As artists and working photographers, we can get stuck within the frame of what we know works and looks great for our clients. But in order to grow as creatives and keep our passion for photography alive and well, we sometimes need to give ourselves an artistic push towards something new.

It’s not easy or comfortable, but breaking free of boundaries or moving in new directions can inspire us in ways we might not even realize we needed. With client work, it can be hard, especially during busy season, to avoid the burn-out that comes from shooting, culling, editing and delivering session after session of lovely but identical poses and looks. Taking moderate risks during these sessions can help draw out inspiration and enhance your artistic voice without altering your brand identity.

I’m going to share some creativity exercises to push your commercial and client work in order to draw out new ideas and inspiration. Try one, try a few, or try them all. The important thing is to stay moving.

1. Find a new well of inspiration.

This is a huge one. As artists, we create work about what we know, remember, love, and imagine. Take some time to sit down and write a list of the reasons you chose your specialty. If you haven’t ever thought about it, start.

Make a list of what is most precious to you in your life right now — your favorite paintings, books, colors and combinations of colors, smells — and then include important moments in your childhood.

These lists can kick start a new path of focus in your sessions. I have always loved the Mary Cassatt painting of a mother bathing her child in a washbasin. It hung at the foot of the stairs in my mother’s house. When I was starting to feel uninspired, I remembered that painting and began to think about how I could begin to include the idea in my work.

It began slowly with remembering to always make a portrait of mama lifting her child in and out of tubs at my one-year sessions. Then it evolved into mother and child bathing together and ultimately opened an entirely new course of work focused on the masters’ painterly light and color ways.

2. Take a technical risk at every session.

Set up a challenge for yourself and stick to it during every session. For example, use only one lens, use a creative lens like a tilt-shift or Lensbaby, shoot wide open or close all the way up. The challenge you choose is less important than sticking to it over and over again. The constraint on your technical options will push you to find new images and new ways to make old images, and you’ll grow a new muscle in your creative body over repeated use.

For an entire three-month summer of sessions, I required myself to use my Lensbaby for a minimum of 10 minutes per session. Lensbaby is unpredictable. It might not create ANYTHING deliverable to a client but it might create something so weird you love it passionately and open a new creative pathway for yourself.

It was very frightening at first for me to pop it on my camera body and work with paying clients during a limited amount of time and hope I got something deliverable. Ultimately, I loved the work that came out of it and so did my clients!

3. Explore your peers’ work in groups.

When I was in art school, we had frequent critiques. We’d all see each other’s work, think, comment and reflect together. Inevitably seeing other people’s creative choices would push us all to make new choices in our work.

A creative community is so critical to keeping you fresh, excited and pushing your own boundaries. Join a few groups, pick and choose and make sure you join at least one where you perceive the work is way above your own skill set. This will give you an artistic push forward.

4. Ask for the darkest room in the house.

Technically, this is an offshoot of idea #2 but it’s so important I think it should stand on its own. If you haven’t already taken a creative indoor lighting class like The Light Inside, DO THAT NOW, even if you don’t think you need it. If you have, really push and practice shooting with restricted light.

I now, as a part of my indoor flow, ask my clients to show me the darkest room in the house that still has at least one window of any size. I then plan a way to make images in that room. Those images are nearly always my favorites, are so unusual, and add excitement to an otherwise run of the mill flow.

5. Do a model call.

Plan a session just for yourself. YES, during your busy season! It doesn’t have to be a styled and elaborate four-hour wonder. It can be fast, weird, and half thought-out.

Recently I took advantage of a sale on Free People and acquired a few new gowns for my client wardrobe. The day they arrived, my kiddo was being a real patience-tester; I was grumpy and hot and wanted to do something for myself.

I put out a call in a local photography group for anyone who was open to meeting up in the next hour with their kiddo and getting into a fancy dress in a creek. I packed my kid up with some buckets and cups and dragged him along to the creek to happily play in the water while I made portraits of a mama and her kiddo in the creek for about 40 minutes. Those images have set fire to my creative heart and opened a very clear new direction for me artistically.

6. Learn a new skill.

Whether it’s advanced composite work, developing presets, designing albums, or creating Christmas card templates, what matters is that you are trying to teach yourself something new! When your brain works on acquiring a new skill, it actually gets supercharged and starts generating all kinds of new things. Choosing to learn something gives you the push into unknown territory that your brain interprets as “let’s do new stuff” and suddenly you find yourself booming with new ideas.

I recently decided to build my own set of presets based on particular painting styles. The challenge of thinking about color through the eyes of other artists has really made me look closely at color everywhere I go. I shoot differently because I imagine my color differently now.

7. Read a book.

Reading a book is a wonderful way to get your brain working. It doesn’t matter if you choose a photography book, fiction, or a biography. Some favorite books of mine to help with inspiration are:

• The Artist’s Way
• Making Art a Practice: How to be the Artist you Are
• Steal Like an Artist

These mini challenges for an artistic push can help you shake things up and help prevent you from burning out during busy season. Remember, you don’t have to share these images, they can be just for you, just to create.

Photos by Keziah Kelsey

More creativity exercises for an artistic push:

Feeling stuck? 4 Creativity rut-busters for photographers

Why studying other photography genres is good for creativity

Frozen? 4 ways to ignite creativity in cold, dark winter

How to stay amazing: 12 exciting photo products for a guaranteed creative restart

How to take next-level creative self-portraits with authenticity and meaning