Sometimes location is not very important at all in photography. For a lot of portrait photography for instance, the main ingredients are nice light and interesting colours in the background. With the lens opened right up, the background disappears in a lovely blur of colour and bokeh, and so any park or beach or even back yard can be a great location.

But at other times, location is everything. Try taking great surfing shots in the outback for instance 😉 Or if your thing is gritty modern street photography, you won’t have much joy if you are stuck in a regional area or the ‘burbs. Smaller, regional places are just lacking in the variety a big city can offer. In such places, it’s a lot harder to think of what to shoot. I have been wanting to get out just to shoot for fun, but I’ve been finding it hard. What am I supposed to shoot? I know it is a cop out, and that any good photographer worth his salt will just get out there and find something interesting. I’m talking more about the preconceptions we have of places, preconceptions which heavily influence motivation. Why we cop out, and how we change the way we think…

Take me – I’m mostly interested in portraiture. Without someone specific to shoot, my thoughts tend to drift to art photography. And then I stall, as art photography generally takes a lot of planning, forethought and consideration. A budget does’t hurt either! I also like urban photography, but where I live is beautiful, yet somehow strangely bland. So too much of the time, the camera sits in the corner, waiting for me to figure out what to shoot.

I can see I need a new strategy. Some way to break my preconceptions and go out find interesting things to shoot. Any ideas?