Creative Sunday Practice #15

If you’ve been practicing creative smartphone photography for a while, you may have noticed something subtle changing. Ordinary objects start catching your attention more often. Light feels more noticeable. Composition decisions come faster.

That’s exactly why this weekly practice continues.

For this week’s Creative Sunday Practice, the invitation is simple: explore pans at home using only your smartphone camera.

At first glance, a pan doesn’t seem particularly inspiring. It’s utilitarian. Familiar. Overlooked. But once you pause and really look, it becomes an excellent subject for training your eye.

Pans offer reflective surfaces, strong geometry, visible wear, and a surprising range of textures. They respond dramatically to small changes in angle, light, and distance — which makes them ideal for focused practice.

How to approach this practice

Set aside about 10 minutes. Before taking a single photo, slow down and observe.

Here are a few directions to help you begin:

🍳 explore reflections on the metal surface

🍳 look for heat marks, scratches, and discoloration

🍳 isolate the pan against a simple background

🍳 experiment with overhead, side, and low angles

🍳 frame only fragments: handles, rims, curves

While photographing pans at home, I started by circling the pan with my phone, watching how reflections broke and reformed, noticing marks I’d never paid attention to before. Only after that did I begin pressing the shutter. That order mattered.

The goal isn’t to make a “great photo.”
The goal is to train attention, patience, and visual decision-making.

Once you feel stuck, stay with the object a little longer. Small adjustments often lead to unexpected results. And I’ll be back next Sunday with another simple object to continue this practice.

Creative Sunday Practice is about consistency, curiosity, and learning to see differently — one ordinary object at a time.