As part of our ongoing series to help you get more creative with your digital camera, each month we publish some fun, seasonal, creative photo ideas to help inspire your imagination.
Along with some amazing images, we’ve also provided some quick photography tips by both amateur and professional photographers who are experts in these fields.
We’re kicking off December with 9 fresh and creative ideas to try, from vertical panoramas, light-painted still lifes to macro abstracts.
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Creative photo ideas for January: 01 Shoot a frozen close-up
Finding and photographing objects trapped in ice is a rewarding project for the winter months.
This image shows a slightly different technique to the typical leaf-trapped-in-ice image: the photographer, Andrés M Domínguez, waited for the ice to begin thawing rather than catching it freshly frozen.
“I found this wild geranium (Geranium molle) in a small pond in a mountain meadow,” explains Andrés. “I had to use a 100mm macro lens on my Canon EOS 5D Mark II because the leaf was so small.
“The colour comes from the freshwater algae in the water. When the pond freezes at night, very attractive compositions are created. It’s in the morning, when the sun rises that the compositions become enhanced with bubbles and lines formed by the thawing ice.
“You need to work quickly, though, and you may need to provide shade from the sun, otherwise the contrast becomes too great.
“For this shot, I also used a polariser in order to reduce reflections and saturate the colours further.”
SEE MORE: Frozen flower photography: the perfect rainy day photo project
Add depth to close-ups
When you shoot close-ups, the depth of field – the amount of front-to-back sharpness – can be measured in millimetres, even at small apertures. To maximise this depth, make sure the back of the camera is parallel with the main plane of focus – in this case, the surface of the leaf.
SEE MORE: Autumn still life photography: how to shoot a seasonal macro
Creative photo ideas for January: 02 Shoot a worm’s eye view
Looking for a way to pep up your panoramic photos? Follow in Silviu Topor’s footsteps and turn your images into ‘tunnelscapes’.
These images start life in the same way as regular panoramas, but are processed slightly differently.
“I use a Nikon D7100 and Nikon 18-140mm f/3.5-5.6 lens, fitted to a tripod which has a home-made panoramic head,” reveals Silviu. “And I take around 20 to 30 individual frames in order to cover the full 360 degrees.”
When you’re shooting panoramas, use manual settings to ensure consistency between each frame. That means manual focus, manual (or preset) white balance and manual exposure.
For this type of shot, you’ll be wanting to use a smallish f-stop to provide plenty of depth of field, and a low ISO setting for optimum image quality.
Remember to allow around a third overlap between each frame to give the stitching software something to work with, too.
“When it comes to editing, I use Lightroom to remove any vignette and correct chromatic aberration,” Silviu says.
“Once the files are processed, I stitch the panorama in Kolor Autopano (www.kolor.com), selecting the software’s Little-Planet projection. Finally, I crop it and render it as a JPEG image, before taking it into Lightroom to make some colour adjustments.”
You’ll need plenty of storage space if you want to try this technique: Silviu’s images typically come in at over one gigabyte each!
SEE MORE: Polar Panoramas: shoot and stitch 360 degree pictures
Creative photo ideas for January: 03 Shoot your food
Food photography doesn’t have to be all wafer-thin depth of field and rustic chopping boards. Vanessa McKeown’s conceptual approach proves that pictures can provide food for thought as well as being a feast for the eyes.
“I started thinking about how to see food in different ways,” Vanessa reveals. “The idea for this cauliflower shot stemmed from the concept of what would happen if healthy food turned bad.
“My ideas come from anywhere and everywhere, but most of the time it’s when I start working on a shot that I get inspired to try other things.”
In terms of the technical side of things, Vanessa keeps it relatively straightforward: a Canon 5D Mark III and a 24-105mm f/4 lens, with continuous lighting providing the illumination.
If you’re stuck for ideas, check out more of Vanessa’s vibrant, fun imagery, including a range of sponge cakes constructed from kitchen sponges, over on her website.
SEE MORE: Food photography made easy: professional tips you can easily digest
Keep it consistent
As the brightness of continuous lighting doesn’t change, set the exposure manually at the start of the session, based on readings you get from a grey card. This way, the exposure will remain consistent.
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