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5 Photography Ideas for When There’s Nothing Interesting to Shoot

5 Photography Ideas for When There’s Nothing Interesting to Shoot

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There’s nothing interesting to photograph!

I heard that a lot on a few of the photo walks I’ve led over the years. Sometimes people would even want to leave and go home because they saw nothing that inspired them to take a photo. I find it’s a common question from my students in my classes and from you – my valued readers – here on the site. So I wanted to give you a few tips for how to get the muse working for you and how to find photography ideas and subjects anywhere.

Photography ideas in your own backyard, like this alley graffiti
This was taken in a back alley in my own city’s downtown core – I found the juxtaposition between the delicate flowers and grungy graffiti appealing.

Photography ideas for when there’s nothing interesting to shoot

Try a new technique
When you’re traveling, or away from home, it’s easier to find interesting subjects because everything is new. So if you’re bored with your surroundings and can’t go anywhere try a new technique you’ve never done before. When you’re traveling is not the time to experiment, do that now in your free time. I’m sure there are tons of things you’ve been itching to try out and haven’t had the time – well now you can do just that.
black and white photography ideas for a creative photo of old antique medicine bottles
Black and white with split tone applied in Lightroom.

Pick one and find some articles, books, or tutorials on that topic – then give it a go. Here are some ideas to get you started:

HDR photography ideas like this old abandoned truck interior
HDR of 5 bracketed images combined.
photography challenge idea of capturing a sense of motion using a panning technique
Panning in Cuba
Man jumping on the beach is shown as a silhouette with the setting sun behind him
Silhouette on the beach
Night photography idea for light painting of some natural features
Night photography with light painting in Drumheller during a workshop
Using a plugin for your photo editor to add textures and borders for a creative and intersting photo of a classic car in Cuba
Macphun Tonality plugin I was playing with (future review to come soon) textures and borders.
Get really close – do some macro photography
Closeup or macro photography requires you to look at objects differently. Look for textures, cobwebs, patterns. Find an ordinary household item and really take a good look at it. A wooden spoon, a copper penny, an old shoe, even a doorknob can become an interesting subject when you approach it from the macro perspective.
Boring close up photo of a fire hydrant
This boring old fire hydrant on the street corner:

Becomes far more about light, shadows and textures when you get closer.

Same fire hydrant but much more interesting idea to photograph it up close with macro
Another creative photo idea of the same boring fire hydrant
Creative photo idea is to shoot an old door knob
Remember the doorknob? Okay granted, I have interesting doorknobs in my house but you get the idea.
Close up macro photo of an antique type writer keys
Also in my own house – an antique passed down to me by my great aunt.
When you wonder what to photograph, look no further than your own house plants like this macro of an indoor flower
Flowers and plants – always a great macro subject.
Look for the Light (and the shadows)
You’ve probably heard this before but in photography light is everything. However – you also need shadows too. The play between light and dark is what creates texture, mood, and depth. Go out shooting one day just looking at how the light falls on everything. Look for interesting shadows and photograph them.
Hint: if you’re having trouble finding the light – look for shadows!

Look at the three images below and see if the shadows don’t give away the location – where do you think these were taken?

Street photography of a pedestrian cross walk but a more creative photo idea to use shadows
#1 – Big city – but where? You guess.
The shadow of a porch light shown prominently on the side of the building
#2 – Look at the architecture, does it give you a hint?
Shadows of prairie grain elevators captured on a rolling wheat field makes for an interesting photo idea
#3 – This could be a number of locations but you know it’s on the prairie somewhere right?

Sometimes less is more in photography and a subtle hint of your subject can tell a story, even more so than showing the entire object. So use tips #2 and #3 to get creative.

Go to a farm, zoo or farmers market
Even if you can’t get away on a trip or vacation try something a bit more local. Farms that allow visitors, the zoo, or even an outdoor market are great photo opportunities. You might even find something tasty to take home to eat.
Farm photography ideas captures rural life like this fence post with barbed wire
Never at a loss for ideas for what to photograph on the farm - tractors, old antique tractors
A farm cow makes for an interesting photo
Farm buildings and equipment are shown in silhouette with the sun setting behind them
Bottles of dried peppers and canned vegetables at the market make for a colorful photo
Pick an unusual subject and photograph only that for a day
If you’re having a hard time finding anything interesting in your area pick something so obscure you have to go looking for it. Something you would normally just pass by without a second thought.

In a photo walk class I ran a few years ago I asked the students to give themselves an assignment to pick one topic and go out and do the walk with that in mind. We brainstormed together and they each picked something – then they picked something for me. I said I’d shoot whatever they came up with and they picked – FEET.

They thought they’d stump me but I actually had a lot of fun with it. Here are some of my favourites from that day.

A foot in a sandle makes for an interesting photograph
I liked the flower tattoo, pink flip flops and the flower petal on the ground that all worked together.
A childs foot in it's shoe with other shoes behind it
Bare feet on the sidewalk next to a pair of empty shoes
Colorful shoes, shoe laces and drinks are featured in this theme of shooting feet
I love the opposite styles of footwear and drinks here.
A military man in fatigues shows of his boots
Always be careful when photographing any military personnel. Get permission first!
a woman and her dog sit and show their feet
human and dog walking in stride showing their feet and paws
The fact that the dog and the man were walking stride for stride caught my attention. Same foot forward even.
A woman carries her high heel shoes but what is the story behind the photo
Can you tell the story here?
Two people walking with contrasting styles and colors of footwear are shown in this creative photo idea
The contrasting footwear again stole my eye, the rolled up pants just added to the story.

Notice there are no faces in any of those feet shots. But I’d likely not have seen or taken any of those images without that assignment from my students. Give yourself a tough mission and head out and see if you’re up to the task.

creative photography ideas beginners pin0

Looking for more photography ideas for things to shoot?

Read:

Okay by now the wheels must be turning and you’ve got some ideas. It’s time to get out and try them, no time like the present.

Darlene-1-250x130.png

Cheers,

 
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Comments

  1. Sometimes extraordinary scenes may not be needed to capture an awesome shot rather an ordinary scene can be captured in an extraordinary way. Its the reason I like street photography a lot, no much complicasy but only great shots of simple moments.

  2. I posting this mainly because I’d love comments. I deliberately overexposed these cows to capture the soft, quiet mood. Then tweaked a bit in Lightroom to add some saturation/contrast back in on the top of the big cow’s head that had been lost. I got some other nice “normal” photos but, with my art background, I believe I like this best.

    • Hi Jenny – I don’t mind the soft overexposed treatment at all. What is concerning to me is the sharpness. It looks blurry, likely from camera shake. What were your settings on this shot? Did you use a tripod? I’m guessing not based on the location. Do you know how to eliminate that issue?

        • The issue there is the shutter speed – it’s just way too slow to come away with a sharp image hand held, and with moving subjects. Depending on the lens you used you need to have at least 1 over the focal length for your shutter speed. So if you used a 100mm lens, then 1/100 is what you need to shoot at. That’s 5 stops faster so if you have f/4 on the lens that’s one, then 4 more on ISO would be: 200>400>800>1600>3200. So f/4, ISO 3200 at 1/125 would likely have given you a much sharper image.

          • Thank you, Darlene. I know I needed a tripod to do something like this, just took a chance, and somehow I still like it even though blurry. I was surprised that you answered so quickly, with so much good advice. I’m half embarrassed that I posted this photo. I am going to try to capture something like this again, but PLAN it better!

            My next “have to do” is to set up some interesting lighting and shoot photos of some of my antique film projectors, have planned this for almost a year now. They are so beautifully made, such great architectural structure and polished metals. I think with the right lighting, they could be great. I just bought an old movie screen that I can use as a backdrop, although I need to experiment with a dark background also … not just the white.

            BTW, I LOVE your shot of the old Underwood! Thanks again.

  3. I found lots of interesting things to shoot in this overgrown creek bed, especially this old split tree trunk.
    Thanks for the reminder that there always is something to photograph, we just need to look, maybe look with a new perspective.

  4. Tuesdays I have the entire day full except one hour in the morning when I make it a point to take pictures. But since I’m always in the same place, outside a suburban office building duller than dirt, I was running out of ideas. I read this article and really got motivated. I set myself several tasks: shoot at least a dozen or so images using my telephoto lens; shoot only things that are either out of my reach overhead (good for the telephoto) or down below my knees; and look for the light and shadows. Here are the results, and I’m quite pleased with them.

  5. Imagination can help you make cool shots like this! I was SUPER bored and the weather was crappy so I set up some Christmas lights in dark room. Then found an object to have as my subject and bam I was instantly hooked on a new awesome idea!

  10. Hi Rosanna – just as all the others but I shot it in RAW and processed it in Lightroom later. By lowering the clarity and sharpness you get this type of look. You cannot do that if you’ve shot a JPG out of the camera. Does that help?

  12. Thank you for another great article, Darlene. A couple of days ago I shot this on a boring day. After that, I increased the brightness, contrast and saturation little bit and darkened the edges.

  14. Thank you, Darlene. The photos you shared are motivational. Here is a shot from my house- knobs on a favorite primitive cupboard thanks to your “play with a button each day” challenge earlier this year.

  15. Funny, I just told my husband yesterday that there was nothing interesting to photograph while we were out. Thank you for the ideas on things to capture. I am going to give it a try.

  19. went on a photo walk with NatGeo in September is a very common tourist stop in Vancouver, Granville Island..Thousands of items to capture the imagination, and all been done to distraction. The trick was to find something different in the overdone, similar issue 🙂 – https://www.facebook.com/106677062769706/photos/a.580955415341866.1073741950.106677062769706/580957722008302/?type=3&theater

    https://www.facebook.com/106677062769706/photos/a.580955415341866.1073741950.106677062769706/580957818674959/?type=3&theater

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