Sometimes expanding your creativity simply involves opening your eyes and really seeing the things that are unnoticed around you every day. One of my favorite ways to get past this inclination to look without seeing is by going on a backyard photo safari.

What You Need

• A camera. I use a small digital camera, but any camera will do–even the one built into your mobile phone.
• An hour or so to spare.

What to Do

Easy–wander around your backyard, and take snapshots of anything and everything. Zoom in on tree bark, get close to the ground and snap pictures of the plants growing there, look for ants, butterflies, and other insect life. Take shots of puddles and rock patterns. Photograph everything, and try to turn everything into an interesting picture. (This is where having a digital camera comes in handy–you don’t have to worry about wasting film.) Spend at least half an hour taking pictures, so that you really force yourself to notice your surroundings.

 When you’re finished, look at your pictures. Did you find something you didn’t know was there before? Do you have a different impression, a different feeling, about your own backyard now? Does your creativity feel stimulated? Are you inspired?

If you gained from this exercise, try it again with modifications. Go back to your backyard on another day, but this time don’t take a camera. Take a sketchpad. Do twenty or thirty two minute sketches of things you notice. Or take your notebook, and write prose snippets or haiku about your surroundings.

Don’t stop at your backyard, either. Take this eye-opening exercise into other aspects of your life, even if you don’t have a camera, sketchbook, or notebook with you. Open your eyes, and take time to notice the little, seemingly inconsequential things around you. Your creativity will be better for it, and your days will become more interesting.

As always, if you try this exercise, I would love to see your results. Send me links!

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