It set me to thinking that, regardless of what equipment you have (be that camera and lenses, painting materials, your computer, or any other tools you use to be creative) there is always room for creativity.

What it needs is a change of mindset.

If you’re a professional, then of course you should invest in the best equipment you can afford, that’s at least satisfactory for the tasks you need to perform.

As a hobbyist, there’s nothing wrong with dreaming of the creations you could make if you had this or that piece of kit. However, when it interferes with the creative process now, there’s a hurdle you have to overcome.

Instead of looking at what you can’t do, look at what you can do.

Look at how the tools you have in front of you right now can be used to create something new.

Perhaps they can be used in new ways that you hadn’t thought of before.

Or perhaps they simply need to be used in the same way, but in a different location or with a different subject.

Having oodles of equipment won’t instantly make you more creative. It’s a fallacy to believe that having the ‘right gear’ is all it takes.

Instead, concentrate on your creativity and use what’s around you now.

Improvise.

You may surprise yourself.

One source of inspiration is the flickr popular tags page, which shows you what the most popular photo tags were over the past 24 hours, one week, or all time.

Looking at the all time popular tags, you’d expect to see the likes of ‘birthday’, ‘friends’, ’sunset’, ‘clouds’, ‘city’ and so on. When you look at the more recent tags, though, they often don’t make an awful lot of sense. Unless you were at “Northern Voice 2010″, for example, simply seeing a tag for it may not help you.

Of course, you’ll now be expecting me to plug the picWords book, and you’d be right.

As I’ve explained elsewhere, you might think the list of words are just randomly picked, but in fact they are designed to help give you a creative boost, a change in direction, and a break from what you normally shoot.

They’re not necessarily ‘popular’ tags, either. Some of them are, of course, but others are probably words you wouldn’t immediately think of tagging photos with. What they encourage you to do is to find new ways of looking at the world around you, of composing scenes, and taking different (and hopefully better) photos.

It’s like tagging before the photo has even been taken.

Anyway, back to this weekend. In the northern hemisphere, spring has definitely sprung in many places. The days are lighter and longer, and there’s a whole host of natural activity going on — flowers, animals and birds are bursting.

Why not go to your favourite patch of nature, or pick a brand new one, observe it, and then capture it with your camera.

Even in the city, there’s a lot of life going on. Go get it.

Wherever you shoot this weekend, enjoy it.

“A man was spoken to by officers on 10 May after police were called by security personnel,” a spokesperson said. “He was later searched under terrorism powers.”

Although police have no powers to stop members of the public or media filming in public places, it seems that clashes are still occurring, and anyone using a camera in potentially ’sensitive’ urban areas is viewed with suspicion.

An account and reaction is available on the NUJ web site.

For more on this issue in general, have a look at the I’m a Photographer Not a Terrorist site.

First we’re heading to the National Portrait Gallery to look at the Irving Penn Portraits. Then, hopefully with a forecast of sunny intervals, the light should be good for some afternoon shooting.

Last time we went to Spitalfields Market and the Gherkin but the weather was a washout — plenty of watery reflections, but a tad miserable. Hopefully tomorrow will be better (and we won’t bump into too many Chelsea fans.)

If you’re out this weekend doing some photography, enjoy it, and don’t forget that if you’re ever stuck for ideas, the picWords book can help.

If you’re in the UK, you can buy it now for £7.99. Prices will vary for international customers.

What is picWords?

picWords was created because I wanted a way to find quick inspiration or set myself a creative challenge when my photography became stale, boring and lacklustre.

The concept is very simple: pick one or more words, or a whole group of ten, and use them as the basis to take photos.

Sure, I could make up my own words on the spot, but if already lacking in creativity, that didn’t seem likely to happen.

With a book that I can carry with me in my camera bag, I can now use these word lists to spark creative ideas. It can also be used to help me practice shooting types and styles of photograph I’m not used to.

Just photographers?

The concept was conceived as an aid to photographers, but it’s certainly not limited to them.

The words could be a great creative springboard for other artists: painters, sketchers, sculptors, creative writers, storytellers… the list goes on.

Random words?

You might look at the list of words and think they’re just a random collection, but I can assure you that I didn’t just pull arbitrary words from a dictionary and stick them in the book.

The words were chosen because they can be used to help visual artists be inspired. There are words for colours, objects, styles, scenes, emotions, and more. Some words are deliberately ambiguous, others are seasonal but could be used in alternative contexts.

Days, Months, Years

The book has over 700 words listed, which means you could pick a new word every day for nearly two years, or challenge yourself with a group of ten words every day for over two months.

Even if you exhaust all the words, you can always go back and do them again. The world around you constantly changes, as do your creative ideas, so even if you pick the same words again, you’re sure to come up with something new.

Buy Now

Go ahead. Give your creativity a kick start. Buy picWords Now.