Indoor photography Tips from a kitchen worktop - Simple Photography Tips by Michael Blyth

Five Simple Indoor Photography Tips If Your'e Stuck indoors - Camera and Phone Camera

• Pick your light before you pick your subject

  Side light (window light) reveals texture and gives depth. Overhead light flattens things. Use one direction of light if you can.

• Go closer than feels sensible

  Fill the frame. If the viewer can tell it’s a worktop, you’re not close enough.

• Move the camera, not just the crop

  Shift a few centimetres, tilt a few degrees, rotate to portrait and landscape. The same patch can become calm, chaotic, or graphic just by angle.

• Hunt for an “anchor” shape

  A vein, a crack, a knot of contrast, a single bright flare. Build the composition around that, then simplify everything else.

• Try pushing contrast and clarity for a bold graphic look

  
  

So my world is about to change - this time next week I should have a small bundle with four legs and a propensity for chewing things, pooing and wee-ing.

Not sure what our existing princess will make of her, nor how my Whoop will respond to the sleep interruptions resulting from aforementioned wee monster (in both senses of the word).

Why mention this distraction to taking fabulous photographs that you never thought of taking, or of being able to take.

Well there is a story, and since stories are supposed to be the driving force of a good blog conversation, hear me out.

The shorter version is that on the second of January last year, we went for a walk in the New Forest, which for overseas followers, is not a new forest - having been the hunting grounds of kings in the middle ages - which was a long time ago, even taking into consideration the plethora of wrinkles marking my huge age!

Met a charming lady with two black labrador's, mother and daughter. After a few minutes of admiration, this man before you, who didn't want another dog but was forced into the Fox Red version that lies snoozing here in my office, asked the lady to get in touch if she bred from them.

Same man, with Favourite Eldest Daughter in Mallorca in early December, receives Whatsapp message to say that the puppy's were born last Sunday.

Upon return to UK, we went to see the little black splodges, one of which will soon be mine.

And that is basically the story, except that this ex-geologist was admiring the kitchen worktop, seeing in it so much, and sharing the geology side, and the artistic side, and the photographic opportunities that come from it.

And he took a couple of images to illustrate.

If you're still with me, then let's take those images, there were three of them, and they're below you now, and get excited about what we see. So lets do some Indoor photography tips

Image One - A kitchen worktop becomes abstract art when you zoom in and let the patterns lead.

Like most of the stone worktops in the Uk that aren't marble, this beauty was classed as granite. But oh best beloved (yep a quote from Rudyard K), it's not Granite, it's Gneiss.

Now for those of you who are interested I quote from https://www.geologyin.com/2023/07/gneiss-formation-types-classification.html

"Gneiss is a foliated metamorphic rock that is characterised by its banded appearance. The bands are composed of different minerals, which are aligned in parallel layers. Gneiss is formed by the high-temperature and high-pressure metamorphism of igneous or sedimentary rocks."

And if you're not, then let's just accept that the whirls and swirls are stunning, and the contrast formed by the seperation of the different mineral colours creates the most beautiful artistic forms.

So photogenic.

All these images were taken in very poor light, using my phone camera, but the contrast gives the technology something to record.

Yes it would be better given time, space, light, and a proper camera.

Image One, which mimics a knot and grain in wood, has the main 'subject' sitting on the top left intersecting third.

The intensely dark section 'points' upwards towards the lighter section, giving a true sense of focus on the 'knot', and gives the image balance.

To be critical, the circumstances and light, (you can't really crawl around a stranger's kitchen, without appearing rather weird), have allowed reflection into the very top of the image, which kills the depth of contrast in that part.

Image Two - Indoor abstract, quartz vein in banded stone

Image Two I find asks a question; should I have gone for landscape rather than portrait? Does it make a differenc? I could have simply rotated the camera, or myself, or flipped it in post production, as I have in the image below.

It's an interesting question, and I leave you to view them both and decide.

If you were to get all three images prainted, and hang them - seperately, or in one triple frame, how would you choose. Me? I think I'd go for portrait. Hung side by side, in a black frame perhaps.

But either way gives a different script.

Image Three - Same image, flipped by 90 degrees.

Flipping the image, highlights the lower part, where there are some small garnet crystals adding a pink tinge, and gives a sense of flow.

Image Four - Veins, faults, rivers of light, call it what you like, it’s all fascinating

Image Four, is just another image of the same chunk of rock, and illustrates what a huge choice of potential images can be gleaned from something you spill your coffee on, that you probably have never noticed.

I hope it's been of interest chatting about creating photographic art when you're stuck indoors - whether from a health issue or because it's horribly disgustingly foul outside, as it is today.

Look around you, look slowly, notice things, and spend time letting them develop in your conscious - and maybe take some images, and maybe hang the results on your wall.

The funny thing is, none of this requires better weather, more time, or even better kit. It just asks for a willingness to notice what you normally ignore. That’s the whole point of this little corner of the internet.

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