6. Make a DIY lightbox
A lightbox is a must for any product photography that requires you to take well-lit photos of small objects. You can make your own lightbox using a cardboard box and plain white fabric. Save yourself $100 and rig it up yourself with some tape and scissors.
7. Use a sandwich bag
Want to create a mystical, hazy effect? All you need is a plastic quart bag to make it happen. Cover your lens with a plastic sandwich bag for a DIY haze effect.
8. Use fishing wire
Lens flare can add some life to an outdoor landscape shot. Attach a thin length of fishing wire across the lens to achieve this effect. The wire won’t show up in the final image — just the light bouncing off of it.
9. Shoot through wool
Grab your favorite holiday sweater and stretch it in front of the lens for a soft frame around your subject. For the right effect, just ensure that their face is in focus and the wool is not.
While you can buy your own tilt-shift lenses, they can be pretty pricy. Fortunately, many smartphone apps these days have tilt-shift options — including Instagram. Simply add this effect to your photos to achieve that surreal, miniature-model quality.
11. Shoot through a tea strainer
Hold a tea strainer up in front of the lens to cast shadows on your model’s face. Vary the distance to change the patterns.
12. Attach a macro lens to your smartphone
Disassemble an old laser pointer or DVD player and remove the tiny macro lens from inside of it. Rig it to your smartphone by super-gluing it to your phone case, or attach it with a rubber band and popsicle stick. Check out this guide for more fun ways to play with texture in your photography.
13. Use reading glasses
If you have some old reading glasses lying around, you can tape them in front of your smartphone’s camera to achieve a magnifying effect. It can produce a similar effect to lensball photography, minus the monetary investment.
14. Create your own beauty dish
A beauty dish is used in studio photography to cast soft, diffused light on a subject. Rig your own using a plastic soup dish and aluminum foil. We have more ideas on creating the best beauty photography here.
14. Make lens flares with a CD or DVD
This creative photography hack comes straight out of the ’90s. And like most other ’90s throwbacks, we still love it. Hold a CD in front of your camera so it reflects light back into the lens. This is ideal for creating lens flares that seem to move at random.
If you’re trying to shoot in tight spaces, you may not be able to look closely at the viewfinder when you click the shutter. Instead, link your camera via Bluetooth or WiFi so you can inspect the images in real-time. This can save you valuable time, and depending on where you’re shooting, studio fees.
