullover, we see a pullover and it's red, but we're not really looking perhaps that much at the detail of it. Now it's a minor thing, but just as an example, however, when you switch to black and white, what then happens is you're now looking at shapes and textures. So something like a pullover is going to have a texture. It will have ah, shapes within it, maybe that become more obvious when you're looking at it in black and white. And this is something I particularly like to do it with geometric patterns. So it might be the windows in a building for example. If you're looking at them in color, it's very easy to get distracted by perhaps the color of the brickwork, maybe the color of the window, frames or what's being reflected in the glass, that kind of thing. But once you take that away, you're now looking much more at shapes and textures. And it is a very interesting exercise if you've never done it before. And I did a, there is a podcast about black and white photography I'm pretty sure somewhere. But I do recommend you give it a go because it definitely gets you seeing things in a different way. another technical restriction I've already spoken about is to use one lens. So maybe just use one lens for a week. So whatever you photograph that week and you're going to use that particular lens. another good one is to limit yourself to manual focus. So turn the autofocus off and use manual focus. And in fact you could extend that and go full manual for a week. go into manual mode if you haven't done that before. And if you've never done it before at all, that might be a bit overwhelming. but really it's not that hard to learn. Again, I'm a firm believer that if you understand the exposure triangle, the relationship between sensitivity, shutter speed and aperture, that opens up the full creative potential of your camera. And you're only limited by your imagination. Maybe one or two things on the camera, but for me, it's absolutely fundamental to understand that relationship. So going into full manual mode is a great way to do that in practice, maybe for a week. Only allow yourself to use manual mode. so manually set your shutter speed, aperture sensitivity, turn off the autofocus, Just go back old school if you like to. those are the kind of cameras I learned on. And in fact, taking that a step further, you. You could limit yourself to 36 exposures. So again, going back to 35 millimeter film, you would normally have 12, 24, or 36 exposures on a roll. So most of us would go 36 exposures. But of course, it does mean you've got to pick and choose a lot more because you can't just blast away and shoot 300 photographs. When you see something interesting. you've got 36. So that's another really good discipline because it makes you really look at your subject. First of all, it makes you really think about lighting, composition. And at what point do you feel that that image is where it needs to be for you to press that shutter button? So in many ways, digital is great in as much as you can see things straight away. But I think the downside is it's made us a lot less selective about our photography. We. As I've said, you. You can just shoot away as often as you like, you know, as much as you like with a lot of cameras and come away with hundreds or even thousands of photographs. In fact, I was talking to somebody, last week in Finland. They were saying that, you know, some of the people who go on the. Go to these hides overnight, they'll shoot 10,000 photos now. Yeah, that's a big number. I don't shoot that many. And I wonder exactly what they're photographing because I'll shoot a lot of pictures of animals while they're moving around, simply because you get different poses as they change their position. The lighting is different on them. So it might bring out the shape of their head or their flanks or whatever it is, or it might bring out a color in their. The coat, that sort of thing. But 10,000, I'm not sure how you manage that and of that. So it takes me a long time to work through my images. I've got about 5,000, I think, to go through at the moment. Five or six, which is a lot. And I'm kind of skimming and just pinging, picking out here and there. But another really good discipline, I find is not to delete things either. You know, leave them for a few months and revisit them. And you'll start to see, other aspects of that image that you missed first time around because you were looking at it, with the expectation of what you were hoping to achieve when you took the photograph, when you hit the shutter button. And it's something different and it's very easy to just delete those. Whereas going back to them later, you'll see something else in them because you're simply looking at them. Ah, you're looking at that image as an image in its own right. So I have spoken about that quite often. But yeah, limiting yourself to 36, I think, particularly if you've never done it, if you've always just been using digital and you've been shooting as many as you like, it's a really good discipline. And I think it makes you a lot more critical about what you're putting in the frame. So it really gets you to look at what's in the frame. And that I think is really important. you could do some time base I've spoken about every day at a certain time or every hour, those sorts of things. another suggestion that I have on this list here that I've got is a, ah, one hour walk, a m. One hour edit, one hour reflect. So you know, that's another good way to spend some time. So shoot as much light within the hour. You've then got an hour to edit, which makes you start looking at what you shot and pull them out. And then you can look at what you've come back with and maybe reflect on what's good, what's bad, what you could do better, what inspired you from it, all those kind of things. Another one with the location idea is to only shoot for 15 minutes in every location. So that's another good one to do. Okay. Talking about the, subject. So I've given you some ideas and I've said that with We're Observers photo walks, we use these as challenges. So again, to give you a few more, I've already spoken about just one color, so could be just red things, but here's some other ones for you. How about only shooting shadows? Have you thought about shooting shadows? If you've been on one of the, I think it's composition webinar. I've got photographs of shadows that I've shot because I was kind of inspired by what was going on. Or how about only hands or feet? What about that? hands and feet are intro, I think, particularly hands and some of the most powerful images I've seen, particularly with say parents and children and babies, is a baby's hand in one of the parents hands. That's a really lovely and powerful image. And it's just hands or what else is going on. You know, the hand could be holding something. So have a think about that. another one is to just use vertical compositions. So these days with smartphones, most by vertical I basically mean portrait form as opposed to landscape. I find that since smartphones came along, the norm has actually switched more to portrait. So you might want to flip it the other way. If you mostly shoot in portrait or vertically, why not shoot in landscape? So just for a week, just only shoot landscape. another good one is, faces without showing the eyes. So, again from a portrait perspective, and this is something I like to do with animals as well as with people, is the strongest connection is through the eyes. And often, any emotional connection you get is because you are looking at that person's eyes. But the eyes show a lot. So what's the experience? What sort of results can you get if you shoot faces without actually showing their eyes? so moving on to location, I spoke about, I've spoken a little bit about these. So just to recap really, just shoot in your own neighborhood, say, or one neighborhood. Pick a neighborhood and just photograph that. And you can add a time restriction to that too. And then there's the things I've already spoken about that I put in the challenge I put together during COVID lockdown, which is just shoot things inside your home. So the kind of things I would do, I'd shoot inside the wardrobe where there's, you know, shirts may be hanging up. I'd lie on the stairs and shoot up to the ceiling and get that view. I've got, cast iron radiators where I live at the moment. And I just take close up pictures of those, details on, the windows. So a window latch. I have, shutters on the house and some of. So there's the, the latches that you have when you open the shutters up and you latch them back to the wall. you know, what are the details? PowerPoints, anything. Have a look around your house because it makes you look. Another one is to choose, a radius. I've already mentioned the 1k radius that I had during lockdown. And another one I quite like is to shoot only through windows. Now just a word of warning here. I'm not suggesting that you go around your neighborhood photographing through people's windows. Don't do that, because it's really not good. but yeah, use, shoot through windows and use the window frame as a frame. You know, think about how you can use that creatively. I, in fact, one of my favorite photographs. So if you've listened to the early podcasts or perhaps looked on my website, one of the things I did a long time ago now, back in 2001, was to go to the wreck of the Titanic in a small submarine. And while we were down there, we were kind of, we'd been on the, the ocean floor. The, the bow sections are on, in front of us. So you've got the, the, you know, the, the ninth age at the very front, that people are being photographed on. And basically the submarine was just drifting up slowly with this in front of us. And I could see that I was going to get a shot of that very front of the bow and I decided to just lean back. So the window I was looking through was circular and I just leant back so that within the frame. And this was on film by the way, within the shot itself, that round window made a frame around the bow of the Titanic. And that's a picture I'm really pleased with. And looking back on it, I'm really pleased to have the idea at the time. And this of course is the real benefit of it, just sort of leaving it here. But this is the benefit of it. If you do these things, set these challenges, try different things in your, let's call it downtime, you first will get to know your camera a lot better. Secondly, you realize you're a lot more creative than you thought. and thirdly, you are developing skills and instincts that will really serve you when you are in those situations. I mean, in the Titanic, I guess, is a really good example because I don't see me going back down there again. So that literally was a once in a lifetime opportunity and you don't want to come back from those kicking yourself for missing something. So that really is it for this, podcast. I hope it's given you some ideas and as I say, you can jump onto the website and do the 14 day challenge. That's pretty basic, but it will get you going. And then just use the ideas I've suggested. Try something for a week, try a different one for another week, combine a few things, you know, really challenge yourself and that will really get you in a good shape for, when it really counts. Okay, thanks again for listening. Please remember to like and subscribe, and I'll talk to you again in the next podcast. Bye for now. Well, I hope you enjoyed that. Now, I just want to say thank you for tuning in and joining me in, the Wildlife and Adventure Photography podcast. If you have enjoyed today's episode, please give me a like a subscribe, maybe tell your friends, and by all means leave a comment. And if there is a subject you would like me to cover in the future, please let me know. And I'll, be very happy to do my best. So thanks again for, joining me, and I look forward to seeing you again. Next podcast. Bye for now.