by Yvette Depaepe 
Published the 3rd of April 2020

Now that the pandemic is global and most of us are practising social distancing to help flatten the curve, that leaves many of us with a lot of downtime.

But rather than sitting around worrying it's probably a good idea to take some time to focus your mind and attention to bring your photographic skills indoors.

Many photographers seem to think that to find a challenge, one must travel to far-off locations to find material worthy of a photo. In this day and age, that's not a possibility, so turning inward and finding things to photograph at home is a must for photographers in lock down.

In that spirit, thinking more outside the box, we can come up with more creative ideas.

'Life pieces' by Gloria Salgado Gispert

Part of the challenge is to see subjects worthy of photographing where other people do not. This can result in fine home-based photography because it takes a lot of time off the clock.

Please scroll down to the end of this article to read more about our new project 'Images taken in quarantine'.

Some suggestions to inspire you...

Photograph the mundane world
Taking photos in low light i s a scary proposition for many photographers because with less light, you have to work a little harder to get the camera settings that will result in a pleasing photo.
But that extra level of work will benefit you in the end because mastering the manipulation of aperture, shutter speed and ISO not only helps you photograph scenes in low light, but will also help you photograph scenes across all levels of lighting.
The more you practice manipulating your camera’s settings, the more natural and intuitive those adjustments will become. Then, no matter if you’re shooting at midday or at dusk, you’ll have the confidence to dial in the appropriate settings.

'compañeros' by Monika Strzelecka

'The hometrainer' by Cees Petter

'Child Forever' by Patrice Michellon

Go black and white
Because of their lack of colour, black and white photos depend on other factors, namely lines, patterns, textures, shapes, and, of course, light and shadows, to retain the interest of viewers. Thus, learning to see in black and white is an important skill not just for black and white photos, but for colour photography too. After all, it’s often those fine details that make a good photo a great photo!

'Black and white stripes' by Britalicus

'Paper Boats' by sulaiman almawash

'Black and white spoon' by Wieteke de Kogel

Practise shallow depth of field
Mastering depth of field is just one of the many important photography concepts that will take your images to the next level.
Using a shallow depth of field is a common practice in portraiture because it allows you to draw the viewer’s eye to the subject. That is, with a shallow depth of field, the background becomes nicely blurred, allowing the subject of the photo to take centre stage.
Fortunately, you can practice this skill in the comfort of your own home. Just open the aperture to a wide value (i.e., f/2.8, or as wide as the lens will go), place your subject a good distance from the background, and take a position close to the subject, and voila - you’ll have a blurry background that totally changes the look of your portraits!

'AG' by Evgeny Loza

'Army Inspection' by Despird Zhang

'w i s h' by Hari Sulistiawan

Use the wrong lens
Something that can stall your creativity as a photographer is to get shoehorned into using a particular kind of lens in a particular kind of setting. A great way to break out of that is to purposefully use a lens that typically isn’t recommended for the type of photos you’re taking.
For instance, instead of using a portrait lens, try a wide-angle lens to create pleasing environmental portraits.
Or using a wide-angle lens in favour of a macro lens to get up-close shots of smaller details
is another option to see everyday subjects in a whole new light.

'Life pieces' by Gloria Salgado Gispert

'Marcel' by Gloria Salgado Gispert

'...dear friend' by Stefano Mallus

To end, I would like to invite you to a new project here on the magazine.
Looking for excellent images taking by 1x photographers during quarantine with a short description how they deal with the isolation measures.

Editor Vicente Dolz will lead this project and I will publish the submissions on a regular base. 
If you want to participate, upload your photo in your portfolio and send the link together with a few sentences of how you experience these hard days to Vicente on the following email address : [email protected]

I also want to mention 1x member Karlitos Solá  who is the author of this  original idea.

Stay safe and healthy
Yvette