My Top 5 Photography Tips

I’ve always loved taking pictures and I’ve learned a lot about photography and editing by taking photos for my blog. I take all of my own photos except for the ones that are of me. If I’m not in the photo, then I took it! That being said, I wanted to share my top photography tips that I use when taking and adjusting my photos. I hope you can learn something new if you were wanting to learn more about photography! I am definitely not a professional photographer by any means, but these tips have helped me so I hope that they can help you!

•   Lighting and Brightness. I’ve said this before and I’ll say it again, lighting is everything!!! Even with great editing tools, good lighting just makes it so much easier to make your photo look good. Throughout this post, I’m going to be showing you how I transform some badly lit photos into great ones, but it honestly really depends on the photo. I was taking some photos today for a skincare post that I’m working on but the lighting was so bad that I couldn’t get any. It’s not just about dark photos, but if shadows are cast in the photo as well, that can be hard to edit out without the use of hard core editing. If you are able to get a semi-bright photo, it will help you immensely in the editing process. This is where brightness tools come in, and the simple brightness tool on Instagram is a great start. The top photo shown below is the original, and the bottom photo has the brightness feature from IG applied. See the difference? Brightness is a great way to get your photos looking more professional.

• Temperature. Some lighting will give a blue hue to your photos, which is not what you want. To easily get rid of this, adjust the temperature settings of a photo to the positive side to get rid of any unwanted blue tones. This is an easy fix and your photos will look great! Just don’t bring the temperature up too high or your photo will then have a yellow or orange tint. The perfect amount will have your photo looking great. The amount you need will vary on every photo, but you will be able to tell. The photos below are an example of a blue tint being adjusted to the perfect lighting.

• Lights on nearby. If you’re taking photos in your house, make sure that no other lights are on. This can leave an orange glow on the photo you are trying to take. Make sure all the lights are off, and this shouldn’t be a problem if you are shooting with natural light. We’ll talk about natural light later in this post, but make sure to pay attention to the other lights that are on around you when you are taking your photos. The top photo below shows an orange glow from unwanted light, and the bottom shows a photo without it, also edited with some brightness tools. You can clearly see the orange glow on the right of the top photo.

• What you are wearing. This may sound really weird, but yes, it actually matters what you are wearing when you take your pictures. Especially if there is any reflective material or white in the photo, the bright color of your clothing can cast onto the object of your picture, giving you an unwanted splash of color. White vases and mugs can reflect color, as well as any other reflective or mirror type material. In the photo below, see how the ruler and some of the dots have a red/pink tint? That’s because I was wearing a hot pink shirt while taking this photo. Make sure you are in a light colored shirt when you take photos!

• Natural Light. My fifth photography tip that I’m going to be sharing with you today is often the most important. When taking photos for my blog, I like to use natural light. Of course, photos without natural light are pretty too, but natural light looks so much better than flash. Natural light will give you a great base to use all of the other tips above. I will often open up my curtains as much as I can in order to get the most natural light possible without washing out my photos.  Washed out photos don’t look good and is a result of too much light. Move things around and play with your set-up until you can achieve natural, gorgeous lighting.

I hope this post helped you if you were looking for some simple photography pointers!

Emily