007 - 10 Ways to Improve your Photography from Home

Welcome to episode 7 of the podcast! 
This was supposed to be part 2 of our 3 part series on learning from the masters. But, in light of recent global events, I wanted something more hands-on than what that series was offering. Something that can provide you with things to do in and around your home because, as we know, lots of people are or will need to be at home for extended periods of time. But that doesn’t mean you can’t still improve your photography as there are lots of awesome photography related things you can do right in your home.

It’s 10 Ways to Improve your Photography from Home.

The 10 tips:

1. Practice your lighting through self-portraits

   • Set up a photoshoot to practice your lighting, and you don’t need a subject except yourself. This gives you the chance to play with different light setups, different styles and learn your gear in a no-pressure environment.

   • You don’t need speed lights or studio lights either, you can use natural light, flashlights, or even candles (just make sure not to set anything on fire).

2. Pick an object, and create 100 different images of it

   • Put it in different locations, different poses, different lighting styles. 

   • Get creative!

3. DIY your own light modifiers and other photo modifiers

   • You can build reflectors, flags, snoots, grids, barn doors, and lots more at home. (descriptions of what these all are will be below our tips).

4. Read your camera manual and get to know your camera inside out

   • Get to know how to use your camera with your eyes closed

5. Pick a room in your house and find unusual angles

   • Treat this like it is a photo shoot. Get in there and take as many unique images of the space as you can

6. Create a photostory of a day-in-your-life

   • Pick a day that is just like any other

   • Teaches you about the importance of documenting the whole story not just the photo at the end (like we talked about in episode 1)

7. Create some forced perspective photos

   • Make small objects look huge in your space or vice versa

8. Create some flat lays of your gear or common travel items

   • This is where you layout your gear (climbing, hiking, travel, photography, etc...) in a nice pattern on your floor/table and take a photo of it all

   • This is great to have ready for your insta feed so you don’t need to make it before heading out

9. Do some composite photography

   • Composite photography is where you combine elements from different images into one image to create a new piece of art

   • Try re-creating scenes from a movie or your favourite book.

   • Ensure that you are shooting each subject in such a way that it is easy to remove the subject from the photo in photoshop (like don’t wear white clothing against a white wall)

10. Read some amazing photobooks

    • Most public libraries have books available online

    • Google Books has a few available as well

11. Get to know all your cameras

    • If you have access to more than one camera (a dSLR and a smartphone) use all of them! The same goes for lenses. Learn how to use all your gear.

Descriptions:

• Reflector: A light-coloured object that bounces light back towards your subject.

• Flag: An opaque object used to block light.

• Snoot: A tube that fits over a light and allows you to control the direction and radius of the light beam

• Barn Doors: 4 flaps around a light that are used to control the direction of light.