Quote Originally Posted by Brian500au View Post
So as Kym suggested, cliché is a good place to start.
Definitely.

I'd wager that most of us start out shooting anything and everything, which includes the usual shots of the Sydney Harbour Bridge and other over-photographed subjects.

Sunrises and sunsets are very popular too.

Model shots also suffer from the repetition that many other model shots have: scantily-clad girl in front of backdrop or draped over car, or on all fours at the beach.

As you pointed out, learning is a big part of the process, and shooting done-to-death images is a good way to put that stuff into practice. It would be very rare for someone new to photography, who lacks understanding and experience, to go out there and do something revolutionary -- something nobody else has done.

Once a person has acquired the knowledge and experience, branching out into a relatively unique style of image is something that the creative-minded and original-in-thought can aspire to do; but it's hard to do that sort of thing without covering the basics, and shooting images of tired old subjects is a good way to build up that skill set.