An Attempt To Up My Photography At Home

I've always enjoyed taking pictures in my home, but I've never experimented with it all that much until recently, when we've all had no choice but to turn to our homes/gardens/yards for our backdrops. I'm definitely no photographer and I never will be, but I enjoy taking pictures so I thought I'd jot down some of the things I've been doing to try and up my game.

LIGHTING // I've been loving playing around with natural light; seeing as we've been having such gorgeous golden hours at the moment it'd be rude not to wouldn't it? Making use of light and shadows has added a dimension to my photos I've not had before and seems to take what may have been an average shot to something I'm a bit prouder of. When natural light has been lacking I've been making sure to actually use my ring light too, which is a huge help at lifting photos indoors (and is also super useful for sticking things to, but we'll get to that...)

ANGLES // There are only really so many places in our house I can take photos so to prevent everything from looking samey I've been trying to get creative with angles. As a result I've sat/laid on the floor, had my tripod balanced precariously on a windowsill, shot through doorways, the list goes on. I've also played around with making the same area look completely different by shooting at it from a different perspective.

PROPS // I haven't exactly been using anything groundbreaking for props; a coffee, a book, a cat, but they definitely help me feel less like a lemon when I'm shooting in my house. As well as stuff I can actually hold, I've been trying to get more creative with what I'm putting in frame; I've been using my ring light to stick flowers/leaves/hoop earrings (yes really) to so as to add a bit of depth to otherwise potentially bland images.

PINTEREST // After the first couple of weeks of taking photos solely at home I started to run out of inspiration, so I took to Pinterest with gusto to find new ideas to try. It's full of fab self-portrait inspiration, coffee shots and flatlays. I try to take the seed of an idea then make it my own (which usually means whacking a house plant somewhere and hoping for the best).

USING MY EQUIPMENT // As I said above, I've been making the effort to actually use my ring light to lift my photos, and I've also been making the effort to use my camera. It was almost in semi-retirement due to both myself and my boyfriend having fairly good phone cameras and us tending to just shoot off the cuff outfit photos out and about, but it really has made a difference to the quality of my photos and fingers crossed it doesn't go into retirement again once we're out of lockdown.

And that's about it really; I'll never be the best at taking photos but I sure enjoy trying.

Amy x