I really miss traveling and shooting different locations, but we are still spending a lot of time in our homes. What that means is, as a photographer you have to come up with some home photography ideas. Even though you are limited to the places you can go, you are not limited in being creative shooting in and around your house. It just takes you stretching your imagination and looking online for ideas. With that said, we can still get stuck creatively. Here are five ways I have continued to keep shooting during the pandemic.
Home Photography Ideas
1. Food Photography
If you have any interest in food photography, this a perfect time. You can experiment with those recipes you’ve been wanting to try. You can use different plating, lighting, and accessories to create some tasty images. I’ve been fortunate that my son is a pastry chef, and people still wanted custom cakes. So, I have had plenty of opportunities to shoot cakes.
2. Freeze things in ice
This project takes a little prep time, but you can try one of the other home photography ideas while waiting. Simply take something you have around the house, put it in a container or ice tray with water, and freeze it. I used a small flower from my front yard. It was pretty interesting, because the images changed as the ice melted. In fact, I liked the later shots more than the earlier ones. TIP: If you use Distilled Water, you will get clearer ice.
3. Macrophotography
In this photography project, you can take an average item and make it new – by shooting it up close. Since we don’t usually see them that way, we unlock a hidden visual world. You can use any lens, but you will get better results if you have a true macro lens, like my favorite Canon EF 100mm f/2.8L. Regular lenses will have a macro feature. But macro lenses allow you to get closer to the subject, since they have a shorter Minimum Focus Distance.
4. Water droplets
Ever since I saw my first water drop collision photo, I was intrigued, I wanted to try it. After countless Youtube videos on equipment, setup, etc.., I set out to do it. Although this photography project requires some specialized equipment, it can be done without it. But, it is a little more challenging. My first attempts at water drop photography was with a DIY drop valve. You can read about that here…. Later I found the Pluto Trigger & Pluto Valve. You can control the drops through a smartphone app, and it makes it much easier to capture some unique photos.
5. Take a picture of your toilet
This is one of my favorite of the home photography ideas. I read the Rick Sammon book: Photo Therapy Motivation and Wisdom: Discovering the Power of Pictures. In the book there was a “mission” to photograph your toilet. Odd… yes, but not so much. Anyway, I was up to the challenge. So, I accepted the mission and headed to the bathroom. Prior to that, I had only shot a toilet when I did some real estate shoots. But, it then it was just part of the bathroom – not the central subject of the photo.
Conclusion
As you see, being in the house doesn’t mean you have to settle for not shooting or get bored shooting. In addition to the above, I’ve also spent a lot of time photographing birds in my backyard. Hopefully, these 5 home photography ideas helped give you some inspiration. You can try these, or maybe they sparked another idea. In any event, if you have some other ideas or images you’ve shot at home, I’d love it if you shared them. And, if you try some of these – I’d love to see your images.
