The Importance of Personal Projects
Many photographers, myself included, can become wrapped up in the business of photography. There are clients to communicate with, sessions to schedule, photographs to edit, and invoices to send. That work is important. It allows us to support ourselves, improve our skills, and continue doing photography full time.
However, the subjects we are paid to photograph are not always the subjects that excite us most. When photography becomes a career, it can be easy to spend all of your time creating for other people and very little time creating for yourself.
That is why personal projects matter.
A personal project is work created without a client, a brief, or a guaranteed reward. No one is necessarily waiting for the finished product. The project exists because an idea, subject, or story feels important enough to pursue.
For me, personal work has taken several forms. This year, I committed to sharing one photograph every day. I am also creating a short documentary about fly fishing and its importance to my mental health, while slowly working on a hunting coffee-table book.
These projects are very different, but they all come from the same place. They are things I feel compelled to create.
None of them need to make money. They do not need to appeal to the largest possible audience or lead directly to more clients. Their purpose is to help me learn, better understand the subjects I care about, and complete something I am genuinely proud of.
Personal projects also provide a freedom that commissioned work rarely can. There is no client expecting a specific result and no established formula that must be followed. You can experiment, make mistakes, change direction, and discover what the project is supposed to become as you work through it.
My daily photography project has taught me discipline. It has forced me to keep looking for photographs even when I do not feel inspired. The documentary has challenged me to think beyond individual images and consider story, emotion, sound, and meaning. The hunting book has taught me patience and the value of building something slowly over time.
Each project is teaching me something different.
Personal work can also keep photography from becoming nothing more than a job. When every time you pick up a camera is connected to an invoice, it can become easy to forget why you were drawn to photography in the first place.
There is something refreshing about making a photograph simply because you want to see what it might become.
A personal project does not need to be a film, a book, or a year-long commitment. It could be a series of portraits, photographs of one neighborhood, or anything else that continues to hold your attention.
The important thing is that it belongs to you.
There will always be reasons to postpone personal work. Client projects feel more urgent, life becomes busy, and the final result may be uncertain. But certainty is not required before beginning.
Sometimes you simply have to follow the idea that keeps pulling you back.
The work no one asked for may never become the most profitable work you create. It may not receive the most attention. But it may become the work that teaches you the most, reminds you why you started, and ultimately feels the most like your own.
