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up vote 11 down vote favorite
2

I want to take pictures at home, but I can't think of things to shoot. Any ideas ?

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3  
Fundamentally related: "Where do you find the inspiration for your photographs?" photo.stackexchange.com/questions/7663/… – Craig Walker Feb 3 '11 at 15:43
And should probably be a CW as well. – rfusca♦ Feb 3 '11 at 16:28
@M.Walker : Totally agree, but I more specific to "at home". – Philippe Lavoie Feb 3 '11 at 20:55

9 Answers

up vote 11 down vote accepted

Follow @dailyshoot on Twitter. I did that for about a month, and having a daily 'assignment' was a great way to get me to take a picture every day (practice makes perfect, after all!) and to learn and try new things (would you believe, that's where I learned about DOF/bokeh?).

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Nice !! THANKS ! – Philippe Lavoie Feb 3 '11 at 19:29
And be sure to check out the website: dailyshoot.com – Craig Walker Feb 3 '11 at 23:44
You may find you can get ideas from one of the "painting a day" blogs out there as well( google.com/search?q=painting+a+day ). Duane Keiser's site is probably the canonical example, but they all hinge on making compelling images of small everyday objects, food, etc. (Food shots, as I've said before, are hard to get right. You can probably learn more making food look delicious than from any other single genre of photography.) – Stan Rogers Feb 4 '11 at 4:08
up vote 5 down vote

A common maxim for writers is "Write what you know." This applies to photography as well. Think of your interests, hobbies, job, or just plain daily experiences — at home or out and around — and find an element of that which has visual interest.

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I like that. Shooting about what I know. I can be very interesting, I'm a computer engineer, code can be fun ! – Philippe Lavoie Feb 3 '11 at 15:14
Absolutely. Although software is a little hard to capture visually (other than screen shots!) a lot of hardware is interesting to look at. Or from a larger point of view, if you don't mind mixing interests, consider what interesting computational things you can do with photography as an input. See for example youtube.com/watch?v=f5g8k-n4j_o – mattdm Feb 3 '11 at 15:28
up vote 3 down vote

When practicing particular techniques, I often take pictures literally of whatever is in front of me at the time. So, for instance, when playing with depth of field, I'll shoot my water bottle on my desk so that I can see the blur in the plants in the background.

Technically, it's a perfect photo. Aesthetically it's boring, so I never show it to anyone. I'll usually delete it and move on.

If you want something to show people, then you start the same place you'd start with any other photograph: what is your intent by making this picture? What story are you trying to tell? What effect on the user are you trying to achieve?

In your house, there's plenty of subject matter for this, just as there is outside of it. Any person can become a portrait; any object can become a still life.

And any pet can get a capshun and posted to the Internet. :-)

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I like the concept of "Story". I think that is what I looking for. A good story. A bit like Still-motion of legos or stuff like that. Thanks for the point ! – Philippe Lavoie Feb 3 '11 at 15:39
up vote 3 down vote

There's a Flickr group called "Household Objects" that might offer you some inspiration.

You could also try searching Flickr for the names of household objects you have on hand: pencils, bottles, crayons, thread, tools, etc.

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up vote 3 down vote

Hmmm... Around the home and everyday things assuming that 'incense' is an everyday thing around your house... Shoot smoke pictures.

enter image description here

No two are every the same, and there are about a thousand interesting ways you can post process 'em to add interest...

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up vote 3 down vote

A fun thing to do is try to catch anything falling into water. Here is a lemon example, made by @ysap, and some tips on how to create it.

In addition, shooting flames and fire is always a blast. If you don't have a fireplace use a candle.

enter image description here

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8  
You should probably give credit to @ysap for that photo and link to his answer directly. photo.stackexchange.com/questions/7784/… – Tom Feb 3 '11 at 14:17
the link is in the solution as markup to "some tips". it should redirect to the rfusca question and all the answers on how to get shots like this lemon. – kacalapy Feb 3 '11 at 14:23
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Nevertheless, you give credit to @ysap for the photo. – Jukka Suomela Feb 3 '11 at 15:06
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Regardless of legal implications or whatnot, I personally think its inappropriate to use another member's image in an answer without their permission. As a courtesy if nothing else. – rfusca♦ Feb 3 '11 at 18:15
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@rfusca - LOL indeed. For the spirit of the forum and the discussion, I'll take this as a compliment, assuming no harm was intended. However, I'd appreciate a nicer attribution, something like "Here is a lemon example, made by @ysap, and some tips on how to create it.". The current attribution is kind of lost in the frame. – ysap Feb 3 '11 at 18:44
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up vote 2 down vote

A little inspiration from me: :-)

Cupstack

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Sweet colors ! It's daylight right ? – Philippe Lavoie Feb 3 '11 at 16:55
Daylight + post-processing :-) – eWolf Feb 3 '11 at 17:33
up vote 1 down vote

My wife likes to do macros and light-paintings of flower bouquets. It's amazing what she can do with an ironing board with a black drop-cloth in a bathroom that has no windows plus a high-grade white LED flashlight and some colored gels or cellophane and a camera on a tripod.

Also look into the Lens Baby lenses. They're a fun, primitive, not-too-expensive tilt-shift lens that gives a different view to anything you shoot with them.

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up vote -4 down vote

Anything and everything if you have the eye

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3  
This and nothing.. I mean, I searching ideas, no comment about the fact that I don't have ideas. This does help me. – Philippe Lavoie Feb 3 '11 at 15:16
This doesn't answer the question, and in fact, does little more than beg the question. – DragonLord Sep 27 '12 at 1:25

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