5 Methods To Find Inspiration For Your Photography Online

Whether you're stuck for inspiration, staying home on a rainy day, or simply want to broaden your photographic horizons, there are lots of places you can go online to come up with photography ideas, or even emulate some of the great photographs and works of art that have stood the test of time.

Since practice makes perfect, this is a great way to not only have a bit of fun with your photography, it will also improve your photographic skills, and you could very well end up with some of your best work yet. Online communities, competitions and tutorials are just a few of the ways you can find the inspiration that has been eluding you, and find images where you wouldn't have normally.

Online Communities

Online communities are the most obvious place to start when you're looking for inspiration for your photography. With such a huge variety of styles of photography, techniques, and ideas, you're bound to find something that will spark your creativity.

There are two ways to browse the most popular work on Flickr. If you want to see the most recent work that has left its mark on the community, you can check out 7 days worth of interesting photos. If you want to go back even further, Flickr's explore page features popular photos, sets and groups.

DeviantArt is another site with a strong photography community. Two ways you can look at the best work on DeviantArt is to check out the handpicked photos, selected by moderators, or, like Flickr, you can just take a look at the most popular photos based on comments and favourites.

Stock photography communities such as Stock.Xchng, Shutterstock and iStockphoto are also great sources of inspiration.

Entertainment Art

The entertainment industry is full of artistic inspiration. Whether it's in movie posters, album covers, a few lines in a song, or a scene in a movie, there is no limit to the ways in which one form of art can inspire another.

A great source for just about any movie poster is MoviePosterDB. The database is searchable by movie title, artist, actor or tag. If you just want to browse randomly you can do so by decade, popularity or just browse random posters one by one.

If you'd rather be selective, the best movie posters are posted on the database site, IMP Awards. The database can be browsed by actor, director, designer, or year.

Album covers can be just as if not even more inspirational than movie posters. Sleavage [Broken URL Removed] features some of the more interesting album covers from the past decades, which you can browse by cover artist, music artist, genre and more.

For a wider selection, Album Art [Broken URL Removed] is a great choice where you can search for your favourite artists, and see how their album covers can inspire you.

Another way in which you can use these images is to mimic them, creating images that are identical to the album cover or movie poster, adding your own personal twist.

Professional & Classic Art

While your peers can be a source of inspiration, so can professional photographers who you look up to or aspire to be like. If you have a favourite photographer, keep up with their website to see what they're doing artistically. If you don't want to look up someone specific, a photography or art database is a great way to get inspired.

Like with movie posters and album covers, you can emulate photos taken by professional photographers, or even create photos based on famous paintings.

The ideal database of photography, fine art and vintage art is the aptly named art.com. Searchable by style, subject, artist, or collection, there is no limit to the kinds of inspiration you'll find here.

Tutorials

No photographer can ever say they know all there is to be known about photography. There is always something new to learn. Tutorials can be a great source of inspiration, encouraging you to try new techniques and tricks.

There's no limit to online photography tutorials, one of the best and most popular is the website, Digital Photography School, with tips on photography techniques, equipment and processing.

PhotoRadar is another popular site packed with tips, tricks and techniques.

PixelTango has a great list of 20 useful photography techniques which are bound to give you some ideas for new photos, as well as a long list of inspirational ideas and styles. Smashing Magazine also put together a stellar list of 50 photography tips and tutorials that will keep you busy, and inspired, for quite a while.

Lighting Diagrams Creator might not provide tutorials, but is a great resource for better understanding how lighting affects your photography. Photographers share their photos, accompanied by a lighting diagram displaying how they set up the photo.