Though many people don't realize it, photographs are a vastly flexible art medium. There is absolutely no reason you should ever feel limited to shooting what's in front of you or documenting reality. Like with any art form, there is lots of room to influence and create your own unique photographs. So, let's talk about several fun things you can do with your pictures that you may not normally consider.
1. Change Your Angle
One of the most common things done in photography is the eye or head level height in which photos are taken. While it makes sense why most photos are taken at head level, it may not be the best angle for what you're trying to shoot.
Take a day and shoot pictures entirely from the ground or knee level and see how the different height will completely change your pictures. If you're feeling really lucky, try shooting entirely from your hip without double-checking the focus or the framing - you may end up with a lot of throw-away images, but you also might end up with something you could have never captured with a traditional method of shooting.
2. Increase Your Films Development Time
All film has a recommended development time based on a specific temperature. For instance, when developing 400 speed film in chemicals that are 70 degrees, you would allow the film to soak for 7 minutes before rinsing it (this is in no way a recommendation or a standard, check with your developer and film manufacturers for the recommended times). What many people don't realize is that the longer the film develops, the more stark the contrast becomes. The darks get darker and the lights get lighter.
If you are lucky enough to develop your own film, try "pushing your film" or increasing the the development time by 2 or 3 minutes and see how it changes your print. While it's certainly possible to push your film into an over-contrasty oblivion, a little extra push can sometimes create incredible results and help draw the important parts of your images out.
3. Set Your Camera to "B"
Any film (and most digital) cameras with manual settings will give you the choice to set your shutter speed to bulb or "B.". This simply makes your camera shutter stay open for as long as you keep the button pressed and gives you a way to capture images that seemed impossible. Unfortunately the bulb setting won't work in daylight since it will overexpose the image, but in a dark environment it can create lots of new photo opportunities.
Place your camera on a tripod facing the night sky and leave your shutter open for 5 minutes (using a cable release) so you can capture the stars moving as the earth rotates. You can also hold the camera shutter open and have someone spin around holding a flashlight and then snap the flash and you'll have a shot of them encircled by light. This setting takes a lot of practice but can produce incredible results.
The next time the urge to shoot takes over, keep these fun suggestions in mind. For these experiments all you need is a cable release and a single lens reflex (SLR) camera or a digital SLR (DSLR) camera and you're all set. Just remember that you should only experiment with pictures you're willing to lose. At the end of the day, all that matters is that you have fun and create images that reflect you or the message you want to send.
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