Photo Walks – 9 Ways To Bring It All Back Home

Usually we’re free to wander far and wide with our cameras, capturing whatever turns our eye.

But in these times of self isolation and limited travel, how can we bring our photo walks back home to us?

Here are nine ideas –

One Room, Fifty Photographs

This is an experiment I’ve tried a few times and documented twice here on 35hunter –

One Room, Fifty Photographs

One Room, Fifty Photographs (II)

In short, the approach is simple – stay in one room until you’ve taken fifty photographs.

At first it feels like there’s nothing at all to photograph in such familiar surroundings. But gradually, the more you start to look, the more photographic opportunities you’ll find.

You can of course repeat this project in different rooms or your garden or yard for extra variety.

Up Close And Intimate

Previously, I wrote a five post series called How To Get Up Close And Intimate, outlining some of the options for close up photography I’ve tried.

Now’s a fantastic time to crack out those close focus options.

You can combine this with some of the other ideas here, like One Room Fifty Photographs, Family Portraits, Garden Ring Of Life and Self Portraits.

Family Portraits

Most of us live with at least one other person (or animal!). This might be a great time to explore some portrait photography.

Make it as arty, serious or fun as you wish.

Sunrises And Sunsets

We’ve had the most beautiful clear and sunny weather over the last few days, meaning the sunrises and sunsets have come and gone in a slow burning and almost infinite array of orange and golden hues.

(A colleague of mine insists the current lack of aeroplanes, and subsequently carbon, in the sky is a significant factor in how clear and blue it appears.)

Most of us don’t need to go far from our home to capture the sky first thing in the morning or as the sun falls at night. Sooner or later you’re likely to have a clear enough morning or night, so take advantage when you can.

Clouds

Staying in the sky, one thing I don’t like about clear skies is the lack of clouds, which are possibly the most common subject in my whole photography repertoire.

Most days we have the opportunity to gaze at the clouds – and of course photograph those we find interesting. Like many aspects of photography in this list, the more you slow down and look, the more you’ll see.

Garden Ring Of Life

One of the most vivid memories I have of science lessons at secondary school is a simple exercise we were given one day.

We each had a hula hoop (the type that you can put over head and gyrate to circle around your waist, not the popular brand of crunchy crisps!) and a magnifying glass, and went outside on the school field.

Our hoops were scattered randomly on the ground and we were invited to examine and count all of the different types of insect and plant we could find within the perimeter of the hoop.

It was mind blowing how the ground was teeming with life.

So this is another option to try in your own garden or a secluded corner of a local park, woodland or green space – again those closer focusing lens options will come in handy.

Gear Photos

It’s of perennial annoyance to me that the pictures with most views on my Flickr stream by far are pictures of cameras, in fact all of the top 13, and 17 of the top 20.

Anyway, sometimes cameras do make beautiful subject matter themselves, and this is an excellent opportunity to dust off a few and display them in favourable light to photograph as “still life” of sorts.

Again, getting close and encouraging the viewer to focus on details they may usually overlook can be very powerful here.

Travel By Tele

If you’re sitting in your garden or at a window you can use a telephoto or zoom lens to reach and frame compositions you might not usually consider.

If you have an SLR or DSLR you probably have either a zoom or telephoto lens already, and most digital compacts extend to 100mm or more. The tiny little Lumix XS1 I’ve been using this month goes to 120mm, incredibly.

Normally I use zoom lenses at their widest (especially with compacts) or at least at a fixed length, like 35mm. But this is definitely an approach I’m going to try in the coming days.

Self Portaits

Or, to use the common parlance, selfies.

Even if you do have another willing live model in your household, it can be fun to experiment with a few self portraits.

They can be as staged or as natural as you wish, and you can experiment with a tripod set up and timed shutter release, or just more spontaneous hand held close ups.

Hopefully these nine tips will give you some fresh photography inspiration while you’re more home bound than usual, and ensure your photography not only continues to tick over, but perhaps blossoms in some interesting and fruitful new directions.

Do you have any tips to add for photography projects close to home? 

Please let us know in the comments below (and don’t forget to tick the “Notify me of new comments via email” box to follow the conversation).

Thanks for looking.

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