26 Creative & Fun Photoshoot Ideas at Home

The biggest challenge faced by any photographer is a lockdown. We fall into a funk where creativity and photoshoot ideas fade.

Being stuck at home doesn’t mean you pack your camera away until it’s over! Here’s a handy guide for those in lockdown looking for photography ideas – make the most of this time.    

Each of the creative and fun home photoshoot ideas and tips teaches you new photography techniques.

Our guide to extra fun photoshoot ideas covers different genres – from portrait photography to interior design.

These home photoshoot ideas will provide inspiration and guidance while building your photography skills.   

Taking photos is important to improve and stay inspired, so let’s get stuck in. 

25 Creative & Fun Home Photoshoot Ideas for 2023

1. Talk Portraits of Yourself

Portrait photography can be done at home with many photographers taking portraits of themselves. 

Check out this guide which is full of fun ideas for self-portrait pictures.

Take photos with a plain background like a bare wall, drapes or hang a bedsheet as a backdrop for your photo session. 

Use a wide aperture to obtain a shallow depth of field, so your face is in focus, and the background is out of focus. 

Capture self-portraits in black and white with deep contrast to highlight facial features and achieve a retro vibe. 

2. Photograph Your Partner

If you’re stuck at home and itching to take photos, capture stunning portraits of your partner – or housemate. Portrait photo sessions are one of the best photoshoot ideas. 

You set the scene with a model and explain how they sit and look. Try various locations while being conscious of the backdrop and lighting.

Aim for a shallow depth of field to keep the face in focus and the background blurry.

If you’re feeling frisky, take a crack at boudoir shoots ;-)

3. Capture Kids Portrait Images

If you’re in lockdown with children, capture their portraits – photographing children is a whole new ball game!

Take headshots of your kids – use the same portrait shoots techniques. 

Playtime makes kids expressive and imaginative – taking photos at these times is ideal. 

Get down on their level and capture a fun photo from the ground up – kids face downwards as they play.

Another fun and creative way to find inspiration is to replicate old photos from when you were a kid. Or you could go all out with a styled photoshoot on their birthday.

4. Photograph Your Pets

If you have fur-babies at home, they make for very willing participants of a portrait shoot. 

Dogs and cats differ significantly in how they behave and respond to a photo direction. Dogs sit still for a shot, provided there’s a treat involved.

I find the best time to photograph cats is when they’re lounging in the sun. Cats love to follow the sun throughout the day and will move from a sunlit patch to a sunny windowsill just for warmth.

If you have a cat that loves to sit on a sunny windowsill, photograph them from outside the window.

The benefit of photographing pets sitting in the sun is the golden light’s quality and how it illuminates the subject.

5. Take Your Camera on Your Daily Walk

If you’re stuck at home and have exhausted all home photoshoot ideas, taking pictures on your daily walk is an easy fix.

Even during the lockdown, we’re allowed out for exercise – it’s a perfect time to grab a camera and head out. Be sure to change the route you walk daily to keep the scene fresh.

Capture street scenes, exciting architecture, neighbours, local parks, and reserves – all staples of city & urban photography.

Not only can you take a brisk walk, but also be creative – this is one of the best photoshoot ideas for lockdown. Plus, it’s a fun way to get to know your neighbourhood.

It’s the best experience if you wish to become a street photographer taking New York photos one day.

6. Photograph Still Life with Found Objects 

Still-life photography is another brilliant home photoshoot idea that’s both fun to set up and easy to shoot. Capture scenes of inanimate objects as a form of art – this genre has existed for centuries with painting and drawing.

Create scenes of flowers in vases, platters of fruit or everyday objects – be sure to consider lighting and background elements.

Set up near a window to make the most of the natural light instead of your ceiling lights that case a yellow glow. Or use on or off-camera flash units to make a scene pop.

You already have items around the house perfect for still life creative photography. Or collect found objects to appear such as shells, driftwood and dried sea-life while out on your daily walk.

7. Take up Toy Photography

If you have children or collect interesting toys, you have the perfect subjects for toy photography. It’s by far one of the most enjoyable home photoshoot ideas as you can also create exciting scenes to pose your subject.

Toys are desirable collector items that generate nostalgia and longing for youthful experiences.

Pose Star Wars figurines inside the backyard sandpit. Control depth of field and angle to photograph a lone Storm Trooper walking the Tatooine deserts. Check out my in-depth guide to photographing toys here.

8. Make Use of the Rain

Rainy days usually end our most ambitious photography plans. Several home photoshoot ideas turn the wettest of days into a creative success.

Street photographers will tell you that shooting after the rain brings the street alive. 

Large puddles are a great way to capture mirror shots of the clouds above.

Get in close to plants and foliage as water beads on the surface – the same applies to a photo of morning dew forming on leaves and spiderwebs.

9. Photograph Water Drops

One of the best home photoshoot ideas involves photos of a water drop frozen as it falls.

Use a fast shutter speed to freeze the droplet as it forms a perfect tear shape.

Place a full bowl of water on the table and set the camera close to the bowl – release a drop into the centre of the bowl.

Practise timing between releasing the droplet and pressing the shutter button – check your photos each time. 

• Read more: Beginners’ guide to water drop photography

10. Clean up Your Interior Design

If you’ve used lockdown to spring-clean your home and rearrange furniture, be sure to document the finished product as a simple home photoshoot idea.

Even if you focus on a single room, you can experiment with angles and lighting at different times of the day. Set up your lounge or bedroom with clean spaces, cushions and throw rugs to replicate a designer magazine photo.

Use the widest angle lens available to make the room feel bigger and add a dynamic look to your lifestyle shots. It’s how professional real-estate photographers achieve pictures that sell houses.

11. Call upon Your Neighbours

If you have a good relationship with your neighbours, a great idea is to include them in a portrait project.

With everyone in lockdown, they’ll be looking for something to break the monotony too.

Capture fun portraits with your neighbours standing at their front gate with their homes as the backdrop. Use your daily walk to engage your neighbours to participate.

Not got any neighbours? Organise a best friend photoshoot instead – this is a fun way to organise couple photoshoots. If your friends are celebrating a special moment such as an anniversary, use this inspiration to create stunning photos.

• Why do a photography project?

12. Shoot the Same Scene Every Day

A popular home photoshoot idea is to photograph the same scene every day.

A compelling example is taking a daily photo to document a young child’s growth. The images are fascinating, but the results are powerful when stitched together as a short video.

Photograph your backyard, the view from your window or front door at the same time every day. It’s a tremendous form of documentary photography if you live on a busy street.

The outdoor space works well during transitions between seasons.

13. Conduct a Fashion Shoot

Fashion photography may seem like one of those photoshoots out of your league. If you live with someone that loves fashion, put together a range of stunning outfits for your photoshoot.

Direct and pose the model to showcase their fashion style in a range of full-body portraits. Work around the home, garden or park for stunning lifestyle fashion shots.

Such photoshoots build upon your model-direction skills for future projects.

14. Photograph Someone Cooking

Photographing someone cooking is a fun way to mix up the home photoshoot ideas.

Get in close as someone pulls ingredients from the fridge and keep shooting as they wash vegetables, weigh and cut up ingredients.

Capture images of the final stages of the cooking process and plate-up.

Candid photos such as this are something that people look for in visual storytelling.

15. Food Photography

Food photography is popular thanks to social media – people love sharing their meals.

Use the opportunity to share your #lockdownlunch with the world.

Top-down shots get the best views of plated food but don’t be afraid to try different angles. 

Creatively arranged food makes food shots look best. Placing the plate on a timber chopping board sitting on the table add more interest.

Raw ingredients and cooking utensils add to the composition and the finished product. 

It’s a photoshoot idea you also get to eat!

16. Create a Personal Documentary

While stuck at home, document your daily routine from your point of view.

Start with a photo of your alarm clock followed by your morning routine – from brushing your teeth to brewing your first coffee.

Photograph your working day, check the letterbox or butter your toast – take photos of everything.

The final photo shoot completes the series with a shot of your bedside clock at bedtime. Publish this series in your blog post with regular updates.

Another idea if you’re of the right age is to document your 21st birthday – you’ll look back on these in years to come.

17. Photograph Someone Working

Take your home photoshoot ideas up a notch by photographing someone at work.

If your partner or housemate work from home, document their day. If someone you live with works with their hands, photograph them working on their car or building something in their workshop.

Get in close to the action as they cut timber with a circular saw or grind metal into sparks. Turn the mundane into an exciting story-board of great photos.

 18. Get Dirty in the Garden

If you love gardening regularly, make it the theme of a documentary-style photoshoot.

Capture photos of boots standing in muddy soil, gloved hands pruning roses or even the dirt and sweat on a brow. Take photos of the details that form a story of a sunny afternoon in the garden.

Combine these images with shots of vegetables, flowers, garden tools and neatly planted seedlings.

19. Get Close with a Macro Shoot

A popular creative photoshoot idea is macro photography. Macro is not just about getting up close and personal with creepy crawlies.

Photograph up close with a macro lens to see the details of insects in their garden homes.

Use a macro lens to photograph jewellery, coins, and everyday objects.

20. Use Mirrors for Creative Impact

Every house has mirrors – make the most of them for exciting mirror photos. Mirror photography ideas have been around since the first camera and provide a different perspective.

Take the photography tips learned earlier to photograph a portrait subject by reflecting on a mirror. Or use one to take a photo of yourself.

Use mirrors to take candid photos of the family as they go about their day. 

21. Clean Your Window and Shoot Reflections

Taking shots at a window from an angle allows you to capture subtle photos of what is outside and inside the house.

With a subject standing inside the home looking out the window and you outside looking in, you have the perfect scene for a portrait.

Window reflection portraits show the person’s facial features sitting inside the room. The room’s details disappear into the darkness, providing a nice contrast between the subject and their surroundings.

The window shows a ghost reflection of the scene facing the subject and adds new elements to your story.

22. Take a Bath

Have you ever seen images of a person floating in the water surrounded by floating objects? Create this photoshoot with the help of a friend and a few props.

Fill a tub and have your subject lay face up. Surround the face with floating leaves, rubber ducks, flowers or even slices of fruit. Or, run a super bubbly bath and blow bubbles into the room for added effect.

Take your photos top-down to frame the shot so their face is centred and the props float around them.

Not only will you have a lot of fun setting up the photo shoot, but someone will come out clean in the end – unless you fill the tub with milk or blue dye. (Milk bath photography is actually a thing!)

23. Rely on Natural Lighting

If you don’t have access to softbox lighting kits, make the most of the available natural light.

Stroll around the house and observe the angle and quality of light coming in through the windows at different times.

Plan for a portrait or still life session optimised with that natural light.

If you have a perfect room in mind, but the light is too harsh, hang a white bedsheet across the window or doorway to diffuse the light. Bedsheets of all colors make for great backdrop ideas too.

For a dappled effect, hang lace across the light source to cast a patchwork of shadows.

Be aware of the play of shadows and how they fall on a scene or subject. Shadows create an excellent contrast between the seen and the unseen.

24. Master Artificial Light

Artificial light takes two forms – camera flash gear intended for photography and regular household lighting. 

With an on or off-camera flash, you control the amount and quality of light in your photography. Light stands, softboxes and beauty dishes form part of a lighting kit perfect for portrait and indoor work.

If you don’t have access to that kind of kit, there are plenty of other solutions available in your home for a photoshoot.

Search for fairy lights or Christmas lights to use in a portrait session. With a shallow depth of field, the lights become soft blurry bokeh balls in the background.

Or, for a fun look, have your subject hold a handful of balled-up fairy lights and photograph them in a dark room.

Even a single exposed light bulb in a dark room adds a lot of drama to the overall scene – the old kind with a visible element.

My tip is to make sure to work with suitable shutter speeds and apertures to get the right depth of field and control the amount of light hitting the camera sensor.

25. Create Double Exposures

Double exposures allow you to take photos of two separate scenes and blend them to form one photo.

One way is to take a photo of your model and another of a garden scene. The camera combines the images to blend the two photography concepts.

Get it right, and it looks like the silhouette of your model is the canvas for a landscape scene.

Editing apps are also available that achieve the same look.

26. Make Some Mess With Colored Powder

Paint powder photography is an exciting DIY photoshoot activity to try if you don’t mind getting a little ‘dirty’.

You can make your own colored paint powder for photography, then set your tripod and camera on timer, ready to capture a shot of the powder raining down in front of your face.

Just remember that paint powder can stain clothes, so wear something old, or consider doing it semi-naked in your shower.

Final Words

Don’t let lockdown be the end of your favorite photoshoot ideas. Discover creative ways to manage lockdown and try a few ideas while having extra fun in lockdown.

Our guide to creative photoshoot ideas is more than just a collection of tips. It’s a support for photographers affected by a changing world.  

Your home is packed with potential waiting for your next photoshoot. Your partner, kids and pets make the best subjects in a photoshoot.

Brainstorming ideas is important if you’re lacking inspiration. Household items become fun props, and bedsheets become backdrops in a photo session. 

You’ll enhance your photography skill-set through experience and practice.

If you have any other home photoshoot ideas, tips, photography inspiration, questions, or have something to say on the subject; please leave a comment below.