Why I Still Shoot Personal Projects (And You Should Too)
How creativity, freedom, and business all benefit from doing the work no one asked you to do
There’s no deadline.
No art director.
No bid.
No Meetings.
No mood board.
No invoice.
No one asked me to do it.
No one’s waiting for it.
And yet — some of my most important work came from that space.
That quiet, no-pressure, wide-open space where personal projects live.
As a photographer who’s spent a good chunk of his life working for clients, I can tell you this: the work I’ve done for myself has always been more impactful than the work I’ve done on assignment.
And funny enough, it usually ends up leading to more assignments.
So today I want to talk about why I still shoot personal projects. Not just for fun — though fun is a big part of it — but for creativity, freedom, business, and frankly, sanity.
And why you, no matter where you are in your photographic journey, should be doing it too.
Personal Projects Keep You Creative (And Curious)
Client work is often about solving someone else’s problem. You’re hired to bring a concept to life — and that’s great. That’s part of the job.
“Make this cheap lighter look like it’s worth $150.” I’m on it.
“Shoot this OTR line of jeans and make them look luxurious.” Got it.
“They’re garage door openers, make them look sexy.” OK, boss.
But after decades of these shoots, it can start to feel routine. Safe. Predictable.
Personal projects pull you out of that. They let you explore something just because it interests you.
No mood board.
No committee.
No “Can you move the product label an inch to the left?”
No late talent, stoned makeup artists, and no client wanting continual updates while they fly to vacation in Bermuda.
You shoot it because you want to know what it looks like as a photo.
You make the image because your gut says, what if…?
You find your curiosity is triggered and you just gotta make something.
Creativity needs that freedom. Otherwise, it starts to calcify.
That calcification begins to atrophy, and one day you find yourself sitting in a big comfy chair saying, “I don’t know what to shoot.”
When your creative muscles atrophy, you can feel it in your client work.
It gets a little flatter.
A little safer.
A little more “meh.”
And you begin to use the words “burnout”, “tired”, and “bereft”.
OK, you probably won’t use bereft, almost nobody does. I used it because I think it is a cool word that needs to have a little support now and then.
If you think about it, personal projects are your mental and photo gym.
Go lift something weird.
You Find Your Style (When No One’s Looking)
Your style doesn’t live in your gear.
It’s not hiding out in a Lightroom preset or an Instagram filter.
Your style shows up when you’re making work that no one asked for — and you start to notice patterns.
The kind of light you love. The compositions you always return to. The stories that keep finding their way into your frame.
Personal work reveals your instincts. It’s where you start to say,
“This… this is what I see. This is how I see.”
For me, that discovery happened through a series of quiet tabletop images I made at home. Just found objects and soft light. No big concept. Just play.
But in those images, I saw something forming — a thread I could follow. A style that felt like mine, not borrowed from a trend or a campaign.
Your Best Portfolio Work Might Start Here
You know what turns heads in a portfolio?
Passion.
Originality.
Vision.
Style.
Art directors, editors, and brand managers can smell obligation a mile away. Hell, your mom can too, but she is too loving to take you aside and say, over a cup of tea and your favorite cookies, “You know honey, your work is starting to suck so bad it reminds me of the farts ol’ Uncle Lem used to make after eating a couple of Enchiritos.”
But when you show them an image that came from you — not a creative brief, not a client request — they start to get interested.
“What is this from?”
“Is this a real project?”
“We’d love to have something like this for our brand…”
“Oh, please stay for dinner and show your mama some more of those deliciously creative photos.”
That’s the magic of personal work.
It’s not more art for art’s sake.
It sure as hell ain’t “content”.
It’s a business tool.
It’s a mental health tool.
It can let you begin to breathe again, smile again, get excited again.
Some of the best commercial gigs I ever landed came directly from showing personal projects. Creative shoots I would do just to see the image in my head come to life.
Images I made just because I had something to say — and it turned out, someone wanted to see — and hear — it.
Personal Work Reconnects You to the Joy of Photography
Let’s be honest: sometimes this job can beat the love out of you.
Deadlines. Revisions. Budget cuts. Chasing payments.
The thing you used to do for fun becomes the thing that pays the bills — and that transition can be unexpectedly brutal.
That’s why I always come back to personal projects.
They remind me why I picked up a camera in the first place.
To explore.
To observe.
To create something meaningful — whether or not it ever runs in a magazine, gets featured on a website, or gets posted by a client.
If your love for the craft is fading, don’t double down on more same-ol’-same-ol’ jobs.
Take a weekend.
Leave the brief at home.
Go make something for yourself.
A Few of Mine (And What They Taught Me)
Let me give you a peek at some of the personal work that changed things for me:
- “GLOCAS” — Girls Looking Off Camera At Stuff. I began making shots of the models I worked with staring off-camera. Once I realized I had a little hook of a project, I continued to make them.
- “Desert Sojourn” — I love the desert. I live in the desert. I especially love the Anza Borrego Desert and the area around the Salton Sea.
- “Majesty, Frailty, and Time Exposed in the High Desert” — I document many of my personal projects here on Medium, and on my Substack. This one is focused on the incredible Joshua Tree National Park.
None of these had clients.
All of them resulted in paying gigs.
Start One. This Week.
You don’t need a big idea or a six-month timeline.
Start small. Start scrappy. Start now.
Try this:
Pick one object in your house. Photograph it in five totally different ways. Change the light. Change the emotion. Make it poetic. Make it strange.
Or:
Tell a 3-image story about “quiet.” No words. Just photos.
You’ll be surprised what comes up. And who you become on the other side of it.
No One’s Going to Give You Permission, So Stop Waiting for It
There’s no award for best personal project.
No client saying, “Hey, take a month and shoot whatever inspires you.”
This work?
This freedom?
This growth?
It’s totally and absolutely on you.
And that’s the best part, the cheese on those fries, the cool drink of water on a hot day.
Because when it’s your idea, your story, your spark… the work that follows will not be fake, or trying to sell something.
It’ll just be what you and your camera saw while on a quest to make something personal, something yours.
Go make something no one asked for.
It might just become the most important work you’ve ever done.
Hi, I’m Don Giannatti, a photographer and mentor for up-and-coming photographers. You can find me on my website, Don Giannatti, and at my Substack site, where I also publish for creative people.
