How to shoot a Personal Project

Devising and shooting a personal project is a great way to develop and improve as a photographer. It will help you to learn new skills, try out visual ideas and explore your creativity and photographic style. In this workshop with Chris Coe, you will consider every aspect of shooting a project, from devising the original concept to planning and shooting. We’ll also cover evolving the initial idea to make a stronger set of images and then different ways to showcase the finished project.

You may already have an idea for something you’d like to photograph, so how do you turn this idea into a personal project and a body of work that will showcase your photography? It sounds easy, but if you pick up your camera and start shooting without a plan or clear direction, you’ll inevitably hit problems you could have foreseen and avoided.

The investment of time you put into planning and developing the project from the beginning, notably before you start shooting, is vital. It will save you time and frustration when you’re shooting and lead to a more coherent set of images and a stronger visual story.

In this workshop, we’ll take an in-depth look at everything from the initial project idea to developing a project plan and trying to anticipate and pre-empt the possible problems you may encounter – both conceptual and practical. We’ll look at different approaches to shooting and explore how you can use these to enhance and improve your images and visual story. We’ll think through how to execute it to put together a set of images that show your skill as a photographer and showcase your vision. To finish, we’ll look at how you get your project and images to be seen by a wider audience.