Top 5 photography ideas 2021

 Top 5 photography ideas 2021

If you’re looking for photography ideas and inspiration for 2021 and beyond, the list below is meant for you. Many photographers find themselves in a bit of a creative rut from time to time, or they just want to try out something new rather than taking the same types of photos. 

The ideas collected below will be useful either way, helping you enjoy photography to the fullest and practice interesting new techniques along the way.

1. Try Out a Different Genre

One of the easiest things you can do if you’re looking for some excitement is to try an entirely new genre of photography. If you’re a landscape photographer, try shooting

 portraits. If you’re a wedding photographer, find some architectural scenes to capture. Or dip your toes into one of the more difficult genres of photography to master –

 astrophotography, microscope photography, underwater photography, and so on. We have a whole list of important photography genres that might give you some ideas. 

Or just try to branch out within the genre you already prefer. If you’re a wildlife photographer, look for animals that you don’t usually photograph. If you’re a portrait

 photographer, try taking portraits of strangers rather than clients or people you already know. Get out of your usual routine, and you’ll improve your skills almost every time.

2. Do Some Macro Photography

Macro photography is much more accessible than people tend to think. You don’t need an expensive macro lens – just the equipment you already have, plus an extension tube. Even a 50mm prime lens and a single

 extension tube is going to get you great close-up images, although it takes some time to learn the right techniques for macro photography.

If you want more capabilities than an extension tube, you can find some inexpensive macro lenses that are older, third-party, or manual focus only. Either way, you won’t regret getting macro capabilities in the end. It is one of the best ways to take

 amazing photos in almost any location and time of day. Many of my best macro photos are from my backyard on an ordinary day in mid-afternoon.

3. Drive to Dark Sky Areas

If you enjoy landscape photography but can’t find many locations nearby to shoot, consider driving somewhere with a darker sky and shooting the Milky Way. That certainly isn’t possible for everyone, or at least it can take way too much driving, 

but it might apply to you. I live in an area with quite a bit of light pollution, but I was able to drive for a couple hours to find nearly clear skies.

Invite some friends along, photographers or not, and make a fun trip out of it. With the amount of light pollution today, not enough people have a chance to see a (relatively) clear Milky Way, and they might be very

 excited about the chance. There are several dark sky maps available online, such as this one, which you can use as a good resource.

4. Limit Yourself

Some of the best creative work comes from working around limits and restrictions, even artificial ones that you assign to yourself. Try it some time; allow yourself just a single

 prime lens for a day of shooting, or only take vertical images. The specific limitation can be anything, reasonable or absurd. Stand in one place the whole time, or shoot all your photos without looking at the LCD or viewfinder.

The photos you take, good or bad, aren’t as important as the exercise in creativity. Self-imposed restrictions are good practice for real photoshoots. Sometimes, you may not be able to use a flash due to venue rules, or your movement is restricted because you’re

 photographing from a small overlook. There are always going to be some limitations when you’re practicing photography, so it’s a good idea to prepare yourself for them ahead of time.

5. Practice Abstract Photography

One of the good things about abstract photography is that the subject is that you don’t need to go anywhere fancy to practice it. Like macro photography, 

it’s possible to take good abstract photos almost anywhere – you just need to look at the world in a less literal way. Abstract photos are not “of” anything aside from light, shapes, and color. That’s what makes them so flexible.

I took the following photo of dew droplets on the hood of a car shortly before sunrise, with lamplight reflecting on it. Those are subjects many of us pass by each day – a car and a lamp – but photos like this hide in plain sight.

 I’ve taken other abstract photos of plants in my backyard or textures in the snow. If you look hard enough, you’ll find good abstract photos almost anywhere.