One of my driving forces in my development in photography and film always have been personal projects. One of the biggest struggles in creativity and also in finding out what you want to do with that, is the time and freedom to develop. I’m not talking about the technical part, what might also be  a struggle in itself, i’m talking about the vision and a form of personal language you bring into your work. Normally you start with that early, way before you start working professionally, so you do more or less only personal projects. And you learn with that, also how to get the organization behind it done, like contact work and so on.

But also later, when you have grown in what you do, personal projects can be a driving force to try out new stuff. Clients have normally a special need and you need to fullfil that need with your vision. So you work with a special need. Or you want to sell certain stories to magazines or newspapers what also has special needs and approches. Anyway is limiting you in experimenting with stuff. Maybe you have for a long time this idea of doing this HDR documentary project or the story about this guy hunting frogs in southern france is something you want to tell for a long time. Personal projects give you the freedom back to try out things, not with the pressure of doing it for a specific reason, but doing it out of your own curiosity.

Personal projects are for me an important driving force in my inspiration, my creativity and is a constant chance to turn ideas into reality that normally would not happen as they might not find the funding. For me i’m always searching for a reason for what i do and a personal project is a great reason for trying out new things. And i feel like that especially this personal projects help me a lot to grow in what i do and they are quite often also bringing me to new levels and give me new power. They also make me curious and help me to forget about a normal routine that might come in from time to time, what also helps me at the end to develop a different point of view to other projects that i do for clients. It takes of course time and energy, but it is a great way to keep this eyes of a small child on what you do and never stop learning. Personal projects are my way to stay out of routines and develop as a person and an artist (even when i do not like this word for what i do), also in the way that they allow me to approach a story exactly in the way i think is right.

So here is my tip for you today: Get yourself a personal project. Design a project you are motivated for, what maybe also gets you out of your comfort zone. Something what makes you produce something regularly and makes you try out new stuff. It helps you to work on something frequently, when it’s a bigger project. Small client work could be nice and brings the money, but long term projects help me way more to develop something and also tell a bigger picture of the story then a small project could do. Some of my personal projects got commissoned afterwards, but that that is not the motivation behind it. The motivation is pure curiosity and creativity.

So get out and get a project. Or do you maybe already have one?