Sometimes we hit a dry spell. We lose our inspiration to take new images, or maybe it is even just that we have hit a plateau and have become bored with our own style. Perhaps you are a new aspiring photographer who is looking to find your way in your new hobby or future profession.
Don’t fool yourself into believing that you will suddenly be inspired or that it will just come to you on its own. An important part of this field is looking at each others work and learning from it… adapting it to your own, or just even stealing the style. Don’t let yourself be sucked in to the “purist” belief that you must do this on your own.
You can gain insight by simply looking through photographers sites. You can find limitless blogs and photo galleries from both professional and amateurs alike. Take the time to look through sites like 500px.com or flickr.com and see what others are taking pictures of and what their style looks like.
Some of the more well known photographers will only post a few pictures here and there, and that is not going to be very helpful. I particularly enjoy 500px because it has a lot of great work that is far more professional quality images… although you will find some garbage in there, it is minimal. But there are multiple streams you can look through such as “popular” or “new” etc….
When you visit these sites, make sure you participate in the “meta” part of the site by Voting, Rating, Commenting, Liking, etc…. this gives important feedback to the photographer about their work. This is of course why they are uploading their images. Make sure you “give back” to those who are giving you inspiration.
Find your self a list of sites to hit up regularly for inspiration, you never know what you might find.