Here are five creative portrait ideas with stuff that you have in the kitchen

Combining photography and kitchen? Yes, please! I love spending time in my kitchen experimenting with food as much as I love taking photos of it. Well, Marc Klaus has “cooked” beautiful portraits in his kitchen using some of the items that we usually use to prepare food. In this video, he’ll show you how to use stuff from your kitchen to take some creative portraits at home.

I find these tips to be perfect for the current situation, considering that most of us are spending lots of time at home. But of course, you can try them at any time. What I personally appreciate is also this: these ideas will make me use kitchen gadgets for something other than preparing tons of comfort food and constant “quaranteating.” :) So, here are Marc’s suggestions:

1.Frosting tips – you can use frosting tips as cookies (cucoloris). Turn on your smartphone light and place a frosting tip over it. This way you can give different shapes to your light and then use it for portraits. Or for any other photos, really. Be creative.

2. Cheese grater – this is another “hack” for shaping the light. Place the cheese grater or two of them in front of the light source to create light patterns. This also works with a pasta strainer.

3. Wine (or any other) glass – when filled with liquid, glasses distort and refract the objects that you shoot through them. So, experiment with wine or water glasses: fill them with water, place them in front of your subject, and shoot away. Play with different angles, types of glasses, liquids, and subjects. You may be in your kitchen, but really – the sky is the limit.

4. Plastic wrap – to add a streak of color to your portraits, you’ll need some plastic wrap, a pastry brush, and some mustard. Of course, if you have acrylic paint in your house, you can use that too. Take a piece of plastic wrap and add a streak of mustard or paint onto it. Carefully hang it onto a light stand, or any other place you find convenient. Put your subject behind the plastic wrap and shoot some portraits.

5. Silver spatula – last but not the least, you can use a silver spatula to add some reflections and in-camera effects to your portraits. Place it in front of the lens and play with the angles to see what you come up with.

I hope that these ideas helped you get inspired and take some portraits or self-portraits while in isolation. I personally like the one with glasses most, and I think I’ll try playing with that over the weekend. If I also manage to improvise a tripod like this, that will be awesome!