You may want to take up the challenge today of finding something interesting to photograph. The first trick is to come up with something that interests you.
For me, I chose to photograph a Dodge Viper one day. I have just always liked the design of the car and thought why not photograph it.
I put the car in my studio and use a white background that I could throw the red gel on for dramatic effect if I chose to or just keep it simple with the white background.
One thing I noticed was that just shooting at a different focal length changed the look and feel of the car. Starting with the first photo I shot it at 119mm, then to 55mm and this third one is at 30mm.
I moved around the car trying all kind of angles and focal lengths.
I thought it was a fun shooting assignment. Just studying the car from all different angles.
Getting close also was fun and mixed up the variety of looks I was getting.
I found all I had to do for all these shots was get a basic lighting set and I then just picked the car up and moved it around for each photo.
CONTEXT
What I was hoping to surprise you with is that without some visual clue you cannot tell how big or small something is in a photo. That is why it is so important in some situations to leave things out or include them.
This was my lighting setup for the photo shoot and this was the camera I used for all the photos.
To teach yourself how to see start with a subject and then really explore just that one subject. Force yourself to take as many different photos of the one subject as you can.
The one thing I didn’t do in this exercise was to change backgrounds. With a small model car that is simple to do. Just take your can with you to different locations. See how much a location can impact the mood of the subject.
Here is a great article Model Cars Look Life-Sized Through Forced Perspectives.
I think I spent less than $20 for the car and continue to have fun pushing my visual perspective pulling it out every once in a while and learning to see it in new ways.