Every season is photogenic in unique ways, but spring brings such a dramatic change. It is a special time of year with all the leaves, green grass, and flowers returning. It’s the perfect time to experiment and try something new!
Perhaps you’ve taken spring photos many times before. Look at these nine spring photography ideas and maybe find a new and creative photo project to try!
Spring brings the world back to life with sprouting shoots and blooming flowers. This change lets photographers look at their environments from a different angle and tell stories afresh.
I’m not going to suggest shooting portraits because it’s obvious. You can’t go wrong with that. I suggest choosing one tiny prop and try to photograph it in different areas of your city with spring foliage.
For instance, pick a toy or garden prop, like a little plastic figurine, stuffed animal, or tiny wooden house. Then, imagine a series of adventures or scenes for your character or prop. (Garden gnomes have been a popular figure for travel photography.)
Place your prop on different blooming trees you can find. See how a wooden house looks on a branch of a cherry blossom or among petals of flowering almonds. Place your toy figure on a branch of lilac or bird cherry. Isn’t it cute?
My example below is a series I made a couple of years ago. It’s called “The Smallest Blackbird.” My father made a tiny wooden birdhouse for me. And I photographed it every morning on my way to the office.
I tried to pick different flowering trees so my imaginary blackbird wouldn’t be bored. I want to restart this little photo series and encourage you to try something similar. Trust me—it’s simple and fun! Get your camera, go out, and enjoy the fresh air of spring!
If you have a garden, don’t hesitate to snip off a couple of cherry blooms or lilac sprigs to make a spring still life with a twist. Or visit a local market to find the heroes of your next shoot.
Have you got the flowers? That’s good! Now, you can arrange everything as if you were shooting a traditional still-life image, with glass bottles, vintage books, wooden boxes, etc.
You could have small swings hanging from a fragile branch of cherry blossoms. Or maybe borrow a toy tea set from your kid and throw a tea party amidst falling petals.
You could add something tiny, like a sign showing a magical world among the flowers. This can be a paper dinosaur, which is not so difficult to cut out yourself.
Spring also makes us think about fairytales, little folk, and other woodland sprites. They are probably coming out of hibernation, too! Another easy cutout could be a paper silhouette of a fairy or just a small girl with dragonfly wings.
Place this silhouette behind a big leaf. Use backlighting as your key light and enjoy a still life with a hidden fairy! It’s as simple as that! Imagine the stories you can tell about them. Draw a sketch, compose the scene, then take a shot.
Spring photography is extremely rich in themes and metaphors. Take one simple flower. It can represent fragility, fading beauty, or an unstoppable power of nature. Take advantage of that.
Don’t just take a snapshot of a pretty flower. Tell a story, create a narrative.
A metaphor is born when two dissimilar objects are compared but have one common point. It can also be created when two seemingly far-apart themes are combined in one instance.
Of course, our theme is spring. This means we will work with all the objects related to spring. You can even list your spring props, from different types of available flowers to gardening tools.
Our second theme may be anything else you’re interested in. For example, I used music as my second theme for this shot below, titled “Music of Nature.”
I made a list of all the objects representing music in my mind (CD, tape recorder, vinyl records, mike, stage, megaphone icon). I decided that I needed some sound wave imagery. I then created a sound wave graph out of grass and tiny flowers. Voila!
Your second theme can be anything. For instance, pick watercolor and combine flowers with art tools, easels, brushes, and palettes. Pick jewelry and shoot flowers as precious gems. A metaphor is a powerful tool in a photographer’s hands. Use it!
You can incorporate April showers in your spring photography in two major ways. First, you can brave the weather and photograph April showers and May thunderstorms as they happen.
A fearless model in a bright raincoat or with a vivid umbrella is a perfect subject. Remember to protect your camera when shooting in the rain!
You can also stay in your cozy studio and shoot spring flowers under a convincing imitation of rain. The secret is getting the surface wet and filling the scene from above with a soft light.
In the photo below, I used a speedlight behind a large diffuser as my main light source. Place your light source to see your subject’s reflection in the wet surface.
After that, take a kitchen strainer and pour some water through it. The water flows through it and is scattered into small drops, creating a beautiful rain effect. This is the secret behind convincing raindrops. It’s simple and efficient!
You can use this rainy trick for a scene with flowers in glass vases or build a more elaborate still life with artist tools or bottles of wine. It’s up to you!
Water goes together with flowers, like bacon with eggs. Shooting glass vases and jars with water splashes is a good way to exploit that. You can create fresh and dynamic still-life images with spring flowers!
I have two tips to make images like these more interesting. First, use a glue gun to fix your glass bottle in a balanced position.
You can also create a stack of jars and bottles that balance on each other! Just make sure that the construction is stable before you start shooting splashes.
Second, glue everything to a backdrop and turn it 90 or 180 degrees. That way, you get unusual splashes appear to defy gravity.
Capturing the right splash may be challenging, but the resulting photos are worth it! Check out previous tutorials on levitating splash photography to get started.ver
Spring marks the start of new things. It symbolizes growth and change. Foliage is in bloom, animals are coming out of hibernation, and birds are back from migration. Show this time of change in your photography.
First, think about gardening. You can show new sprouts and signs of first flowers in a company of gardening tools like small watering cans and scissors.
Shoot a flat lay with hands covered in earth, with tender petals and ceramic pots. Photograph your friend with a green thumb with their new plants. Show how things start to be alive again after winter.
Another way to do it is to take “change” more literally. Think about house repairs. Draw parallels with spring. Arrange a minimalist flat lay with brushes or paint rollers covered with different types of newborn flowers!
Or you can reflect on what spring means to you personally and show it in your pictures.
Food (especially desserts!) looks gorgeous with flowers as an accent. Add some lilac to your flat lay with purple macarons. Pair apple blossom with an apple pie. Or combine a branch of cherry flowers with tender white cupcakes!
If you want to step up your game, shoot a picture of your favorite dessert as a flower. Take a small bouquet and replace all the flowers except little buds with cupcakes. Or place a macaron in the center of a flower.
Dimensional typography is even more fun when you have leaves and petals to play with! Decorate phrases with lilies and other spring flowers to make them pop! Use complementary colors like green and blue.
Beautiful texts made from flowers look tender, fragile, and very touching. Think about a short but lovely sentence. Write its contour with a pencil on your background and fill it in with small green leaves, pastel flowers, or fallen petals.
Another way is to cut the letters from paper and arrange flowers beneath them. This is simpler, and the risk of your message being unreadable is lower. But the result may not look that elegant.
One more way is to use a paper template. Print the text you want to use and cut it from a sheet of paper with a layout knife.
Fill the template with earth, pollen, or very tiny petals. Anything free-flowing works.
Carefully remove the template with tweezers and arrange the rest of the composition. And finally, photograph the remaining letters.
Having flowers in the frame and getting a dull image is practically impossible. So, incorporate the first flowers of spring into your flat lay. But try to say something with your photo. Think about your shot’s character, place, and meaning.
For example, pink flowers are perfect for a flat lay with a love letter. Get pink or pastel envelopes and stationery as a pretty accent, arrange a simple composition, and take a picture.
Or think about the author of romantic novels. Place a typewriter and crumpled paper balls into the frame. Maybe your character is an artist about to paint a branch of cherry blossoms, and they already have their watercolors ready.
All these flower scenes would look gorgeous in a flat lay, so why not try it now? There’s pretty much zero chance of error!
Stay alert to your surroundings, take some time to enjoy the beauty of awakening nature, and don’t be afraid to experiment. Stay inspired, and good luck!
Check out unique animal photography examples to inspire you next? Or check out one of our creative flat-lay or still-life eBooks!
