Photography Prompt: Unbeautiful

Week of 2024-06-01 to 2024-06-07

May 31, 2024

Create and share photos inspired by this week's prompt, "Unbeautiful" on your Aminus3 website, Substack Notes, or linked in the comments on this post.

sin belleza, sans beauté , zonder schoonheid, 美しさのない, ilma iluta, senza bellezza

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Be Inspired and Learn Something New

Pairing with last week’s prompt of “Striking” comes an opposite idea of “unbeautiful.”

While you can of course interpret each prompt as you choose, I think of it not so much as “ugly”, as it is about the unbeautiful things in the world which have a certain beauty in their own way.

For us photographers, this could be a subject that while ugly and ordinary under most circumstances, might take on a new look with the right light, composition, or editing.

There is probably a word in German or Japanese to describe this exact thing as those two languages seem have the uncanny ability to convey a range of conceptual ideas in a single word. But alas, in English, “unbeautiful”1 is the word that comes to mind.

Of course, as Shrek taught us, “beauty is in the eye of the beholder.” You might find beauty in things that others do not. That works too.

Camels at the Singing Sand Dunes by Jason

Give that some thought this week as you go out to photograph unbeautiful things.

Last Week’s Prompt Photos for “Striking”

Before you explore the world of unbeauty, let’s take a look back at last week’s “Striking” prompt to find some of the pretty things as well as a few other creative interpretations of this theme.