Inspiracles – Take Better Pictures With This Deck of Cards

Berhard Rauscher, knows what it's like to be constantly churning out ideas. He used to own a marketing agency and had to come up with creative concepts on a daily basis."I’ve learned a lot about inspiration, creativity, and brainstorming during that time and used all of my experience and findings when creating those tasks for photographers that are supposed to get the creative juices flowing," he says. With his latest project, Inspiracles Creative Card Decks, he and his team aim to help photographers generate ideas and develop their photographic eye with creative tasks.

Inspiracles can give your creative slump a boost!

What inspired you to create Inspiracles Creative Card Decks for Photography?

Every beginner photographer usually strives to get better at photography and to take more creative and epic pictures. While pursuing this goal it’s very easy to get trapped in the misconception that better gear will help you take better photos. While this can be true in specific cases, we believe that two major points are often missed: learning the theory and learning to be creative. There are tons of books, websites, and videos that will help you get the theory down, but you will rarely find resources that help you become a more creative photographer and draw inspiration from the moment.

Could you give us your top three favorite challenges from the current Inspiracles Deck, and why?

That’s a really tough one because we put a lot of heart and soul into all of our challenges, so naturally, we’re deeply connected to all of them. I’d say, my favorites are the ones that are really simple but have a big impact and can create this “oh, wow”-moment for new photographers.

Worm’s eye would be such a challenge. I see many photographers only take images from their eye level. While there’s nothing really wrong with that, changing your perspective can have a huge impact on your photography. We actually have a whole range of challenges dedicated to changing your perspective like simply walking around your subject and taking a photo from behind.

Another great example is Frame. When you look at photos from the great masters of photography, they often use natural frames, to frame their subject. It’s such an incredible way to draw the viewer's attention to a specific part of the image and at the same time, it’s a great exercise for developing your photographic eye. Framing your subject can help you make your photo look more thought out and even tell a story.

Then there is a challenge called My Story which is supposed to make you think not so much about your “subject” but about the concept and the message your photo contains. Which in my opinion is a huge and important thing to learn for every photographer. It’s easy to take a photo of something, just because it’s photogenic, and it looks beautiful, but it’s a huge leap forward if you learn to take photos that tell a story and transport a mood.

Taken by Christopher Kreymborg using the Inspiracle Cards *Big Aperture, Urban Nature, and Silhouette*

What is your own personal philosophy when it comes to photography and creativity in general?

We truly believe that every single person is born with a creative mind. It’s just a matter of whether someone is persistent and (especially) brave enough to let their creativity come to life and roam free. Creativity can be intimidating because it’s something very personal and not everyone has the same taste.

There’s one really simple trick to becoming a more creative photographer though: baby steps. Don’t expect too much but at the same time be prepared that small exercises and small changes can potentially have a big impact on your photography.

When we make small adjustments and try something new, that’s even just slightly outside our comfort zone, we oftentimes make discoveries by accident, that can have a big impact on our work. That’s basically how inspiration and creativity works: Not being afraid to constantly take baby steps outside your comfort zone.

Samples by Christopher Kreymborg alongside the Inspiracle Cards *Worm's Eye, and Same Same*

Lastly, what new challenges could we expect from the new Inspiracles Deck?

We will start by bringing our German bestsellers to the English market, the “classic” edition and the “landscape” edition. While the classic edition focuses on things that basically every good photographer should learn and have in its repertoire in order to take creative photos, our landscape edition is focused specifically on nature and landscape photos, and on techniques to get more creative in the great outdoors.

With our Kickstarter campaign, we will also release a new edition, that we didn’t even release in the German market yet: The “portrait”-edition. It’s an often requested set, and we came up with 52 creative tasks specifically for portraits to help photographers come up with ideas to take extraordinary pictures of people.