Blogging Tips | Photography

I decided that I wanted to start a bit of a series on here of blogging tips and tricks, from html to photo editing. I thought I would start the series with photos since it tends to be the part of my blog I am most frequently asked about. 

VISION

The most important part of blog photos is having a vision in mind of how you would like the photo to look and what you want it to represent. In order to do this you can gain inspiration, maybe scroll down your favourite blogger’s photos, why do you like them? Apply that to your photos. Create a Pinterest board of some photos you adore, why do you like those? Again, apply that to your photos. Never imitate though, take inspiration, but make the photos your own!

WHEN? WHERE?

The best time to take blog photos for me is between 1-3pm. This is because my bedroom is positioned where the most natural lighting comes in through my window at this time. I recommend you try to take your photos when the natural lighting is best for you as some artificial lighting can make photos look yellow.

I use the door to my white Ikea desk as a background canvas for my blog photos, I use this and not the top of the white desk because I can sit it on the floor directly under my window and achieve amazing natural lighting, if you can sit directly under natural lighting, I recommend you do, even if you have to do outside.

BACKGROUNDS

I adore white backgrounds, something that is very consistent on my blog. I always use one of two white surfaces. The first surface is the Tejn rug from Ikea or a white cupboard door which I decided I didn’t want to put on my white desk from Ikea.

For fashion posts I will hopefully have some cool outdoor spots which reflect on the bright, white background of my beauty and lifestyle posts, I will update you guys on fashion backgrounds when I start doing those post.

ACCESSORIES

I use a lot of accessories in my photos around the product(s) I am talking about and I think using accessories allows the items to pop as well as making the photos more fun and a lot less boring.

My two favourite pieces to use are my Marilyn Monroe and Audrey Hepburn books. I love using them because they have iconic photographs in them which I can have at the side of a product and it just gives the photo a classy, clean, iconic look. I love to use books as a whole and have featured a few other books in my photos as I like how the angles look.

I also include magazines, sometimes the cover but mostly the advertisement pages for Chanel, Dior etc. Other products are also a good accessory and cute notebooks and stationary.

POSTIONING

It may just be my perfectionist nature or I may be OCD, but I like to have everything aligned, straight and angled well. If I am going to feature the corner of a rug or a page of a book/magazine I don’t put the full item into the photo, I angle it at the edge so a part of the page is featured, but it isn’t over-taking the photo.

THEMES

If you scroll down my blog something you with notice about my photos from the last few months is that they are all the same size. I think keeping your photos the same width is super important as it is much smoother and sleek looking when scrolling down your blog, height isn’t as important.

I myself prefer bigger photos which are the width of the post meaning that the text of the post isn’t wider than the width of the photo. Another theme with my photos is that they are all bright, have the same or similar backgrounds and similar colour schemes. I like this as it is again sleeker and easier on the eyes than photos which are darker then lighter then bright then dull.

EDITING

For editing my blog photos I tend to use Photoshop, it’s quite pricey if you are a student like me, but definitely worth it for the amazing features. I usually adjust the tone and contrast first by using the ‘auto tone’ and ‘auto contrast’ features in the ‘Image’ tab, the ‘auto colour’ feature tends to give my photos a tint of green so I never use that feature.

I then adjust the brightness of the photo to give it a brighter, crisper look. Lastly, I use the ‘Shake Reduction’ feature which is in the ‘Sharpen’ category of the ‘Filter’ tab. Using this feature makes texts from background images or the names of products clearer and makes the edges of objects much more visible, just all over sharpening the photo and its content.

This is normally the only features I use when editing my photos, I also take my photos on an iPhone 5 turned on its side to expand the width of the photos to fit my blog.

I hope I was able to help you guys with your blog photos, I am not a professional, I’m not saying these tips are what you must do. This post is just some helpful tips and tricks which I do/use to create my blog photos, if I missed anything out feel free to comment below or ask me over on Twitter @heythererobyn.

Thank you for reading today’s post,

What do you think is the most important thing to accomplish beautiful blog photos?