10 Photography Ideas at Home
Looking for some photography ideas at home? Then I have you covered!
I know it’s tempting to think that we need to leave our home and go to some interesting or far flung location to get great photos, but there IS a wealth of opportunity to practice your skills, AND get great photos, all without leaving the house.
So in this video, I’m going to share 10 different photography ideas you can do at home.
These will kick start your creativity, give you some suggestions of photos to take, as well as give you some mini projects you can do to improve your skills! So a little somethin’ for everyone.
Plus, below this video you’ll get access to a free bonus download, our “50 Ways To Improve Your Photography Skills” guide - filled with photography ideas you can do at home.
Watch the episode below, which has loads of examples, tips and ideas, or if you’re in a rush, keep scrolling to read just the highlights..
-- LINKS & RELATED CONTENT --
*** FREE GUIDE! 👉 50 WAYS TO IMPROVE YOUR PHOTOGRAPHY ***
► One Subject, 10 Photos Creative Challenge
► Guide to Buying a Macro Lens
I do also want to let you know that if you want MORE ideas, you can download a brand new resource I have for you: “50 Ways to Improve Your Photography”. It’s totally free, and in it you’ll get 50 ideas, broken down into ideas for techniques, light, composition and post production to help you take better photos. Simply go here or click on the link below to grab your free copy! Go get it now, I’ll wait……
#1 Natural Light Portraits
You really can take the most amazing portraits indoors, with nothing more than a window and some natural light! To begin with, try to use a window that is larger than your subject, and that does NOT currently have direct sunlight coming through. This will turn your window into a giant softbox, and allow you to take beautiful portraits.
Try mixing up how you light your subject - try lighting them from the front, at a 45 degree angle, a 90 degrre angle and from behind!
Read this post 10 Tips for a Portrait Close Up for more tips and ideas!
#2 Creative Egg Challenge
This is a classic artists exercise, and it's fantastic for you regardless of what stage of your photography journey you are currently on. If you are new to photography, it's a great way to begin to see light and shadows, or play with different compositions, and if you are more advanced, it can be challenging to come up with more advanced compositions, or for example, also consider things like colour theory.
Here’s how to do it; Simply take an egg, or any other simple everyday object, and find at least TEN completely different ways to photograph it. Think about using light, compositional techniques, adding depth, or using color and texture to add interest to your subject - you can watch the video to an example!
#3 Daily Life Photography
I know some people may shy away from photographing their daily life, but it is just as challenging at other types of photography, and you can create some beautiful, compelling images of simple, everyday moments.
I suggest that you start by creating a bucket list of images you’d like to capture, to help it feel less random.
Then try to photograph your activity but play close attention to things like light, background, angles, composition and so on. Your goal is to lift what could otherwise be a snapshot, into something beautiful and artistic.
When photographing, try moving around your subject and see whether you can get use the light in a more interesting way - for example by backlighting your subject, incorporating shadows into your images, getting a silhouette, or simply getting into a position where the light is flattering.
So try not to remain static and stay in one position when taking images - move around your subject and see which different angles you can use. Sometimes you find that by changing your angle you inadvertently find the best way to capture a moment - and that’s often not the angle that you might have first chosen.
5 Tips To Help You Beautifully Capture Your Days and 12 Lifestyle Photography Tips
#4 Macro Photography
Without a doubt, macro photography has been an unexpected joy for me with photography - it allows you to see the world in a whole new way, and appreciate the beauty that can be found everywhere if you get close enough!
For true macro you will need either a dedicated macro lens, or you can buy macro filters for your existing lenses. You’ll find a link to a blog post with some more information about buying a macro lens if this is something that you are interested in.
The beauty of macro is that beauty or an interesting shot can be found just about anywhere. Take some time to explore your surroundings - start in a room and try not just to see the big picture, but really drill down to finding the details. Look for items with intricate details, or patterns or textures.
Two simple suggestions to get you started are water droplets, you can often find this on flowers and plants in the morning or after rain, or simply spray some water onto an object like I’ve done here with an apple.
Another simple suggestion is to photograph oil and water. Simply drop some oil into a bowl of water and you’ll see so many interesting shapes to capture.
Click here for some macro photography tips.
#5 Food Photography
Food is a fantastic thing to photograph, as you can capture a wide range of textures and colours.
Again, don’t just quickly snap a photo of your dinner, try to think about light and composition here too. Natural light is best for food photography, unless you are happy to use artificial light like soft boxes or a speedlight, but avoid fluorescent kitchen lights or tungsten lamps.
You can really play with the colours in your image. You can use coloured backgrounds (I just use pieces of coloured card) or photograph on wooden floors, or different cloths to really experiment with texture and colour.
#6 Black and White
I love black and white images - they are beautifully timeless and allow you to see the world in a completely different way. Light is particularly important in a black and white image, as we don’t have colour to differentiate objects, we have to look at the different tones.
So challenge yourself to shoot exclusively in black and white, either just for a whole day, or a whole week, or if you really want to go for it, a whole month!
So, what makes a good black and white image? Images have a good range of tones, or high contrast between the black and white areas. Also images with texture - including images with a lot of noise - also look fantastic in black and white.
#7 Self Portrait
For photos at home, you can’t really beat a self portrait (mainly because I’m too shy to take a proper selfie anywhere other than indoors)
The good news is there’s nothing really more complicated about self photography than ”normal” photography, the biggest problem is the logistics of getting yourself behind the camera, and making sure that you are in focus (and not feeling silly having a camera trained on you!) and actually pressing the shutter!
If you really don’t like to have your face in the picture, then you can take images of yourself without it having to be a full on portrait.
I do have a guide on taking a self portrait, you can find a link to that in the description below the video.
Click here for some tips on how to take a self portrait with your DSLR!
#8 Details
If you don’t have a macro lens, then you won’t be able to do “true” macro photos, but you can still get in close and capture the smaller details. When photographing a scene or activity, shoot the whole picture, but then get in close and capture some of the smaller details - like little hands holding a paintbrush, your child’s favourite book, or little baby toes.
#9 Natural Light as the Subject
Light really is THE most important element in photography, so an amazing way to turn everyday images into something amazing, is to use dramatic light.
And you can definitely still get dramatic light at home! Look for the sun peeking out between the blinds, through a window, or if you can venture into the back garden, in between the leaves of a tree.
Or look to the shadows that the light creates - is there any interesting patterns that you can capture?
Once you start to look for it, you’ll see amazing opportunities all around you indoors, just because of the light.
#10 - Low Light
Next up in our whistle stop tour of photography ideas at home is low light. Technically this could have come under the last idea, but I think it deserves a special mention, because too often people shy away from low light. But it can be a fantastic way of creating interesting or moodier images. Try different light sources here too - what about using lamp light, or candle light, or the light from an iPad? All fantastic sources of light to help give you interesting images when shooting at home.
Don’t forget you can download that free guide “50 Ways to Improve Your Photography” and get even MORE ideas of photos, exercise and projects you can do from home. Go here or click on the image below to download your free copy!
Over to you!
So now I’d love to hear from you! Let me know in the comments below what you thought of this week’s episode, along with any photography ideas at home YOU have. Let’s share our ideas and make this a community experience!
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Thank you so much for being here and I’ll see you next week!
