Photography, what to do when it's cold outside...

[BlackRider]

...not how to take care of your equipment when it's cold, but what can I do inside while it's too cold to go outside?

For the 11 weeks of last quarter I took ~7300 pictures... in the last 3 weeks I've taken 17. There's something wrong with that. Should I be looking into the artsy side of photography? Should I be tormenting friends by learning how to take portraits? (I'd need lighting equipment, but I could improvise.) What is there to do with the camera when I'm (for the most part) stuck at home? I've been looking into starting a very much part-time business... maybe just selling prints at first... then maybe some portraits or contract work. Would be nice if I could get my pictures to pay for the equipment.

I can't wait until Thursday... then I start getting photo assignments from the paper again. Shooting basketball was kinda fun.

[XMEN Gambit]

Yes, you can practice portraiture. Can use a teddy bear or something for a model until you're ready to use someone live.

Experiment with lighting. Off-camera flash, hot lights, gels. (try http://strobist.blogspot.com/ for ideas)

Take macros of ordinary things. For example, I've seen interesting macros made of a stack of CDs, edge on, in colored light look pretty cool.