With everyone spending more time indoors, it is a difficult for photographers to find ways to keep their creativity energised staying at home. With some creative ideas, you can click some fun photographs without stepping outside! We have listed some photography projects that you can shoot indoors, in your own home, without leaving the four walls and many of them can be done on your dining table using props or family members that you have available already at your place.
Make a splash
To get a professional studio still-life look without visiting a studio, attach or stick a white pillow case to a wall and kitchen platform in a curved shape for your background. Now place your camera on a tripod, place a glass of water with a lemon slice or any props that pops out and goes with the glass. Place the camera on the same level with the glass, but don’t fill the glass to the tip, leave a little space for the splash. Use and place an off-camera flash to one side of glass but remember it should face the pillow surface not the glass. Now you can throw the lemon slice or whatever prop you are using and capture it on fast shutter speed with continuous shot, so that you can capture the perfect moment when the lemon slice fell in water and the water splashes.
Candlelight Portrait
It may be lack in lighting up power, but candle light are way above its luminosity and can help you create some fantastic shots. To capture a candlelit portrait, go for Manual (M) mode and always use raw format. It is necessary to add the candle in the frame as well because the light is so warm that the light source is needed to help the viewer understand the photograph. Use an ISO of 1,600 or less and a nifty fifty lens at an aperture of f/2. Go for a shutter speed of 1/100 sec, and focus on the eye of the subject.
Mix oil and water
With the use of macro lens and a few daily house items, you can capture incredible images of oil drops floating on water. Like most macro shots, patience is essential, but the process forces you to focus on minute details that move, which might lead you become restless. But this experience and discipline is sure to help you in your other projects in the future. To prepare, take a glass with water and add a drop of washing-up liquid to it. Stir it a little and leave it to settle for 5-10 minutes. Then add a few drops of cooking oil and you can create the magic now.
Water drops
You don’t require a high-end camera to capture water art. The set-up for this project is very easy, but will require focussing and perfect timing. Put your camera on a tripod and fill the frame with the surface of the water and the drip. A macro lens can be useful, but is not a necessity. Whatever you keep in the background will be reflected in the water, so try various paper sheets of different colours and designs. Accurate focussing is important. So switch to Manual Focus mode and place a pencil tip at the splash area and focus on the tip. Now you just have to focus on capturing at right time.
Light Painting
Moving a small light within the frame during a long shutter will result in something very creative and beautiful. You can create an outline around an object using a light source to give it a shape or even use coloured string lights behind the object for a fantastic background. Attach your camera on a tripod, then compose and focus on the object. Now turn the camera to Manual Focus to lock the focussing distance, and set the mode to Manual (M). Dial in an ISO of 200 (low noise), a shutter speed of 8 sec (slow shutter), and an aperture of f/16 (deeper depth of field). Set the Self Timer to 5 sec. You can now switch off the lights and capture some beautiful light painting pictures.
Strike a match stick
When a match stick is struck, it fires up so fast that it is hard to observe what actually happened at the exact moment of firing. But by capturing a rapid burst of images at fast shutter speed, we can capture this fantastic moment. This will require a macro lens to capture it. But leave some extra space near the match stick head when you frame your image, as the flare while striking is bigger than you think.
Smoke Photography
Taking images of waves of smoke is really easy to achieve if you can get the lighting right. To capture an image of smoke, light up an incense stick and keep place it in front of a dark background. Use the off-camera flash in its Manual Mode to light it from one side, make sure that the flash is not faced towards the darker backdrop or on the lens. Focus on the tip of the incense stick, then switch to manual focus to lock the focus. Use Manual Mode, and set an aperture of f/8 and a shutter speed of 1/200 sec. Now capture some normal test shots, and adjust the flash intensity to make the smoke brighter or darker, until you have the perfect lighting.
