Bevlea Ross Photography

7 Easy Creative Photography Ideas

Looking for something to do while stuck at home?  Here are seven easy creative photography ideas. If you google ‘creative photography’, you will find it explained in many different ways. Creative Photography isn’t a cut-and-dried style such as Landscape, Portrait, Street Photography, etc. To me, creative photography is an image that is made rather than taken and one that has been created through experimentation and creative ideas. Images such as double exposure, splash, refractions, floating food, toys in dioramas, etc, all come under ‘creative’ photography. It’s also a genre you can do without leaving the house, which is extremely handy during covid lockdown. splash
1. Splash Photography
Splash photography is an easy one. Luckily, I am extremely suited to digital photography. The amount of film that would be wasted on this doesn’t bear thinking about – but with digital, it doesn’t matter if you dump 20 shots to get one keeper. For the image above, I placed a teaspoon on a mirror – poured yellow food colouring on the mirror and put red food colouring in the teaspoon. My camera was set up on a tripod and in high-speed continuous mode. I had more red food colouring in an eye dropper, and at the same time, as I squeezed off a drop, I fired off the shutter using a remote. Flinging fruit and vegetables into water is also a hugely fun project (and, again, hit and miss). There is very little science to it, setup, throw and shoot. Out of every burst, you will prob get one or two keepers.
Fish Tank = splash
For water splash photography, set up a fish tank against a non-reflective background (I prefer black). Fill the tank to about 3/4 full. Hard fruits such as lemons, limes, pomegranate, persimmon, apples, kiwi fruit and capsicums work the best. Berries are too light and soft – except for strawberries – you can use them but use them last as they will make the water murky as they get soggy.  The full tutorial is HERE creative photography ideaswater splash
Lighting
You do need a flash for splash to freeze the motion – Set your ISO to 200, F stop 11.0 and have a shutter speed of 1/125. You also need your camera on high-speed continuous. Wipe the outside of the glass between throws to save you from having to tidy it up in post. You will also need to tidy up the image using a clone tool, as you will get lots of unwanted drips and drops.  It’s also an image that will look totally underwhelming until it’s edited.  In the above image, you can see before – straight out of the camera, and after, with editing.  I cloned out the distractions, bumped up the colour, deepened the blacks and applied a sharpen.
2. Crystal Balls
crystal balls
Crystal balls are popular at the moment, with even FB groups dedicated to them. The balls are available on eBay, sized from tiny up to large. I have a 60mm and 80mm but use the 60mm the most. They are heavy if you are going to carry them around in your bag all day, as they are solid glass. You also need to be very careful of fires with them. I had mine sitting on the console in the car as I drove, and the sun coming in went through the ball and melted the console underneath the ball! It now stays in a little drawstring bag when not in use. The ball will reverse the image but depending on the amount of blur you have, you can rotate the image so what’s in the ball is right way up. I like to shoot at around F2.8 – 4.5 to really blur the background out; that way, I can flip the image and have the image in the ball right way up
creative photography - study of trees
3. Oil and Water
Oil and water is one of the easiest to do at home. Mainly because you probably have everything you already need there. Glass dish, oil, water. Good to go. I did a full tutorial on oil and water HERE.
oil and water creative photography
creative photography oil and water
4. Little Planets
Little planets are images made from your panoramic images. Using Photoshop, you manipulate the image to look like a little planet. It’s easy and loads of fun. The tutorial for Little Planets is HERE
little planets
5. Frozen Flowers
frozen flowers in macro
Frozen flowers require flowers, of course – and water. I prefer distilled water (available at shops such as Auto Barn or Supercheap) as distilled water will give you a clearer, less cloudy look than tap water. And no, boiling the tap water first won’t help. The full tutorial on Frozen Flowers is HERE
creative photography frozen flowers
6. International Camera Movement
intentional camera movement trees
Intentional camera movement is where you hit the shutter and deliberately move the camera to give you an abstract look. It’s not the same as an out of focus image as you actually do focus on your subject – and then move the camera. It works best on images with straight lines in them, such as trees or horizons on the beach, etc. The tutorial for ICM can be found HERE
creative photography trees
7. Multiplicity
multiplicity
Multiplicity is so simple yet loads of fun. Set your tripod up in one spot, giving good coverage of the area you will be in. You then simply take a photo (using your remote), move to another area, take another photo, repeat, repeat. You can change your clothes between shots to show a progression of your movement over time or interact with yourself. Or you can stay in the same clothes to show a smaller interval of time, or you can move around fast 😉 Once you have taken all your images, load them into a stack in Photoshop and, using layer masks, rub out the areas to expose where you are. The full tutorial is HERE Have fun with your creative photography. Be warned, once you have tried it, you will be looking for all sorts of weird setups to do 🙂
Bevlea Ross 27 August 2020
Creative Photography / Photography 0
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