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100+ Creative Photography Ideas:
Techniques, Compositions and Mixed
Media Approaches
May 8, 2016 by Amiria Robinson
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Students taking high school photography qualifications such as A Level Photography or NCEA Level 3 Photography often search the internet looking for tips, ideas and inspiration. This article contains well over 100 creative techniques and mixed media approaches that Fine Art / Photography students may wish to use within their work. It showcases student and artist examples along with brief descriptions of the techniques that have been used. Approaches relate specifically to mixed media photography techniques, technical / trick photography ideas and interesting, fun or unique compositional strategies.
Note: The creative photography ideas listed in this article should not be explored haphazardly within a Photography course, but rather selected purposefully, if appropriate for your topic or theme. These approaches may or may not be relevant for your own photography project and should
be chosen only in conjunction with advice from your teacher. The techniques listed here are created using a range of different cameras and devices, such as a digital SLR/DSLR camera, traditional camera, pinhole camera and/or camera phone.
Stain, smudge and erode photographs using water , like Matthew Brandt:
Matthew Brandt has created unexpected and dramatic running of coloured ink by submerging printed photographs in water. After photographing lakes or reservoirs from around the United States, Brandt collects samples of water and brings them back to his studio. He then soaks the c-prints in water from the location that the image represents. Over time, the surface begins to degrade, creating images that are relics of this process. This is a great example of how creative photography techniques can (and should) be driven by the subject or theme that is explored.
High school Photography students are able to experiment with burning or scratching negatives prior to printing or once the photo is printed. In these dramatic photographs, Lucas Simões purposefully targets the faces, leaving a single eye. As when using any dangerous technique, burning should be attempted with adult/teacher supervision and care.
Sew or embroider photos , as in the stitched vintage photography of Maurizio Anzeri:
Maurizio Anzeri offers a wealth of inspiration for students who are looking for portrait photography ideas. The brightly embroidered patterns and delicately stitched veils cross the faces with sharp lines and dramatic glimmering forms. Note: Although Anzeri sews directly into found vintage photographs (often from flea markets and car boot sales) it is usually recommended that most high school students use their own photographs for this purpose.
Stitch photographs together , like Lisa Kokin:
This clever photography trick produces soft, hazy edges around with a photograph, helping to create a seductive, ethereal or other-worldly atmosphere. Jessy David McGrady achieves this effect using a plastic sandwich bag, with a hole torn in the side. He places the ring of plastic around his camera lens, secured in place with a rubber band, leaving rough, torn, slightly crunched edges visible through the viewfinder (but not obscuring the image completely). The intention is that the middle of the image remains well-focused and sharp, while the edges become misty. You can experiment with using marker pens to colour the plastic or increasing the number of layers of plastic.
Use a hand-held glass lens or prism, to create blurred, abstract forms , like this photograph by Sam Hurd:
A convex lens or prism held in front of your camera lens can create stunning reflections, distortions and ‘bokeh’ (see below) within and around your image. The results are unexpected and unpredictable, often creating beautiful abstracted shapes and colours that are not easily replicable using Photoshop. A hand-held glass lens or prism enables you to quickly add variety to an image, bending and directing light and colour from the scene itself. Sam Hurd has used this technique to create a strong focal point: a magical environment with attention swiftly focused upon the two figures in the centre. This technique takes practise, but can generate some spectacular results.
Deliberately unfocus lights to create ‘bokeh’ , as in this beautiful landscape byTakashi Kitajima:
Identity photography ideas: these photographs were created by distorting and inverting crowd scenes through circular lenses. The frame of the lens becomes a dominant compositional element, containing blurred and abstracted figures that are reduced to smears of unidentifiable colour.
Abstract an image completely through three mirrors, creating a vortograph , likeAlvin Langdon Coburn:
A vortograph is the abstract kaleidoscopic photograph taken when shooting an object or scene through a triangular tunnel of three mirrors. Alvin Langdon Coburn’s images were some of the first abstract photographs taken.
Fold a photograph and make a installation, still life or sculpture , as in this example by Joseph Parra:
Joseph Parra has cut and folded three identical prints with meticulous precision, creating transfixing, distorted portraits. Entitled ‘Oneself’, this work references the ‘fractured, multiple, and twisted ways we often view ourselves’. Many students search endlessly for still life photography ideas: this is a reminder that sometimes the photograph itself can become the still life.
Create 3D photography collages , as in these works by Midori Harima:
were all there’, have precise, analytical strips of coloured paper collaged onto black and white photographs, removing the human presence from an image. Her work explores popular culture and the ‘conditions of living in a commercial system’.
Splash, smear or throw mixed media upon photographs , as in this A Level Photography sketchbook example by Jemma Kelly:
This is a richly textural high school Photography sketchbook, completed for an AS Photography project. It explores the theme: ‘Unknown and Forbidden’. Collaged, mixed media photography techniques can add another dimension to photographs, and can help with the exploration of conceptual photography ideas.
Simulate the effect of the wet collodion process used by Sally Mann via Edwynn Houk Gallery:
Photographer Sally Mann is a fan of antique photography technology, often using a bellows camera (one that has a pleated, expandable box to extend the lens). She has produced a significant body of work using the platinum printing process, which results in high quality monochrome images with a very wide tonal range, as well as the bromoil printing process, which involves making an oil print from a bleached and hardened print on silver bromide paper. Bleaching makes the darkest areas of the print become hardest, so when soaked in water, more water is absorbed in the highlights. Due to oil and water not mixing, when the bromide image is inked with oil paint, the oil adheres to the darker areas only. This can then be printed using a printing press, resulting in a soft paint-like image, with no two images exactly the same. Sally Mann has also created many works using the collodion wet plate process, which can result in images that appear to be a hybrid of photography and painting. This is a laborious historical printmaking method in which the final image is
face in unexpected and unpredictable ways. The drips suggest tears, exhaustion and despair: the feeling of being submerged in a storm. This aptly communicates the struggle of separation and loss in his family, which are specifically represented in the portraits of his twin sister and mother.
Paint directly onto photographs , as in these works by Gerhard Richter:
Gerhard Richter has painted over 500 of his own photographs (with many more works discarded): commercially printed images that are overpainted with spontaneous gestural smears, using leftover oil paint applied with palette knives, squeegees or doctors’ blades. In the examples above, the thick painted lines divide the composition and inject colour into what is otherwise a rather drab interior scene. The paint disturbs the viewer – shatters the illusion that we are quietly observing a scene – pulling our attention to the tactile surface and smear of texture in front of our eyes.
Combine paint and photographs digitally , like Fabienne Rivory‘s LaBokoff project:
This project by Fabienne Rivory explores interactions between imagination and reality. Selecting photographs that represent a memory, Fabienne digitally overlays a gouache or ink painting, introducing an intense vibrant colour to the work. Students might like to experiment with this idea by creating a photocopy of a work and applying ink or watercolours directly (watery mediums will not ‘adhere’ to an ordinary photography surface).
Redraw part of a scene with paint , as in these works by Aliza Razell:
Although similar to the above technique, this involves more than applying painterly colours or textures to a work. In the example on the left, part of a digital image has been erased and replaced with a hand painted image. Many high school photography students have superb painting and drawing
Paint onto objects and then photograph them , as in this IGCSE Photography piece by Rachel Ecclestone:
This IGCSE Photography portrait submission incorporates imaginative face painting with dramatic lighting and well-composed images. This approach is growing in popularity amongst contemporary online photographers and provides students with another avenue for expressing a wide range of artistic skill.
Mark or scratch negatives or photos , as in this 100 year old vintage print by Frank Eugene:
This image was created using photogravure – a photographic printmaking technique that was used to create some of the first photographs. It uses a treated, light-sensitive gelatin tissue that is exposed to the image and adhered to a copper plate. After the areas of unexposed gelatine are washed away (leaving different depths of hardened gelatine in darker and lighter areas) ferric chloride is used to etch the image into the copper plate beneath (the ferric chloride soaks in more in the shadowed / darker areas etc), allowing a fully tonal photograph to be produced when printed using a printing press. In this example, Frank Eugene has scratched away background details with a retouching knife, so the horse remains the dominant element in the composition. The resulting image is a combination of drawing, etching and photography (an unorthodox approach for the time, which was influenced by his experience as a painter). Photogravure is now a largely discontinued method of printing a photograph (it has been replaced by laser etching machines – see below) however, it inspires a range of contemporary photography ideas, such as scratching the surface of a photograph with a fine point or scratching a negative prior to printing.
Use a CNC or Laser Engraving Machine to etch a photographic image onto glass, wood, aluminium or another similar material :
