I believe that there is extraordinary to be found in the ordinary, and that we can elevate our everyday lives by embracing and honoring that which is simple. I invite you to capture the everyday in your photography. Look for the finer details. The following ideas explain how.
Maybe you greet the day with a cup of tea or coffee, the newspaper, journal writing, blog surfing or stirring a pot of your favorite Irish oatmeal. Use the soft, diffused natural morning light that comes through a window in your home to illuminate your subject. How do you want the light to hit your subject: as backlighting, at an angle or as front lighting? If the light is coming from the front, make sure the subject is far enough away from the window so it does not get washed out by harsh direct light.
My daughter has a favorite pair of socks that just barely fit her at this point. She often wore them with her favorite striped dress—an outfit that captures her free spirit. I took a photograph of her wearing these garments because I always want to be reminded of her free spirit when I look back on her childhood.
As time goes on, the landscape changes, often dramatically. If you live in the country, trees grow, old barns fall, people build. In the city, your favorite shops and eateries are often transient. I lived in Boston in my twenties and the amount of transformation my old neighborhood has seen since then is pretty remarkable. Make photos of the significant places you want to remember: your favorite bookstore, cafe, coffee shop, gallery or tree-lined street.
Some ideas: a photo of a shopping cart in the rain, the artfully displayed artisan bread at the bakery, fresh catches of the day on ice at the local fish market, jams and jellies on a shelf at the farmer’s market.
“I was so thrilled to see the blossoms after a long and tiring winter, so the addition of the blue sky and painted houses made for an incredibly happy shot.” —Susannah Conway
Capture blue skies, sunsets, stormy and overcast skies and cloud formations.
It’s fun to tweak the colors a bit in Photoshop CS/Elements or Pixlr. Adjust the hue slider a bit—think subtle change.
Mobile apps that offer color-altering filters include Camera+, AfterLight and iColorama S.
Is it food? Art? Running? Playing a musical instrument? Whatever it is, use your lens to capture what feeds your soul. My family and I have been growing our passion of homesteading—gardening, preserving food, developing the prospect of keeping small livestock. I enjoy taking photographs in honor of this unfolding passion and way of life.
When you look through a window, are you seeing what lies beyond the pane or noticing the minute flaws on the glass—the fingerprints, dirt and grit, dried rivulets, raindrops and the like? Instead of looking beyond at what you think deserves your most attention, look at the finer, up-close details that tend to go unnoticed—those nighttime raindrops on the windshield illuminated by streetlights, the lipstick stains on your anniversary celebration wine glass.
Give focus to these details and blur the subject matter that the viewer expects to see in focus. Selecting a wider aperture is best, as it will provide a soft, blurry background and direct the viewer’s eye to the close-up details. Be sure to switch your lens to manual focus and turn the focal ring until you find focus. In autofocus your lens will search and search and possibly lock focus on the wrong part of the scene.
What attracts you to a loved one? Is it their eyes? Hands? The wrinkles in their forehead (such beautiful imprints of their gorgeous mind and thoughts)? Or maybe it is the way their hair falls just past their shoulders. Whatever it is that you love about someone—those physical traits that symbolize something deeper, some aspect of their soul—capture and honor them with your lens.
Walk around your house. What objects are special to you? What are your keepsakes? What makes this place feel like home? Open your door to the outside world. Stand on your stoop. What do you see? Hear? Take it in through your lens. Walk around your property or your neighborhood. Imagine that you have a pen pal in a foreign country and you want to show them your place. Capture what you love about your surroundings.
What do you love to eat? Share it through photographs. Use attractive dishware and plate it beautifully. Set up a pleasing still-life scene and take some shots from different vantage points. Then enjoy your food.
Shoot an everyday object close-up, transforming the object into an abstract work of art, bringing into light its finer details that would normally go unnoticed.