DIY Quarantine Photography!
Updated: Apr 28, 2020
The world is in quarantine, which for a photographer means no more photographing other families. Sad, sad times for us. BUT it also means that you can try your hand at being your own family photographer!
You can set up a home studio with things in your house and your cell phone to make awesome family quarantine pictures.
Supply List:
* Your cell phone camera
* A well lit room in your house
* A backdrop. Use a large solid colored cloth like a flat bed sheet, table cloth, shower curtain, window curtain, blanket, or that huge roll paper from Menards that you might have left over from a home project.
* Duct tape, packing tape or thumb tacks
* Your kids, spouse, pet, your favorite plant etc.
Today I am choosing to photograph my kids because...well because...
So, if you are photographing your children you have approximately 2.3 minutes of excitement and cooperation from them, so set up your backdrop before you wrangle them up!
Hang up your cloth in a well lit room with enough space for you to move around
If your cloth is large enough, have part of it go on the floor. Make sure there is LOTS of tape holding it in place. Kids seem to move and your cloth will be sure to move with them! (You may want to iron out the wrinkles, unless your phone has that fancy portrait setting where it adds blur or bokeh to the background) I used an iPhone 8 which has no portrait setting. I also hate ironing. So my cloth is annoyingly wrinkled.
Have fun with creative portrait ideas! I let my kids pick their theme. They picked super heroes and found some costumes in the bowels of their toy box. Superman was super excited. He got to the backdrop and promptly decided he was too hot, so the costume came off. (He lasted less than 2.3 minutes). Don't stress, just let them do what they are going to do and see what happens.
Tip: Have your kids step as far away from the backdrop as possible while still standing on the cloth. This will help in blurring your background which makes a huge difference in portrait photography.
