Experimenting with these awesome photography themes is a surefire way to get your creative juices flowing. Even professionals find themselves in a creative rut from time to time. And the best way to solve this problem is to try new things with your camera.
By playing with these photography themes, you’ll relight your photography fire. These themes will help you learn new skills. They will also give you a new perspective, helping you develop as a photographer and visual storyteller.
In photography, a theme is an overarching concept that a photographer adheres to. From black and white photography to night or aerial photography.
For any artist, working within a theme can change your artistic perspective. It’ll show you new possibilities and solutions to creative problems.
Choosing photography themes also sets you in a decisive direction. It adds authenticity and depth to your body of work and allows you to focus your creative energy.
Black and white photography (whether it be film or digital) has a unique beauty. It is one of the oldest and broadest photographic themes out there and one still beloved by millions of photographers.
Highlighting form and shape, a black and white theme removes the distraction of color. It reinforces the subject matter and the photographic process.
When you can’t rely on color to make your image eye-catching, you need to use other devices. Composition plays a big part in all types of photography, especially black and white.
You should also look for contrast. You can also use patterns and texture to make your black and white photo more interesting.
You can shoot many types of photography in black and white, whether it’s portrait, street, or landscape. But you can also shoot more specialist genres like macro or long-exposure using this theme.
Shooting in black and white is one of the best ways to develop your skills. It trains your eye, making you look for new ways to make your shots visually interesting. These are skills you’ll never forget, and they’ll enhance your results whether you’re shooting black and white or color.
Through evolution and culture, color has developed strong ties with our emotions. That’s why color can have such a powerful effect on our photography. We can use colors to enhance messages, create visual clues, or inspire certain emotions.
Red is linked with passion and love. Blue is the color associated with sadness, while also being calming.
Colors also relate to each other in certain ways. We can understand this better by looking at the color wheel. We can see how colors interact by seeing their relative positions on the wheel.
Color photography speaks to our visual understanding of the world.
By focusing on color as a theme, you are appealing to our innate sense of the visible spectrum.
Texture describes the touchability of the environment we live in. We can instinctively develop a sense of how textural something is just by looking at it.
Think of old walls, stones, grass, textiles. Capturing texture cultivates an exchange of information that crosses the boundaries of verbal communication.
Sometimes, to tease out inspiration, a new perspective is needed. Aerial photography involves the use of an aircraft or drone. You want to capture the world from a bird’s eye view.
We spend most of our lives on the ground, looking up. Aerial photography as a photographic theme provides an interesting approach to depicting the world around us.
It may not sound exciting, but the possibilities of lines are endless once you start to look.
Curved, straight, colored, jagged, leading, broken. Lines behave in a multitude of ways, providing the eye with a path to follow throughout the image.
Try capturing jerky lines to provoke an energetic reading or cool curves to denote a sense
of fluidity.
If you are feeling stuck in a rut, adopting a photographic theme based around nature can be really beneficial.
Not only is a nature walk good for your mental health, but it can reveal captivating photographic opportunities too. A natural theme encompasses a wide range of subject matter and techniques. This means there is plenty of room for creativity.
You can try flower photography, whether in color or black and white. Animals also come into the nature category. You don’t need to go on an African safari like a professional wildlife photographer. You can take pictures or critters in your back garden.
You can also use this photography theme to take bigger issues like climate breakdown. You don’t have to travel to the arctic to photograph starving polar bears. Looking at the nature of your local area if often enough to get started.
Set a goal to go for a walk in nature for an hour or two with your camera and see what the natural world has in store. You can also see the work of these top environmental photographers for inspiration.
Defined by the repetition of elements in a photograph, pattern can be found both in nature and in man-made forms.
Photographing patterns draws attention to the fascinating similarities and juxtapositions that make up our world.
Even a group of images based on disrupted patterns cultivates a theme through the subversion of repetition.
Keep an eye out for repetitious details (colors, shapes, specific subjects) that can tie an image together. It’s amazing how much of our environment is ordered and disordered by pattern.
Macro photography centers around revealing the intricate beauty of our surroundings.
Whether you have a top macro lens, a set of extension tubes or reversing rings, you can do macro photography. Use it to explore the make-up of the natural and urban environment.
Try restricting your macro theme to a specific subject. Use insects, flowers, or eyes.
Food provides us with the energy to go about our daily lives. It also makes for tasty photography themes.
Food can be photographed in a studio, at home or out and about. This makes it a great photographic subject.
It’s also a good excuse to cook/bake/buy yourself some delicious (and visually appealing) chow.
You could even try flat lay photography. Document the ingredients going into your meal. Bon appetit!
As photographers, we take a lot of photos of people, places and things. But it’s rare that we’ll take the time to turn the lens on ourselves.
Self portraits are a great theme to adopt if you’re looking to work on your portraiture technique. You’ll be able to apply practical skills to a readily available model.
You can start simple by using a mirror. But this might get boring quickly. If that’s the case then invest in a tripod and a camera remote so you can be more creative with your self-portraits.
Self-portraits give you incredible creative freedom. They can help you build your self-esteem. You can also use them to be somebody else, posing as a character or alter-ego.
What better excuse to let your light shine both in front and behind the camera? See our full article on self-portrait photographers for inspiration.
Abstract photography lacks an immediate association with the visual world.
Instead of photographing figurative subject matter, abstract photographers rely on things like light, color, and texture to impart an emotional impression.
Abstraction is a great theme because it’s free from the tethers of the literal.
This means that there is plenty of room to experiment. You can boundaries and capture something unique and visually engaging.
Street photography as a theme can be a challenging but rewarding experience. Taking pictures in public spaces takes confidence, but that will come over time. Then you’ll be able to capture stunning street shots like the masters.
Master photographers such as Henri Cartier-Bresson, Vivian Maier and Saul Leiter have all worked predominantly in the field of street photography.
Offering insight into everyday life, street photography will hone your reflexes, as well as your photographic eye.
Check out these street photographers for more inspiration.
Night time photography covers a wealth of photographic techniques and methodologies.
Light trail, star trail, or even street photography can come under the heading of night photography.
You’ll need to learn your night photography camera settings. It’s nothing too complicated, but it’s a big departure from standard daylight photography.
Ramp up your ISO, lower your shutter speed, open your aperture, bring a flash, or embrace ambient light.
There are numerous ways to combat or embrace dark conditions.
Night time photography makes use of the darkness as a tool to articulate the properties of light.
If you’re ever in need of creative inspiration, or you want to change up your photographic practice, themes are a great way to get things started.
You may re-discover old photographic methods or learn something completely new.
Either way, photography themes are great fun. Pick something from this list and get shooting!
