So I’ve set myself a mini creative challenge that I’m going to start sharing through tumblr – to go out every lunch break for a month and photograph something interesting. Sounds pretty straightforward I know but there’s a few reasons behind it:

Improve – I’m a firm believer that the best way to improve your photography is to shoot regularly and learn from your mistakes. Unfortunately I’m also a prime culprit of ‘fad photography’ in which I’ll go through phases of being really enthusiastic about a specific style or project, but have a lull in between those phases. Therefore as a rule to this I will photograph at least one thing every day, if I shoot more then I’ll just post my favourite from that day.

Explore – I work in a place that I don’t really know all that well so it’s a good excuse to use my time a bit more wisely to explore the area. I also see the area as a bit dull at the moment, although I’m sure that’s not the case so I want to discover all the interesting parts.

Be creative – Creativity is a way of thinking, and one that can be improved. Part of the challenge here is to analyse and pick out things that are fascinating from the everyday.

Experiment – I’ve heard and read numerous times that ‘the best camera you have is the one you have on you’, and for nearly all of us these days that is our mobile phone, but despite that I’ve never really taken to using my phone seriously. So for this I’m going to use only my iPhone.

So with that in mind, here are the photos from my first week. I’ll post each week from now with the photos from that week and I’d love to hear from anyone doing the same thing.

(Source: bencrumpphoto.co.uk)

Dark Clouds on Flickr.

Hurst Spit on Flickr.

Sun on sea on Flickr.

Lucky number 7 on Flickr.

Hurst lighthouse on Flickr.

Dramatic sky, Lymington on Flickr.

Walk on Hurst Spit on Flickr.

Surf photography has always been a big thing in the surfing world. Flicking through surf magazines you’ll always be sure to see some amazing shots, giving you a glimpse of rugged landscapes and incredible athletes. Recently this area of photography has really started to inspire me and so I wanted to share some of the best bits I’ve seen lately (not my average shot above).

There was a fantastic portfolio published in Surfer’s Path magazine recently of a Cornish photographer Karl Mackie who uses mainly analog cameras and expired film to create some amazing and unique work such as this Holga shot

In a similar style, another awesome photographer and film maker Romain Juchereau is doing a great job of documenting surf culture in a really individual and interesting way; and on the topic of surf film makers I would strongly urge anyone who appreciates beautiful film making to check out the work of Mickey Smith. Particularly Darkside Of The Lens and Highland Drifting because they’re incredible. As is the work of Chris Burkard - well known and awarded for some of the technically and artistically brilliant shots he takes.

I could go on for ages, but I won’t, so I hope you enjoy.

photographersdirectory:

lensblr-network:

Among the millions of blogs on Tumblr, only a small number are contributors of original content: “the world’s creators”

And if you’ve ever looked at Tumblr’s Explore Page you might notice that Photography is oddly absent.

There’s #design, #art, #architecture and even #artists on tumblr — but no mention of anything related to the art of taking pictures with a camera. Even #film is a trap — it’s for movies, not analog photography!

We don’t think this situation is acceptable. So let’s Fight it.

We’d like to ask all original photographers on Tumblr to start putting the #photographers on tumblr tag on every single photo you post.

We also track that tag and reblog the best pictures on our blog.

Photographers deserve more recognition among the Creators on Tumblr. Hopefully, by using this tag we’ll help the entire community of Tumblr photographers get noticed — and maybe one day we will see that tag on the Tumblr Explore page too.

Reblog this post and spread the word.

Sincerely,
Lensblr

Sincerely, 

The Photographers Directory