I love to look at pictures and to look at the unique ideas other photographers come up with. Their beautiful pictures of a sunrise or a mountain range, the funny pictures they take of their pets… and so on. But sometimes it frustrated me to see how much better they are than I am.
Squirrel in my backyard, 2014 
Squirrel in my backyard, 2018
Until I found this really helpful advice – Never compare yourself to somebody else, not in photography and not in any other area of your life, only compare yourself to yourself. So, I started following that advice, and soon found out there are big improvements in my pictures.
I put pictures I took several years ago next to pictures I took this year and – wow, improvement. For example: Look at two pictures above, the first one was taken in 2014, the second one was taken 2018 … what a difference 🙂
In the first picture the squirrel sits smack dab in the middle of the picture, the branches are very distracting, not to mention, it is not sharp. The second one, I got the rule of thirds, the picture is sharp and the green grass adds some nice leading lines and doesn’t distract.
So, I decided to make an experiment when I found the #Make30Photos challenge online.
As I am going to take another online photography class (that will run for a year) , I thought it would be fun to pick 30 of my pictures and then see how far I could get if I would take the same challenge next year in April.
So, here are the 30 photos – I didn’t take them all in the last 30 days, though, just some of them, but all of them were taken during the last couple of months. Here is the list for the 30 photo prompts … #make30photos.
1: Fill frame with color
2: Things in threes
3: Black and white
4: Taken at midday
5: Abstract
6: Snail’s eye view
7: Reflection
8: Lit by a window
9: Older than me
10: Food
11: Shadows
12: Plain background
13: Balance
14: Urban
15: Extreme edit
16: Eye Catching
17: Behind the scenes
18: Pattern
19: Wildlife
20: Break rule of 1/3s
21: Just 2 colors
22: Move the camera
23: Self portrait
24: Movement
25: Stripes
26: Weather
27: Silhouette
28: Depth
29: Vintage
30: Texture
And here are the pictures … (Click on the picture to get the full view.)
1 Fill the Frame with Color 
2 Things in Three 
3 Black and White 
4 Taken at Midday 
5 Abstract 
6 Snails Eye view 
7 Reflection 
8 Lit by a window 
9 Older than me 
10 Food 
11 Shadows 
12 Plain Backgroun 
13 Balance 
14 Urban 
15 extreme edit 
16 Eye Catching 
17 Behind the Scenes 
18 Pattern 
19 Wildlife 
20 Break the Rule of Thirds 
21 Just 2 Colors 
22 Move the Camera 
23 Self Portrait 
24 Movement 
25 Stripes 
26 Weather 
27 Silhouette 
28 Depth 
29 Vintage 
30 Textxure
I will revisit this next year in April, and I hope to see how much more I have improved.
How do you challenge yourself? Do you want to join my challenge? Let me know in the comments, we can set something up on instagram or facebook …
Live Inspired and keep Shooting.