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How to Create an Amazing Portfolio Stuck Inside

4 Things You May Not Have Thought Of

By Darryl BrooksPublished 3 years ago 5 min read
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Photo by David Clode on Unsplash

You’re a photographer, you love the outdoors. Parks, woodlands, festivals, and cities; it doesn’t matter. Go anywhere outside with your camera, and you’ll have plenty of things to photograph.

But what if you can’t get outside? What if the weather is bad or, I don’t know, say there is some kind of virus going around? What then?

Do you give up on your photography?

That’s not what I did. I still have plenty of things to photograph, and so do you. Here are four types of things to photograph in the house.

What would your grandmother think of?

Remember that picture that hung over the couch in your grandparent’s house? The one of the fruit on a table with a pitcher or something beside it. That was a disappearing art form known as the still life.

Google it. Old masters like Cézanne, Caravaggio, and not so old masters like Andy Warhol made an art form from it. Why not give it a try?

Find a table with good window light on it, or at least in a room with plenty of windows. Ideally, you can find a nice neutral background. The best solution is to make your own. Use a sturdy TV tray or a small folding card table. Buy or make a surface to cover it with. You can start with an old piece of a wood fence or door. Or make one with paint, or stain on a piece of plywood.

I’m too lazy to do either, so I buy backgrounds at craft stores. Walmart has a nice cheap selection in their crafts department in different sizes and finishes.

Set this in front of a window or in a well-lit room with a nice background. The background could be a plain wall, another window, or a large, dark piece of furniture that you can throw out of focus. The easiest way to shoot will be with your camera on a tripod, so you don’t have to worry about shutter speed. In that way, there is no need for artificial light.

Now, the possibilities are endless. You can try the classic still life with fruit or bring in any other objects. Flowers, small knickknacks, old books, anything is usable. Once I have the lighting setup, I will shoot until I am too tired to take any more images. Don’t just take one shot of everything. Get creative and try different compositions and combinations of everything.

What’s right in front of you every day?

With the same tabletop setup, you are ready to photograph the one thing you look at every day. Put down that sandwich and pay attention. I’m talking about food. This would be better if it was back-lit, so move your table closer to the window and set your tripod up opposite. Use a piece of white poster board as a reflector to throw some light back into the subject.

Next, bring out the food. Leave this rig in place and get a few shots at every meal. It will force you to think about the presentation of the food, which isn’t a bad thing. Think through your shots before you begin preparing to get the most images. You can shoot various scenes as you prepare the meal, then plating different components. And finally, the finished dish, known as the hero shot in food photography. I have gotten half a dozen shots from just a bowl of cereal. Dry, dry with fruit, adding milk, with and without silverware. Get creative.

What are the things you will never see again?

Do you remember that thing? You bought it that time you thought you wanted it? Where is it, now?

You know where to look for this stuff. It’s in that closet in the spare bedroom you never go into. It’s everything you don’t need or want. You think you’re keeping it for someone who will want it, but nobody does, so get rid of it. Take everything out and put it into two piles, things to sell and things to donate.

Now, you have two big piles of stuff to photograph. You want professional-looking shots of the stuff to sell so you can put it on eBay. Go back to your still life/food table and change it up a bit. For this, you will want the light coming in from the side and with a white background. Move the tripod so you are shooting perpendicular to the window. Tape a piece of white poster board to the front of the table, and prop the other end up, so you have a curved piece of poster. Use another piece opposite the window for a reflector and you have a nice, seamless, white background for your product shots. Make sure you expose it to the bright end of the spectrum.

You can use the same setup for the donate pile and file those pictures away for tax purposes.

What do you need photographs of anyway?

Here is an idea that can tie up a few days. Or months.

Take pictures of everything else in the house. That’s right; everything. You need records of everything for tax purposes, insurance claims, household maintenance, and general inventory. What better way to document everything you own than with a picture?

For this, I would recommend an on-camera flash, as much as that goes against my instincts as a photographer. But it’s just easier and more portable. Work one room at a time and take a picture of everything from all angles. Make sure you get closeups of brand names, serial numbers and any other descriptions that are on the items.

As you complete each room, download them to your computer, making backup copies and then file them away. Make a tax folder for anything relevant, such as energy-efficient appliances. Create insurance folders for everything of value. Use a home maintenance folder structure, so you always have documentation of what sizes, wattages, dimensions, colors and anything else you may need to replace or maintain. Be sure and have backups of all of this offsite.

If you are a photographer stuck in the house, there is no use to just sit idle, or worse, let your camera sit idle. Get creative and take some pictures. Your house is full of possibilities.

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About the Creator

Darryl Brooks

I am a writer with over 16 years of experience and hundreds of articles. I write about photography, productivity, life skills, money management and much more.

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