How to avoid cliché in Photography?

Being a photographer myself, I have seen countless number of useful tips online to become better at photography. All these tips will just tell you how to click good pictures. But what is next? In this digital world, clicking pictures has become more like taking everyday shower. No wonder, people nowadays can click more than hundred pictures in their washroom itself. But, who looks at these pictures, except for some creepy guys, with plenty of time for stalking.

The idea of photography has always been creative expression of your thoughts and visual story-telling. If you really want yourself to be known as a photographer, you will have to become an artist first. Have you seen any good painter churning out his paintings like a self-made manufacturing unit? I doubt so. A painting requires a lot of time, effort and patience and so is true for a masterpiece photograph. In this world of countless selfies and constant flood of digital images, the less is more. The idea here is to never ever go for a cliché shot and upload/publish only best of your work.

Creative Genes presents you some of the handy tips which you can use to make a mark as an artistic photographer and rise above the rest.

Rule#1: Avoid the Cliché

Look at the photographs other professional photographers have taken for something similar, derive inspiration and think how differently you can take that picture. After all, you don’t want yourself to be seen as a copycat trying to replicate professional photographers all the time. Remember, one who copies never get ahead of their master.

Rule#2: Tell a Story

They say “a picture is worth a thousand words”. So, why not use this most effective way of communication for some visual story telling. The award winning pictures are always those which have a story behind them. And, if you need more than thousand words to tell your story, you can learn about photo essays which are quite popular these days. This can get you instant recognition if you work on meaningful and interesting stories.

Rule#3: Do the Research

You will hardly find a wedding photographer being interested in knowing the customs and rituals of a particular wedding and what these customs mean to the families of the bride/groom. Similarly, if someone has to do a pre-wedding shoot, the first few things that come to mind are- using romantic props and finding good locations. However, if you want to do the next level of photography, you can request them to share their story with you, how they met, what they are passionate about, what profession they are in, etc. This will definitely help you ideate and compose your shots well before the actual shoot.

Rule#4: Less is more

The more you publish the pictures online, the greater are the chances that people may not look at them. The reason is simple, who has time to see all your pictures, if you have uploaded more than fifty at once. The first thing is to filter your best work from the average ones and be very selective about what you upload. Even when you have already filtered and uploaded the pictures, review those pictures after a couple of months. I am sure that you will feel like deleting some of them. I call this process ‘weeding out’. If you don’t delete your average photos regularly, you are definitely not going to make a good impression as one photo is good enough to expose your shortcomings.

Rule#5: Observe and Absorb

The true inspiration for photographs is derived from what you see, what you read and what you feel inside your head. Remember, photography is an art, not a mechanical exercise. Go visit a painting exhibition in your city, read about slum-dwellers, talk to a tea vendor, notice the bill boards when you are stuck in a traffic and do all you can to enrich yourself with creative expressions. You need fodder to come out with creative expressions. This can also help you develop your own independent style and expression of art.

Rule#6: Be a photographer not a photo manipulator

Editing your photos a little bit to get the colour, composition, and contrast right is fine. However, extensive editing is not a work of an artist. A painter does not make a bad painting first and then spend even more time trying to correct that. If you are a true photographer, make the most out of your creativity from the camera itself.

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