what do you photograph when you can't get out ?

[removed account4]

i know a lot of people here photograph landscapes, and there are some that make portraits, but what do you do ( besides make prints + process film) when you are stuck at home?

do you have a favorite subject you like to shoot:

chase the kids around the house with a camera?
make still lifes?
photograph ordinary things?
photograph your dinner or a snack?

lately i've been stuck indoors and i've been trying to re-see things i take for granted - food, drinks, "stuff" that's so ordinary i just don't really think about it. i'm not a stickler as to what format, film &c

what do yous do?

 

[johnnywalker]

Lately I've been trying to make still lifes (lives?) with my "new" 4X5. Mainly to get used to the camera. At least I tell myself that because the still whatevers turned out to be very boring.

 

[jimgalli]

Some of my favorite shots have been made just out my back door. I have an old '39 Mercury wheel with stainless wheelcover that has been photographed a dozen times. One time it appeared as a flying saucer in a massive wall of lightning picture. That oil drum pump and the antique lenses in my gallery were done at home. It helps if you're a junk collector in the first place.

 

[David Brown]

I sort of fell into that "I need to go somewhere to make pictures". I haven't been going much lately - too busy.

Anyway, between seeing some of Lee's (Ft. Worth) prints last week, and revisiting my Aaron Siskind books; I've decided that the peeling paint on my neighbor's garage just might merit a project.

I've also toyed with the idea of doing a series of macros on individual leaves. I live in a heavily wooded area (for Dallas, anyway) and raw material is abundant all year round.

Who knows ...

Cheers y'all!

David

 

[photomc]

Haven't done it yet, but there are times we light coming in a window, or the clothes hamper (white wicker against a white wall), wishing one of the cats would sit still long enough to figure out how to expose, and door knobs...love door knobs, but the ones we have aren't that interesting, but old door knobs are so cool....need to start shooting and just forget about all the exposure stuff for a while.

 

[Dave Parker]

normally, I take pictures of my golden retrievers, they always make good models, when I can't get out and about..

Dave

 

[JG Motamedi]

Hey John,

Kitchen tools are always a great distraction for me. Years ago I recall meeting Jan Groover and seeing her great still-lives shot in her kitchen. Beautiful pt/pd prints too. Of course, when wife or friend is willing to sit, all the better. I tried making a tintype of my cat the other day, but that didn't work for obvious reasons. I was left with a worn-out broom...

jason

 

[bjorke]

For inspiration, check out Lee Friedlander's "Stems" (made when he was ill and couldn't get around) and Andre Kertesz' late SX-70's....

 

[David A. Goldfarb]

"The view from the artist's window" gambit is a good one for me. Still life. Food that I'm cooking. My wife.

Check out Abelardo Morrell. He started photographing ordinary objects around the house when his wife was working and he had to stay home and watch the kids. His photograph of a paper shopping bag is one of my favorites.

 

[jd callow]

I recently moved. My prior flat had a wonderful studio. I would go up and shoot...
a chair Dead Link Removed
my wife in the chairDead Link Removed
flowersDead Link Removed
or I would set up still lifes and play with the arrangments of objects. For me I liked to set-up a display that was attractive and included similar things or things that belonged and then try to insert a screw or two (things that didn't quite or really really didn't belong). I don't have any of those scanned.

Often I would use these times to test film. Pushing or pulling film in high and low contrast settings (that is what most of my chair pictures are) or multiple exposures or different light set-ups.

Lately I've been couped up in the house working and haven't had any time to shoot. My darkroom is a week or two away and the studio is probably a week or two further out. I have been keeping notes, paper and cerebral on what i will be shooting once the chance arrives.

 

[Ed Sukach]

My Studio is in my home. I don't go out when I use it .... Figure Studies, Portraiture, Transparencies of Art work for Submission.... Whatever.

 

[BradS]

I don't get stuck indoors much but, last time I was, I shot the (there was a url link here which no longer exists).

 

[Joe Lipka]

Well, I am faced with that now, except I am stuck in a hotel with precious little time. With those constraints, I think I can photograph a two story spiral marble staircase. It will amuse me for a couple of hours, I think.

 

[Robert Brummitt]

Ruth Bernhard has said some of the best photography is no more then 50 feet from your home and I would agree.

 

[Alex Hawley]

Ruth Bernhard has said some of the best photography is no more then 50 feet from your home and I would agree.

I would agree with Ruth. I've tried some still lifes before. Called them my "Bored Winter Still Lifes". They sucked too! No natural talent for that forte.

New project will be the grand daughter. Stocking up on 4x5 polaroid for that one!

 

[removed account4]

wow, this is a lot of fun to read -
thanks for posting, and thanks for the food for though!

i hope i get to read some more of them
-john

 

[Charles Webb]

I am faced with the home bound situation practically every day. I am no longer able to stand or walk for more than a few minutes, so I spend a great deal of time in a wheel chair or on an electric scooter thing. I don't see it as any kind of handicap, as my world is filled with wonderous things. I don't think I will ever run out of things here in the house to make pictures of. I still have thousands of negatives and prints that have survived several natural disasters to putter with. So I can easily say I am not bored. I usually avoid the kitchen stuff as so many others have already done it much better than I could. You will find me set up on something that inerests me almost daily at one of our many windows. I have a north skylight in the dining room that provides
excellent light. For subject matter I am surrounded with lots antiques, firearms, pistols, an especially side by side shotguns. I also have just a few feet from the back door a shop set up with lathes, a milling machine and several other power tools. I at times set up and shoot images of stuff I am working on on the lathe or what ever. My large back yard could serve as a studio all by it's self. Behind the shop is where my real treasures are hidden,
Jim Galli describes that area in his post. All kinds of stuff resides back there.
old motorcycles, trailers, trucks and my scrap steel for building projects.
Nuff said about my being house bound, I miss climbing mountains, chasing trains and all that, but then I have already done that, so being house bound
is simply a fresh chapter of life for me to explore!

 

[johnnywalker]

Charles, you have a wonderful attitude. My hat is off to you, and all the best in your new chapter.

 

[rbarker]

Until recently, I had an in-home studio, as well - small, but workable. My favorite time-filler or itch-scratcher targets are, like numerous others, stuff from around the house or the garage.

8x10 Polaroid 804

 

[Sino]

I go down at my father's photographic bag, steal the 100 mm macro, and shoot B&W macros of anything that i can get my hands on. Having a father that's involved with photography seriously helps a lot, hehe. Plastic flowers, scratched metal, stripes on sheets, anything that has a strange form. Some times i go for long exposures, others for multiple exposures, i place things on black cards and mix them in strange ways... Oh well, i should be on anti-psychotics prescription... =)

-Sino.

 

[NikoSperi]

Anything close by... under hand or under foot?

 

[Andy K]

I mess about with macro tubes and spiders in my kitchen.

 

[mikeg]

I mess about with macro tubes and spiders in my kitchen.

Scary

I buy the wife some flowers and then after giving them to her I "borrow" them and take them up to my study/darkroom/studio. It worked wonderfully the first few times, now she's getting suspicious -- "are those really for me or are they for your photography?"

Mike

 

[lesdix]

Home photography

The UK photographer Andrew Sanderson had a book published a couple of years ago entitled 'Home Photography' (Argentum press) in which he deals with the practical and philosophical aspects of photography within the home (lots of good pictures as well).

Les

 

[TPPhotog]

Scary

I buy the wife some flowers and then after giving them to her I "borrow" them and take them up to my study/darkroom/studio. It worked wonderfully the first few times, now she's getting suspicious -- "are those really for me or are they for your photography?"

Mike

Mike that sort of sounds like being in my home LOL

Sometimes my cat becomes my model as she like to get herself into all sorts of situations. If I'm really bored the macro comes out and anything is in season, I once spent half a day shooting bottles of mineral water ... now that is sad.