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I Took These 29 Photos With Household Items Using Simple Hacks, And I Show You How I Do It
I'm an Isle Of Wight based photographer Oliver Howells, and I want to show the world that you can still think creatively even with limited equipment at your disposal.
I accompany each photo idea with clips from behind the scenes allowing people to understand my work and teaching them my creative way of thinking.
If you're looking for more photo inspiration, tips, tricks and hacks, follow my social channels linked below.
More info: Instagram | tiktok.com | oliverhowells.co.uk | YouTube
This post may include affiliate links.
My background in photography originally started 8 years ago, when I studied photography at A level. Since then I've been practicing every day, learning the craft and developing my own style. I've been fortunate enough to now work with brands across the world, as well as inspiring people with my creative ideas.
I saw that a small group of photographers started uploading behind the scenes on TikTok, such as Jordi Koalitic and Alex Stemp. I then realized this dance app was no longer a dance app, it was a way to express your talents and abilities, so I decided to share my passions with the world too.
The easiest photography hack I've shared is using tinfoil to create a bokehlicious product backdrop. To start this hack, you need a light source shining onto a piece of tinfoil, then position your product a bit further in front of the tin foil. Your camera needs to use a wide aperture such as f/2.8 to isolate your subject, which will leave beautiful bokeh in the background.
Making videos is currently a part-time job, but hopefully one day I'll be able to make it full-time. However, for now, I still run my own digital marketing business where I manage social media accounts and also create websites!
Studio setup is the hardest part, and it's where the photo idea begins! Lighting is so important and tricky to get right, so I spend a lot of time and effort setting up my photos before I'm happy with the final image. Photoshop makes the job so much easier, these tools allow you to then make those final tweaks, making any photo look polished.
Creativity can be so rewarding but also stressful. My best ideas are the most simple, but trying to think of something so basic that anyone can do it from home can sometimes be quite tricky. I love everything about the process of creating photos when I have the idea, but I dislike spending a lot of time on a project and making the decision to not even use the photo knowing that the idea didn't go to plan. As a photographer, you have to accept that creativity comes at its own pace, you won't always have a winning idea every day. Learning from your mistakes and failures will only help you learn and grow.
My words of wisdom to upcoming photographers would be that if you truly love taking photos then learn everything about it, practice every day, keep working and don't stop believing in yourself! I stand by the quote 'you're the creator of your own destiny,' so live the life you want and enjoy the things you love.
In the near future, I plan to grow my skills even more, and hitting my set goals of 100k on Instagram and 500k on TikTok by the end of the year would be amazing. Hopefully I'll be able to inspire many more people and brands along the way. I know this is just the start, so I'm just riding the creative wave and seeing where it takes me.
Nifty effect but doing that would give me a migraine in about 0.00359 seconds...
Holy crap i've seen back to the future and harry potter in the same article? this is the best article i've ever seen
So, to take a photo of a matchstick heart, you first have to make the said heart? Wow!
I think they make these foreground-background pictures seem a bit to easy. Usually, either the fore- or background will be completely blurry when you take a picture like that with a phone or a non-adjustable camera. Especially in the dark.
Most of the photos here cannot be recreated without a professional camera. For most of them, you would need to set the aperture and shutterspeed. And you would need to be able to edit the photos, so you would have to shoot in a raw format. Simple cameras, like point-and-shoot cameras and phone cameras, can only shoot in jpg. That means the camera already edits the photo a bit, and a lot of information gets lost. Because of that, editing them is more difficult, and often with worse results than when you edit a raw photo. Besides that, in photos like this one, the photographer actually wants the blurry foreground. If not, he would just change the aperture to make to foreground sharp, but the blurriness of the foreground makes the photo more interesting to look at, as your eyes get drawn to the face of the girl in this case
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Most of these probably won't work if you just try it out. You need at least some knowledge on how to adjust your camera.
I'd say most of these take quite a lot of knowledge and skill of both your camera and lighting. If you try it out with a camera on automatic mode and light 'as is' they will look like some of the pics on the left side.
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Most definitely! If you want to improve your photo content then photoshop is a key tool that all photographers use in the industry. I barely use editing tools in my photos and focus more on the colour grading. My content ranges in skill level so there is something for everyone to try 🙌🏻
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Not sure how I’m going to emulate some of those, they’re a bit light on the instruction.
Click on his extremely tiny name under the picture and it takes you to his TicTok page that has videos and not just a couple of screengrabs. He tells you what camera settings to try too.
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You could still take all of these shots on a phone. Theres lots of apps that allow you to control aperture, iso and shutter speed, as well as editing tools such as photoshop express, PicsArt. etc. If you enjoy photography, then you'll want to invest in these tools and get better at it, but if you just want to use your phone to take photos I have lots of tutorials on my social pages for that too😊
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hes hardly explained how to do any of these shots. downvote for being clickbait
Most of these probably won't work if you just try it out. You need at least some knowledge on how to adjust your camera.
I'd say most of these take quite a lot of knowledge and skill of both your camera and lighting. If you try it out with a camera on automatic mode and light 'as is' they will look like some of the pics on the left side.
Load More Replies... Most definitely! If you want to improve your photo content then photoshop is a key tool that all photographers use in the industry. I barely use editing tools in my photos and focus more on the colour grading. My content ranges in skill level so there is something for everyone to try 🙌🏻
Load More Replies... Not sure how I’m going to emulate some of those, they’re a bit light on the instruction.
Click on his extremely tiny name under the picture and it takes you to his TicTok page that has videos and not just a couple of screengrabs. He tells you what camera settings to try too.
Load More Replies... You could still take all of these shots on a phone. Theres lots of apps that allow you to control aperture, iso and shutter speed, as well as editing tools such as photoshop express, PicsArt. etc. If you enjoy photography, then you'll want to invest in these tools and get better at it, but if you just want to use your phone to take photos I have lots of tutorials on my social pages for that too😊
Load More Replies... hes hardly explained how to do any of these shots. downvote for being clickbait
