Adding a little creative spice to your images is a sure way to impress your followers while injecting some fun into your shoots. But often we become so focused on trying to remember the technical aspects of our cameras plus the rules of composition that it’s easy to forget to stretch our creative muscles. To help you out I’ve put together ten simple ideas you can pick and choose from to add a unique flavour to every shoot. At the bottom of this post I’ll include a concise list you can snap with your phone so you’ll always have these prompts available while you’re out in the field.
Practice this little mantra – camera, composition, creativity!
But first, let’s talk about what they are…
Arty shoot through filters
This requires holding an item up close to your lens, while using a wide (small number) aperture to focus on your subject. Shoot through-filters add a unique frame and point of interest to your scene but can also be used to block out unwanted distractions. I usually break these into two categories – reflective filters – like prisms, mirrors, and the screen of your mobile phone, and arty filters which can be literally anything small enough to hold. When shooting landscapes, it’s best to use something natural like leaves.
Reflective filters (L) - using the screen of a mobile phone, Arty filters (R) - Holding a leaf close to camera
Model: Kiara
Refraction
Shooting your subject through a glass ball, clear glass of liquid or magnifying glass creates a ‘fish-eye’ lens effect due to the way refraction bends light. It does require you to have some extra gear on hand, but it’s worth it for the fun distortion it creates.
Change perspective
We all have a natural tendency to photograph from eye-height but the most dynamic images come from a change in perspective. Get down low, get up high, point your camera towards the sky, point your camera towards the ground, tilt your camera diagonally, get right up close to capture details. All of these result in images from angles people aren’t used to seeing which makes them immediately more interesting.
Shooting from above
Shooting from down low
Long exposure
Long exposures are one of the most versatile creative techniques for any situation. By slowing your shutter speed, you can either keep your camera still and photograph something moving so it blurs or you can move your camera to either pan with a moving subject or create abstract scenes.
Hold your camera still with moving subjects
Move your camera - in this case I panned from one side to another
Soft focus
Soft focus adds a dream like quality to your scene and can be created in several ways. The first requires you to intentionally defocus your lens a little, by switching to manual focus and swivelling your lens to create a pleasing soft focus, or by purposely focusing on something closer or farther away than your subject so they become defocused. This works best if the subject is strong and identifiable. The second method of creating soft focus is to shoot through something – the easiest way to do this is to breathe on your lens and shoot quickly after while it’s fogged up.
Defocused image
Breathing on lens
Join Creative Photo Folk to learn the specifics of these techniques.
Go forth and create!
Don't forget to snap this on your phone for easy reference...
