Creative Photography Techniques

Photography is truly one of those hobbies where the sky’s the limit. Or rather, your creativity. There’s so much more to this art form than just point and shoot, and once you have the basics down, there are countless interesting techniques you can try to get unique shots.

12 Creative Photography Techniques

Here are the top 12 Creative Photography Techniques to inspire you! Hope it will help you to be creative with the photography Industries.

Go out of focus

In photography, being able to achieve sharpness at all times is usually a coveted skill. Being able to capture crucial moments in high quality is, indeed, important, but for this technique, you will do quite the opposite. Taking a picture entirely out of focus can create an interesting result. If you love abstract photography, you will surely enjoy playing with light and color. Depending on the colors and your subject, you can achieve a variety of atmospheres: gloomy, melancholy, mysterious… Your subject remains shrouded in mystery, with only an impression of their true form.

Try tilt-shift

If making your entire photo blurry is not your cup of tea, you can try your hand at tilt-shift photography. This technique allows you to keep a limited area in focus while making the background and the foreground unfocused. It is a unique way to draw attention to your subject while keeping the overall composition rather abstract. Generally, special tilt-shift lenses are required for this technique. However, you can still try it before making such a big investment. Free lensing can yield a similar result. Detach your lens and hold it in various angles to see how it works.

Leverage bokeh

Speaking of going out of focus, another technique you could try is creating bokeh. The beautiful bokeh effect is something we all love in our photos. It gives pictures a magical feel when it appears in the unfocused background. You can also be deliberate in your actions and create bokeh intentionally in various ways. This is great if you are aiming to take atmospheric photos. For instance, Christmastime photos can be greatly enhanced with the lovely bokeh of fairy lights, but you can also create a completely different atmosphere on your city light photography with the clever use of bokeh.

Embellish your view

A photography technique that you can apply more widely throughout your photography would be adding interesting light effects to your pictures. This is something that works especially well with portrait photography that needs just a little bit of extra to make the result more interesting. There are countless ways you can “embellish” your view, and some of them are more advanced techniques than others. An easy way to produce a magical effect would be spraying some water on your lens. The water droplets will break the light to make the result fantastic. Needless to say, you should be careful when water and your camera occur in the same sentence, though. You can also achieve interesting results by framing your lens with objects such as plastic. Experiment around to find your favorites.

The power of prisms

Another relatively easy way to create flares and add that little extra to your photographs is by using a prism. The number of effects you can achieve with different prisms is truly astounding, so if you’ve always been a fan of those colorful flares or abstract, dreamy compositions, this is what you should try.

Luckily, you can get prisms easily and they won’t even break the bank. There are even special hand-held fractal filters that are designed for photographers to use, so this technique is accessible. You’ll be able to add rainbows to your photographs without the need for post-processing!

Take a panorama

Panorama shots are hardly anything new. However, this is still a technique worth practicing as sometimes, nothing can compare to the expansive view taken in by a panorama. If you often go hiking or are a fan of nature photography, there will be no better way of capturing the breathtaking views along the way than by panning along with them. Taking a panorama shot is not as easy as it sounds.

Creative Photography Techniques

Horizontal panning takes some practice: you need to hold your camera still, you mustn’t move, and you have to pan steadily for the best result. But horizontal panoramas are not the only way to capture more than a single image can encompass.

New angles

Other than a horizontal panorama, another technique that might come in handy in certain situations is a vertorama or vertical panorama. Again, learning the art of vertical panning might take some practice, but in beautiful places where the intricate details of the ceiling simply must be included in the picture, this technique will prove to be useful. But what if neither horizontal nor vertical panoramas can include everything you want in your shot? You go for a 360-degree “stereographic projection”, of course! While these photos lean more towards the artistic side of photography, you can achieve unique results with the right subject. All you’ll need to do is learn some photo editing skills.

Put on your macro lens

Looking at things from a distance is fine, but sometimes, you can discover truly interesting subjects while examining the world up-close. Macro photography offers a lot of opportunities for creativity, so put on your macro lens (or purchase one) and start exploring your surroundings. Nature is a great subject in this case. Even water droplets of the morning dew can yield breathtaking shots if you get the lighting right.

You can also zoom in on insects to see them in a completely new light, and if you zoom in close enough, you will also discover patterns in nature that can be great for even abstract photography. Don’t miss out on taking colorful photos of flowers or shooting snowflakes the next time it’s snowing.

Move your camera

A photographer needs a steady hand for most photography techniques. However, sometimes, a moving camera can produce a more interesting result than a steady one. You can create a lot of action and movement in photos with the panning technique. When taking a picture of a moving object, you can emphasize its speed by panning along with its movement as you press the shutter button. The shutter speed needs to be fairly long to make the effect more eye-catching. Try this technique on moving cars or animals and see if you like it. Moreover, panning horizontally is not the only way to bring some motion blur into your photos. You can also try the zoom burst technique. This is an easy way to achieve a very dramatic effect: all you need to do is zoom in on your subject while taking the photo, also with a long shutter speed. Experiment with different settings to find the right one.

Go black and white

While for some people, colors are a signature to their photos and they cannot imagine their photography without them, there is no doubt that black and white photography has an immense amount of potential in visual storytelling. Getting into black and white photography requires you to start looking at things differently; instead of color, you need to focus on shapes and tones as they are what’s going to define your picture.

Black & White Photography

That is why you will need to be on the lookout for an appropriate amount of contrast and the optimal light conditions. This takes some practice since it is usually colors that naturally grab our attention. However, once you get the hang of it, your black and white photos will be just as interesting as your color ones, or even more so. You can see that even simple portraits can look very imposing when taken in black and white if you look at professional corporate headshots.

Use long exposure

You have probably already heard of long exposure shots and perhaps even tried this technique. We have already mentioned motion blur as well. But capturing the light trails of traffic when photographing cityscapes is not all there is a too long exposure. Playing around with these settings on your camera opens up a world of possibilities. A long exposure can come in handy when you’re shooting nature photographs.

The smooth effect on water that this technique can achieve completely changes the atmosphere of scenic landscape photos. A long exposure also allows you to capture people in a different way than you would normally. Place your camera in a fixed position while your subject changes position during the exposure and you’ll be able to tell a narrative in a single photo. A long exposure also allows you to capture natural phenomena such as star trails with relative ease. This is one of those techniques you can even try at home, and the results can be stunning.

Get creative with mixed media

Finally, if conventions never really held your back, you might find trying mixed media photography techniques quite liberating. Your artistic process does not need to end once you’ve pressed the shutter button. Post-processing is one thing – you can do amazing things using photo editing software, but you can take your photography pieces to the next level once they are developed (or rather, printed). You can paint on them to add a new layer of interest. You can also layer things on top of them and re-photograph them. Artistic freedom is yours.

Conclusions

Combine these techniques with your creative ideas and you will be able to create unique photographs that are works of art in themselves. Even if you’re only a hobbyist, trying these techniques is fun and rewarding, so don’t hesitate to do so.