Have you found your creativity lacking a little during lockdown? I have. Ordinarily, my camera is most used out and about, capturing our adventures (mainly at local National Trust properties!) and it’s rarely used at home. I’m so used to snapping gorgeous landscapes, beautiful views and colourful flowering gardens that my toy strewn house and weed-filled garden don’t fill me with the same kind of inspiration. That was, until I took part in a Photography Treasure Hunt over the Easter Weekend.

The treasure hunt offered fifteen ‘clues’ (or prompts) and I had an hour to collect as many as possible. I loved it! It made me see my home and my garden in a completely different light, trying out new styles of photography and attempting things quite different from my usual candid approach. I don’t know about you, but this period of lockdown is encouraging me to view the world in a different way – changing my perspective, my focus and my priorities – and now it seems, that has extended into my photography too.

The Photography Treasure Hunt was courtesy of a Facebook group I’m in as a ‘graduate’ of the A Year with my Camera course. If you’d like to take part in a similar challenge, I’ve listed the prompts below. I’ve saved my responses to the prompts for further down the page, so if you’d like to do the challenge without being influenced by my interpretations of the prompts – don’t scroll down any further than you need to and then come back to see what my images look like, and I’d love you to share your images with me too!

Photography Treasure Hunt Prompts

  1. Something delicious
  2. Something you love
  3. ‘Can you guess what it is?’ Something photographed from an unusual angle.
  4. Shot with your eyes closed
  5. Fill the frame with colour
  6. Something you made
  7. Something that’s moving
  8. Something older than you
  9. Bird’s eye view (from above) or snail’s eye view (close to the floor)
  10. Something that is alive
  11. A shadow
  12. Three of a kind
  13. Natural black and white
  14. Something you can drink
  15. Spring!

Download the Treasure Hunt Prompts

If you’d like to download or even print off a handy list of the prompts, feel free to download this document:

TreasureHuntPromptsDownload

My Photography Treasure Hunt Results

Here are the final images for my Lockdown Photography Treasure Hunt. Some ideas didn’t quite work out, but I’d taken more images than I needed to so I was able to do some jiggling around to make sure I had an image for each prompt.

1. Something delicious

Pickle trying to eat a bucket handle whilst sitting in the bucket
This wasn’t an intentional photo taken for this prompt (I’d tried to take a series of photos of Pickle with an Easter Egg, but they didn’t turn out great!). I thought this photo of him apparently eating a bucket handle whilst crouching in it did the job, if a bit random.

2. Something you love

Pickle and Jim playing ball in the back garden
It’s not technically a great photo, but of all the photos I took for this challenge, I think this is my favourite. I love that it’s just ordinary – the garden is a mess, no one is wearing shoes, but it just captures a moment of happy play that I quickly caught looking out of the window.

3. ‘Can you guess what it is?’ Something from an usual angle

Close up of a swan plant pot
This photo was originally taken for the Natural Black and White prompt, but I ended up liking the heart decoration better (see later photo), so this filled in the prompt instead. We have a whole menagerie of animals in our garden – this is a Swan plantpot!

4. Shot with your eyes closed

View overlooking a garage lot through branches of a bush
Full disclosure: I didn’t fully close my eyes for this photo, but I didn’t look through the viewfinder so that amounts to the same thing, right? I held my camera above my head, angled it over our fence and hoped for the best. I quite like this view through the branches. Can you spot Jim’s car blurred in the background?

5. Fill the frame with colour

Close up of our new kitchen wallpaper
Over the Easter Weekend, Jim spent a lot of time decorating our kitchen, so I couldn’t resist snapping this statement wallpaper we have for one of the walls. I love it.

6. Something you made

Olaf Frozen Lego on a lego table
I tried to take a photo of this lego table for the fill-the-frame-with-colour prompt, but Pickle was dead set against me photographing his lego! He kept pulling on my arm so most of my shots where out of focus or didn’t have the colour impact I was hoping for. I was a little gutted as I loved the lego, but it was a perfect fit for this prompt instead.

7. Something that’s moving

Pickle running after a bouncy ball in the garden
When is he not? Moving, that is! Taking a photo of my child being still would be the bigger feat. I did mess around with some slow shutterspeed shots but without getting my tripod out, they didn’t have the effect I was hoping for. Quick snap shot it is.

8. Something older than you

Jim working on a bicyle doing repairs
To be honest, I forgot about this prompt as I was doing the hunt. This photo I took originally for the unusual angle, and then I thought it’d be a good option for something delicious or something I love. But when I realised I needed something older than me – sorry, Jim. You took that one instead!

9. Bird’s eye view or snail’s eye view

Some small purple flowers wild growing in our garden from a snail's perspective

10. Something that’s alive

Branches of a tree with budding leaves

11. A shadow

Shadow of a washing line on back garden wall

12. Three of a kind

Three pegs on a washing line
I asked Pickle to choose three things that were the same in the garden – he chose the pegs.

13. Natural black and white

White wooden heart in front of white whiles

14. Something you can drink

Bottle of Rekorderlig cider perched on a garden brick wall with a three in the background

15. Spring!

Bluebell buds starting to poke through
Our bluebells beginning to sprout through in the garden.

Now, it’s your turn!

I’m not sure how long lockdown will continue for, or whether we’ll have future lockdowns to contend with, but whether you’re stuck in your own home because of a pandemic or otherwise, I’d definitely recommend this little photography treasure hunt as a catalyst to finding a bit more creativity in your own home. I’d love to see what you snap, so feel free to use the hashtag #lockdownphototreasurehunt. Alternatively, if you’re a blogger, and write your own post sharing your Lockdown Photography Treasure Hunt results, drop me an email or send me a message on Instagram (@hollymadelife), and I’ll link to your post below.