10 Ways To Improve Your Blog Photography

my photos now - July 2015

my photos then - September 2014

I'm definitely no photography expert myself, but when it comes down to the photography on my blog, I'd say my current pictures are miles better than when I first started almost a year ago now. I've definitely learned a few things over the past six months, and so I'm going to share with you my top ten tips to improve the photos you post on your blog.

Number one has to be: use a decent camera/phone with a high quality camera. When I first started blogging, I was using my old HTC and the photos really were terrible! Since then I've got a DSLR camera which means the quality of my pictures has improved so much. 

Don't leave your photography till the last minute! I've done this a few times, and ended up taking my photos the evening before the post went up when the light was really not good. Morning light, on the other hand, works wonders. 

Photographing in the winter months can be so tricky as the majority of the time the light is dim, especially here in England. For this reason, many people invest in white soft box or studio lighting (and even just to improve quality and brightness all year round). I don't own any myself but I hope to someday.

Don't have busy backgrounds in your photos as it's really distracting for the reader, who will most likely struggle to focus on the feature of the photo. Go for simple backgrounds of neutral colours. I often use my white desk, and sometimes areas of my room where I can blur fairy lights or pretty plants and makeup brushes in the background.

This is really important: take a lot of photos but only keep a few. You don't have to be happy with the first photo you take if you think you can do better, and don't give up if your first try doesn't go well.

There is no shame in using apps to improve your photos, whether that's turning up the brightness or highlights, which I often do, and occasionally the saturation. I use the app Aviary for this; it's brilliant!

Think about different ways to 'show off' what you're photographing: what props will flatter it, create a nice colour scheme, reflect the mood, add more to the surroundings? Make the picture more interesting with plants, pretty bowls, maps, compasses, brushes, lights, jewellery, you get the gist. Just think of different ways that you can display your main feature

Remember the focus of the image doesn't have to be central - think about the rule of thirds.Having something slap bang in the middle can look quite junior school, but it totally depends on what you are photographing, and what you're saying about it.

Be sure to make your best image your first image in your blog post, because this is the one that readers will see and be enticed by.

And last but not least, just persevere. If it doesn't go right the first time, that's fine! We're all still learning.

❤️