Wednesday 27 January 2016

How I: Take my photographs.


Spoiler alert -  I'm not a professional photographer :)

In fact, if you want a good laugh, go check out some of my older posts because I look back now and cringe forever because the photos are so bad. Blogging is such a creative medium, and now I spend so so much time trying to constantly improve my photos. I in no way think that they are the best photos out there, but I thought my tips and tricks might be helpful slightly, because it's all trial and error!

Lights. Why is winter so dark, and why do I work during the day? After frantically rushing to take batches of photos on the weekend and feeling frustrated, I finally bought some lights, and now I pretty much take my photos at night. I use these lights from Amazon, which I don't think are too expensive, and they just live in the corner. I find that when I use both, they give me the perfect aesthetic for my style of photos - I like everything to be bright and crisp. If you need something smaller, just get a daylight bulb, as that's what lights mimic. 

Camera. My camera is the canon 600d, and I use the canon 50mm lens. I know a lot of people say you can use your iphone camera and get the same results, but I never found that. Not that you need a fancy dslr to blog, but for me - I really upped my game once I got my camera. I used the kit lens for a year, and then upgraded to the 50mm which works best for me and my style of photography. I have a different lens for when I'm out and about, but it all depends on you and what effect you're after. If you want a nice depth of field (blurry backgrounds), I'd recommend the 50mm lens. For taking shots of my face, I use a tripod and a remote. In terms of settings, I keep the ISO as low as possible - normally 100, as this makes the images so much sharper. I like the shutter speed fast, because I have no time for the blurring. 

Action. When I take photos, it takes me ages. Ages and ages. I like to set everything up with little props and cute things in the background, and then place things around. With each shot, I take at least 10 versions that are virtually identical and mix everything up a couple of times so I can look at them on the computer and edit them down. This is the really fun part, and I normally just have music on in the background and play around until I'm happy. I like taking flat lays, so this normally involves standing on a chair. For the majority of my photos, I shoot using a little white table, but sometimes I shoot on my dressing table. 

Editing. Once I've taken 10000 photos, I edit them all on my mac. I use picmonkey, and I'm signed up to the full service because you get so many extras. I normally play around ever so slightly with the curves, the temperature and the exposure. When I use the lights, as mentioned above, the colours in the photo are normally pretty spot on so it depends on the individual photo and what effect I want. I try to keep the item that I'm editing next to my mac, so I can see the colours in real life and make sure everything is as accurate as possible. 



The most important thing is playing around and having fun with your photos - developing your own style and genuinely enjoying it is the best advice I can give! I got my Laurzrah crate from I just love it, I know lots of you were interested!



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