Photo projects. We all need a project.

I was resistant to the idea for a long time, but after a lot of experimentation I found that having a project is crucial to my development as a photographer. At this point, it’s what drives me to take photographs.

But not in the way photography culture usually talks about projects.

I don’t mean traveling to some far-off place, documenting people you’ve never met, or chasing a story on the other side of the world. Most of us don’t have the time, money, or freedom to do that.

I’m talking about what’s right in front of you.

A squirrel in the backyard. Halloween decorations on a neighborhood street. A fence catching the morning light. A tree you’ve walked past a hundred times and never really looked at.

That’s the project.

Most people can make time for that. Most people can walk out their front door and document their local neighborhood.

For the first six years of doing street photography, I had no real purpose. I enjoyed taking pictures, but I didn’t know where they were going. Now I do.

Every time I click the shutter, I know there is a small chance that photograph could end up in Survey. That changes everything. It keeps me focused. It keeps me curious. It pushes me to look for new subjects and new ways of seeing familiar things.

The magazine gives the photographs a destination.

The actual act of taking pictures has become the easy part. The challenge is deciding what to do with all of them. That’s where the project comes in. It provides structure. It creates momentum. It gives me a reason to keep going.

What matters most is that the project is connected to your life.

I think you’ll get more fulfillment photographing your own neighborhood than someplace you have no connection to. You have a relationship with these streets, these trees, these houses, these ordinary moments. They’re part of your experience.

If you can make a photograph of something familiar and turn it into something meaningful, that has real value.

You don’t need to travel across the world.

You can walk down your sidewalk and make it happen.

You can build a project from the place where you already are.