What are your biggest inspirations/motivation boosts?

SimpleJoy, I found the link to this thread in this week's Wednesday C&C topic. Better late than never?!

I've enjoyed the conversation and inspiring photos here very much.

Besides the quality of light, one of my inspirations of the past few years is to have an assigned theme. This has mostly been through Facebook's private group, Create 52 Photography Project. However, I'm also now getting into some of the flickr groups - thanks to you!

The conversation here about flickr Explore was fun because my "Wind" image (posted to the Sliders Sunday group - my first group participation) was in Explore a few days ago 😁

Seeing common or familiar scenes in a different way is what I get most out of the assigned themes. The garages below (for "Shadows") I had walked past many dozens of times and never thought about a photo opportunity. "Traffic Lights" was just driving around early one morning to see how I could present traffic lights in a different manner from the most obvious. "Wind" was a processing-to-the-max exploration.

I particularly like your second photo, the treatment is magnificent. 😍
Very inspirational picture for me!

I'm so delighted to hear that, thank you! Some people can't get past all the "ugly" wires and poles, which I often photograph as subjects. I use PS Elements, Nik Collection and Topaz Studio 2. Have lost my info on what I did to this specifically, but I'm sure some warm glow was involved 😀

Wonderful shots - all of them! And thanks a lot for adding your thoughts as well.

I agree that themed groups (no matter how shallow some might appear at first glance) can be a great incentive for many of us because it can help thinking about the things we see and shoot differently. And the regularity might also help those (like me) who are easily distracted. I've never done a full year thing, as I'm also working on a pretty time consuming series of articles on unknown adapted lenses with a friend... but perhaps there will be an opportunity for that in the future.

Here's another really important source of inspiration for me: Family/Friendships/Relationships

Part of that is direct inspiration, by the closest people around me, whom I love dearly, part of it is also the concept of family, relationship and friendship, which I tend to think significantly more about as I get older... I'm pretty sure that turning these thoughts and considerations into images (or songs) from time to time was a significant help in reminding myself to be thankful for things and not take them for granted.

Like father, like son. by simple.joy, on Flickr

Family portrait? Sure! by simple.joy, on Flickr

I promise to keep you safe... by simple.joy, on Flickr

Compatibility? Of course! by simple.joy, on Flickr

Handsforth my life is secondary by simple.joy, on Flickr

When are you coming home to me? by simple.joy, on Flickr

I'm from a proud family of mischief makers... by simple.joy, on Flickr

Family matters by simple.joy, on Flickr

Showing the world to my child... by simple.joy, on Flickr

Sending signals of love by simple.joy, on Flickr

Creative together by simple.joy, on Flickr

I don't think I'll ever stop being amazed and awed by your creativity with titles, as well as photographs!

We need several simplejoy to make dprevived more interesting! 😀

Thank you - that's very kind!

Oh no... Thanks a lot, but I'm sure more than one would get annoying pretty quickly... 😱

Always remember, it's mostly trial and error with my experiments and in many cases nothing more than mere illusions: 😅

Daily bread... a mere illusion! by simple.joy, on Flickr

If I had to copy someone else's work to motivate my photography, I'd take up basket weaving or origami.

That's an interesting opinion... can you elaborate? I don't think we've had a lot of mentions of copying/replicating someone else's work as a means of motivation/inspiration... but perhaps you were referring to one specific post (the system currently doesn't show which one was replied to, if it's not quotet)?

I'm merely saying that whatever other folks do has no effect upon my own enjoyment of photography.

Thanks for the explanation - glad to hear it‘s like that for you. You‘re not the first to mention that in the thread - of course, not everyone needs inspiration or motivation from outside. May I ask what your main interests/genres for photography are?

Remembering family holidays
One of the motivations for me to take photos, is capturing memories.
Thinking back to our trip to North Norway it seems almost like a "recent" event, but Incredibly it's already 13 years ago!

One of reasons a trip like that can stay fresh in my mind, is that the photos are still around and "available" to see. Different formats for different trips.
I'll make prints, and hang them up, put some on display in public places, add images to my website, I'll make photobooks and occasionally even make a slide show like in this 2 minute video

www.fireplace-photography.com/p488418396/h68bda48b#h68bda48b
best to click on the full screen button when it opens

The kids have grown up and left home since this was made.

Thanks for sharing your thoughts and great images, both in the video, as well as on your site in general! Have never been to Norway unfortunately, but it looks wonderful.

It's great that you have such an effective way of keeping precious memories alive. I have to admit that I'm not very good at that, but perhaps I'll find my own way of doing that more when my kids grow older.

Just out of curiosity: Have any of your kids picked up a camera as well at some point?

Thanks Simplejoy :-)
My daughter is quite artistic, likes to draw and paint. She also takes pretty good photos with her phone. But the idea of lugging a big camera around never caught on.

Sorry, I missed this earlier. Primarily nature scenics, close-up and macro, but some street, cityscapes and harbor scenes thrown in, whatever catches my fancy.

Thank you! Great to hear you're into close-up and macro shooting as well. If you have some particular interests there or a couple of shots to give some examples of what you like to shoot, please feel invited to share them here! 👍

Apart from the usual things (recording family, friends, places, etc.), one thing I like doing is converting some of my photos into colour-only versions (i.e. removing all the grey-scale information to leave only the colours). The results are often very weird, but some of them I quite like as somewhat impressionist images.

For anyone interested in the technicalities, producing a colour-only image can be done in HSV colour by setting V=1. In HSV colour, H is Hue, S is Saturation, V is Value defined as V = max (R, G, B). I use GIMP which it supports HSV colour.