My Look: Dress | Denim Jacket | Sandals
Photos x Kailey Wallin
Happy Tuesday loves! Before I get into the ‘blogging tips’ aspect of this post, I wanted to quickly highlight this adorable LBD that I’ve been living in this summer! It’s only $12 and can be worn on it’s own, layered with a cardigan or jacket, or I even wear it all the time as a swim suit coverup! I love that it is just black & simple so you can wear it with anything but the fringe detail makes it pop. I paired it with my latest denim jacket obsession that I am positive you will see me where over and over again on here.
Now onto photography!! As promised, I’m going to be doing some ‘blog’ related segments for all my newbie blogging babes out there!!! I always think that I wish I would have had someone to ask questions to when I started blogging instead of taking years to figure everything out on my own, so my goal is to be real and open with you guys with my personal journey so I hopefully can help or inspire at least one of you reading this! (I’m sure as I grow & learn more I will redo all these posts with all my extended knowledge and experiences and I’ll look back on all these blogging tips posts and be like WOW I can’t believe I thought I knew what blogging was about hahah! But this industry is ever-changing and ever-growing so I am happy to share what I’ve learned so far and will continue to do so throughout my personal journey!)
1. Own a camera!
I will say that owning my own camera is a life saver. Al bought me a camera for my birthday shortly after I started blogging and although I love iPhone-ography and post iPhone photos frequently on my Instagram, it’s pretty crucial to own your own camera for those times of need! I’ll get into working with photographers next, but when you don’t have a shoot scheduled or you go on vacation or you have a post for a brand due, it’s a necessity! I started with a Canon Rebel t5i and for beginners this is a perfect camera! I would say that a proper lens is more important than the body of the camera itself so if I were you, I’d buy just the body – no lens. Then I would invest in a good lens! For fashion photography I like either a 50mm or a 35mm! Once I started my YouTube channel, I got a Sony a5100 with a 35mm lens as these cameras seem to be better for video!
2. Work with photographers!
Throughout my blogging career I have gone in phases of working with photographers and doing the shooting with my husband, but I will say after all these years I have realized that working with photographers is SO worth it. I have done both – ‘collaborated’ with photographers and paid for shoots. When you’re a smaller blogger like myself, you don’t always have a big budget to pay photographers so for myself what I have found helpful is finding photographers who see working with you as mutually beneficial! Find someone who sees you as also helping them out. Tag them in your social media photos, as well as your blog. Post on your Instagram stories when you are shooting with them. Show people you love them! When I am collaborating with a photographer on a regular basis, I will try to do nice things for them to show them how grateful I am for their time like pay for their coffee, bring them little presents or gift cards with a thank you card, etc! Doing all your own photos is possible, but also very time consuming to have to go through and pick your favorites and do all the editing. I am always so grateful when I get pretty edited photos back from a photographer!! That saves you lots of steps when posting a new blog post. If you aren’t able to find a photographer to collaborate with, I would say paying them is worth the money!! See if they have a rate for bloggers or what they can do that is within your budget. Many times they will be happy to work with what you can pay! Remember that your photography is an investment for your business. Imagery is so crucial to your blog and especially when it comes to growing your blog! You will thank yourself that you paid photographers to help you grow and create amazing content!
3. Edit your photos!
If you are doing your own photography or posting an iPhone photo on Instagram, take the extra couple of minutes to edit it! Blogging is a very VISUAL industry, so you want to make sure your photos are pretty and appealing to the eye! For editing I use Lightroom, VSCO, & Snapseed. I personally like my photos bright and more warmed toned rather than cool. Lots of bloggers like theirs with a more ‘blue’ hue but for some reason I have started loving the more ‘yellow’ and ‘orange’ tones! My eyes personally are drawn more to warm so on VSCO I use the Q5 filter, but back when I liked cooler tones I used A5. I would apply the same filter to every single photo you post. This will give your Instagram a more cohesive look. I also never use the full strength of the filter, I will always tone it down by at least 50% or more. That way your photo is only slightly filtered and doesn’t look over edited. If you want to enhance certain colors in the photo like the sky, the color of your shirt, etc, you can do that in Lightroom which is pretty cool! Making certain colors more vibrant or toned down can do a lot for your photo! In Snapseed you can ‘paint’ where you want things edited so this came really useful to me when I took photos by a sunset but I looked really dark. I painted over the lower half of the photo with higher exposure to brighten it up but still got the beautiful sky in the top half. If you adjust the brightness or exposure of the entire image then you usually would have to compromise one or the other, but not anymore!
Those would be my top 3 tips when it comes to blogging photography! I added a little to each one to go into more detail and answer some of the more direct questions I’ve received 🙂 I hope you all had a beautiful Labor Day weekend and praying you all stay safe during this time of wildfires and hurricanes. Prayers going all your ways!!
Xx,
