Original ideas for taking photos at home

You’ve felt this before, haven’t you? The fact of grabbing your device, leaving your home and going on an adventure without knowing exactly what you will find along the way. We let ourselves be carried away by the moment and it is really special and exciting. But sometimes, everyday obligations, bad weather or even laziness prevent these photo trips from taking place.

Ideas to follow

Water drops

The good thing about photographing water is that you will never get two identical photos, even if the technique used is the same for all the photos. So the range of possibilities is very wide.

Succeeding in capturing a drop of water requires some practice but the effects obtained can be impressive: the drop frozen just before coming into contact with the static water, different forms of splashing, the waves caused by the impact on the water… So beautiful and so simple at the same time!

How to give an original touch to these photos? You have several options:

• Use colored backgrounds and containers to paint the water in different colors from the typical blue
• Drop other objects on the water in a container, such as pieces of fruit or ice cubes (be careful not to get the camera wet!) Or pour water on them.
• Use liquids other than water : oil, wine, milk…
• Don’t just settle for moving drops, also capture surfaces splashed with water or other liquids

Take photos at home using smoke

Smoke, like water, is a “living” element: it changes all the time, so you will never have the same photo twice, even if that is what you are looking for. A cigarette, match or incense stick will be used to produce smoke for a while, but be careful of drafts . If there is too much wind, the smoke will evaporate very quickly and you will only be able to capture a cloud or worse – the source of smoke could simply go out.

Since the color of the smoke is whiteish gray, you will need a black background that is opaque enough to make the smoke stand out well, creating a nice contrast.

Photos of smoke on a black background give results steeped in mystery, although you can also have fun inverting colors in Photoshop and coloring in shapes to give it a more vivid touch.

Fire

Fire has always had a hypnotic effect on humans. Its beauty and changing shapes fascinate us. Like water and smoke, it is a constantly changing element that can take many forms. It’s a magical light!

To photograph the fire at home, you can resort to a fireplace or a candle. The fire in the fireplace is twinkling, so you can play with the shutter speed to freeze motion or to blur a shape and allow sparks to leave a luminous trail. The light of a candle will move less, but if you blow on it or let a draft in the room, you can also experiment with its different shapes generated.

Lightpainting to take pictures at home

As DZOptics presents, playing with light is one of the funniest experiences in photography. Have you never tried this? A lamp and a darkroom are enough to prove yourself in this type of photo and draw shapes, write words and produce truly amazing effects.

An ideal accessory for taking impressive lightpainting photos is the Gloxy Power Blade. Its different levels of intensity, its 3 light positions and its orange filter considerably increase the options available to create a scene.It is likely that you will not achieve this type of photo the first time, but do not despair! Plan, practice and review your results so that you will improve on the following tests until you get what you want. And once the technique is mastered, you can even try your hand at lightpainting with steel wool.