Hello!
Today I’m want to share a couple ways that I’ve improved my photo taking method over the years, and how I get inspiration for keeping my style of photography fresh and interesting!
The area I feel I’ve shown the most improvement in is lighting. I’ve always struggled with getting the appearance of natural lighting indoors, I spent ages researching light sources, lightboxes, and even made a couple DIY lightboxes.
I got some passable results, but in the end nothing beats outdoor lighting. It’s so much easier for me to dart outside and snap a few pics, instead of messing with my light setup indoors for ten minutes or more trying to get something decent. It’s especially apparent in nail pictures, anything I shoot indoors tends to look yellow compared to real life.
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| Indoors & Tinged Yellow |
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| Outdoors & Colorful! |
An easy way to spice up an otherwise boring photo is to pose your subject with an unique background! I run into this often with beauty reviews. I enjoy sharing images of the product in my review, but more often than not the packaging is too dull on it’s own to deserve a photo.
For instance, I showed this simple swatch in front of a panel of wood; if I had gone with a plain white background this would have been a unremarkable picture, but when it’s posed in this way it creates a more pleasing image.
You can also flip this around by using a simple background to create contrast with a detailed subject like below:
You can also plan ahead by browsing through your go-to social media feed, (Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, etc) and keeping track of any images that draw your eye.
What piqued your attention? An eye catching color combination, a unique camera angle, or maybe the posing of the object? I started a Pinterest board to save photos that stand out to me; you can check it out here:
Whenever I’ve hit the writer’s block equivalent of photography, I’ll scroll through my board, or just through social media feeds to find an idea to inspire the project I’m tackling at the moment.
I created a board dedicated to color combinations I’d like to try in the future, this can help you decide which background or props to include in a photo.
One last way you can change things up is switch your point of view. There’s a reason you see photographers getting into weird positions to snap the perfect shot, straight ahead is not always your best bet!
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| Straight On & Boring |
Try a bird’s eye view, or eye level with the subject, or even tilted from the side! When I’m taking nail art pictures, I usually sift through 10-15 shots of slightly different angles to pick the one I find most appealing. Don’t be afraid to take tons of pictures, it’s good to have options!
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| With an Interesting Angle |
Have any tips you want to share? Let me know in the comments!