Check out the updated post for 2021.

Practice is the best way to get better at anything. This really applies to photography. There are so many technical things to learn, you need to practice them often to make the technical part second nature. Once you’ve got the technical parts down, you can focus solely on the creative. But of course, practicing the creative parts is important too (and fun).

I put together 52 weeks of photography assignments for 2020 so you can practice your photography skills, no matter what level you’re at. There aren’t any hard rules for this. If you don’t get a chance to do the challenge one week, you can always catch up the next, or just skip that week. The main point of this is to get you using your camera at least once a week, if not daily.

I’ve alternated the themes over four week sets of the following categories: subject/moment, lighting, composition, and technical. The technical prompts might be a little more challenging if you’re just using a cell phone camera, but I’ll offer some workarounds for that each week.

The full list is below, but I’ll be making a blog post every week to further explain and give some examples. You’ll find this especially handy with the more technical assignments.

Below are the blog posts for the weeks that have been posted so far:

You can follow me on Instagram at @documentyourdaytoday and use the hashtag #documentyour2020. I’ll feature some of your work on my Instagram (with permission), but check out the hashtag to see everyone’s work.

Week 1: Photograph Someone You Love

January 1-7, 2020

I’ve been a professional photographer for over a decade and over the years, I’ve learned how important it is to document the people in our lives. People change so quickly, even if it’s not apparent when you see them every day.

This week’s challenge is to photograph someone you love. If you don’t have anyone handy, you could choose a pet or do a self portrait instead. This image can be posed or candid, your choice.

Below are some examples of candid photos of individuals. I’m going to try to take a portrait this week, because I very rarely take individual portraits. If you regularly photograph people, try taking a different type of portrait/candid than usual.