The OCOLOY project — Ocoloy Collective

Welcome

This project is 100% free, it’s all about getting more creative and set your photography free with simple gear

Everybody’s welcome!

You will see more new things, meet more people, travel more, expand your mind, walk longer and hopefully see photography with new eyes

Learn from others and share you images if you like

Take a journey into the world of OCOLOY

Recommended gear:

Pick a camera you like or a camera you would like to love. This project is not about megapixels, fast auto focus or expensive gear. This is about you as a photographer. It’s about falling in love with photography again and getting the passion back. It’s about getting creative with not too many distractions. All digital cameras the past 15 years can take amazing images if the right person is behind the camera.

Pick a lens that’s preferably a prime lens and learn it 100%. Maybe chose a prime you don’t get along with to rethink how you photograph. I shot with my least used lenses my first two years of OCOLOY and now I love them. Pick something challenging.

Tryout CPL, ND and Pro mist filters to spice things up if you get bored.

A nice looking bag will make you grab it more often.

In the end this is just recommendations. You decide 100% what gear you would like to use for your OCOLOY.

PROJECTS AND IDEAS:

Challenge yourself every month for a year. Make up your own challenges and projects. Try to chose a camera and lens that will challenge you. Don’t go the easy way. Take the road less traveled.

When you do have a project like the OCOLOY and stick to it then it is easier to explain it to people, why you’re taking pictures or asking for a portrait etc.

Failure is important too and not all challenges will go well but in the end you will get better at your craft. Every challenge will tribute in one way or another to your other challenges.

If you feel like you are stuck in the OCLOLOY project then you can choose one of these projects below for a month to see where it leads you. Maybe pick one of them and use it for a year as your main challenge or chose a new project every month. These are just examples that you can put your own twist to. Maybe put three of them together for a project.

You decide your own rules but try to challenge yourself instead of playing safe.

If you have an idea, Live it!

Black and white - Photograph everything in black and white in camera. Maybe even try it for a year if you only shoot color normally.
ISO 800 - Set your camera ISO to 800 and keep it there for a month
Minimum focus lenght - Find your lens minimum focus lenght and shoot like that for a month. It will completely change the way you see the world.
Shoot from the hip - Set your Aperture to f8 or more and learn to shoot from the hip, streetphotography style.
Streetphotography - Give streetphotography a go in any kind of way. See the movie Everybody’s street, on YouTube
Minimalistic - Try to have as little as possible in the frame while still make it interesting
Double exposures - Most cameras have built in double exposures, go out and have fun.
Night photography - Only photograph after the sun has gone down for a month
Slow shutter - shoot below 1/80th for a month. Maybe try panning, astro and long exposures
Fastest Aperture for a month - If you have a f1.4 lens, then shoot a month at f1.4
Square crop mode - Set your image crop to 1:1 in camera and photograph like that for a month. Check out my OCOLOY vol.2 project.
Childhood - Photograph things, places and people you remember from your childhood
Portrait/vertical mode - Have the camera tilted to portrait/vertical mode and photograph everything that way for a month
Shoot an image a day on the same subject but with a new twist everyday for a month
People - Shoot a month where every image has to have at least one person in the image
Landscape - Go on adventures and only shoot landscapes for a month
Vintage - Try to find oldschool/vintage subjects to photograph
Blue hour - Blue hour only exists a few minutes everyday and is magical
10 strangers - Set out to take a portrait of ten people you never met
RAW - only shoot RAW for a month or if you’re a RAW shooter try jpg only.
LOVE - Spend a month photographing your family, friends and the things you love.
Print - Pick any month and print 36 images from that month.
Sunsets - Photograph sunsets for a month but with a different twist each day.
Local - Spend a month in your town/village and document reality.
Hunt color - Go for one or two colours and try to fit them into every image
Sports - Go to local events or bigger ones and try something new.
Abandoned places - this challenge will make you travel a bit more and very adventurous
Delete - Put in a new SD card and at the end of the month try to only have 31 images on the card.
Sepia - Almost no one uses the Sepia mode in these days, prove everyone wrong. Figure out a story and do it in Sepia
Roadtrip - Drive off somewhere you’ve never been and document the trip.
Emulate - Buy a photobook from your favorite photographer and try to emulate some of those images. Just like musicians learn other peoples songs we as photographers need to learn from our heroes.
Music - Have everything to do with music as a theme for a month. Vinyls, concerts, instruments etc
Songs - Pick your favorite song titles and try to recreate them as an image
Tripod - Use a tripod for every image for a month. Maybe not the most compact setup but it will make you compose alot better and see things from a new perspective.
The Movies - Try to get every frame to look like a frame from a movie.

I’m not a fan of selfies but why not throw in one really artsy selfie as well during the year, get creative!

END OF THE PROJECT - WHAT TO DO?

There will be mixed emotions when the year is over. So what to do next? Hopefully we have all learned something new. Maybe we found a new love for a style we never tried or we realize that we can’t live without a zoom lens. Every photographer is different. Here’s a few things you can do when it is all over.

Make another OCOLOY with a different focal length & setup to develop even more
Make your own magazine/book from the images
Do a small vernissage at a local pub/café
Inspire others
Give away some prints to family and friends.
Put some prints on your wall. Maybe do a print on fineart paper and put it on your wall.