Stuck at Home Photography

During the coronavirus outbreak, concerts have been canceled, theaters have closed, restaurants have shut their doors and workers have been told to stay home. Instead of sitting on your couch while in quarantine, break out your camera and lenses and practice your photography skills with an indoor photoshoot. Your home is brimming with photographic potential, you just have to open your eyes and use your imagination. Your home is the perfect location for an indoor photoshoot and even better, you can use the items in it as your subject. When you start to look around, you'll soon realize there are tons of items that can be used to create interesting still life shots.

Indoor Portraits

Start by taking photos of the most likely subjects- the people you live with. Most photographers enjoy taking pictures of others. It’s one of the reasons why we buy cameras. Taking indoor portraits of others, particularly those close to us, serves as a great way to remember people. Fortunately, taking indoor portraits of the people in our homes is easy. Start by placing a person near a source of natural light. Usually, sitting or standing by a window will do. If shot with a wide aperture lens, such as the Sony FE 20mm F1.8 G from Beachcamera.com, the background won’t matter a whole lot. These can make for dramatic and compelling indoor portrait photos with relative ease. Another way to approach indoor portraits of people are candid and in-the-moment shots. These are photos of people just doing their thing. It’s easy, and will help you to train yourself to capture shots of people as things unfold naturally.

Self-Portraits

Taking indoor pictures of yourself is one of the easiest-yet-challenging types of photography you can do at home. The amazing thing about self-portraits is it can be a real learning experience that you can apply to taking indoor portraits of others. We are often our harshest critics, and for this reason self-portraits are challenging. Plus, it can be hard to picture how we look. Learning how to pose yourself is actually a great way to have better photos taken of you by others during future indoor photoshoots. It also helps to teach empathy, so you can understand what others are feeling when you are taking their indoor pictures. The key to taking a successful self-portrait at home is simple. Get a sturdy tripod and mount your camera to it. Use the delayed shooting setting on your camera from Beachcamera.com, and use a remote shutter release to take the indoor picture. Preview your images on your Microsoft Surface Laptop. If something isn’t just as you like it, repeat these steps and tweak your composition and posing.

House Plant Photography

Another interesting subject for indoor photography is house plant photography. House plants make great subjects because of their lush and vibrant colors. You can take close up shots to capture fine detail, or incorporate them in indoor pictures with other subjects, too. A good macro lens will allow you to focus very close to your house plants. You can use a shorter macro with good effect, but a longer macro doesn't require you to get face-to-petal during your house plant photography.

Taking pictures at home is a comfortable learning ground for budding photographers. So why not hone your skills while you’re stuck inside during the COVID-19 quarantine?