You may have the best blog content, site design and SEO for your DIY blog, but if your photos aren’t any good, it won’t help. Having good photos can make all the difference, but you shouldn’t need to hire a professional photographer every time you want to write a blog. All you need are some blog photography tips to start taking your own blog-worthy pics.
Equipment
Having a good camera is a bonus, but not essential. You can easily get good images using a basic DSLR camera or even your smartphone, if you know how to get the most out of it. Depending on what you’re shooting, you may need different lenses – something that can allows you to take sharp images, close up, is good for food photography, for instance. A tripod is also handy if you’re a slow shutter speed and you don’t want to hold the camera.
But it isn’t the equipment that takes a good picture. While having it is nice, you can learn how to work with what you have.
Lighting
Natural light is best, but isn’t always available or there may be too much light. Try to take your pictures near (rather than in) direct light – such as near a window. If the light is too bright, try diffusing it – a sheet of light, white material over the window can help, or use a lightbox. You can even build your own.
If you’re taking photos near a window, you might find that one side gets all the shadow. You can solve this problem by using a white foam or polystyrene board. Hold it on the opposite side of your subject, to bounce light back onto it.
Set the stage
Pay attention to everything in your photos. Your plate of gorgeous chocolate truffles, won’t look nearly as good if there’s a messy kitchen behind it. Check what’s in your background. You can sharpen your focus on your subject, so that the background is blurred. But avoid any unnecessary clutter back there.
Add props if you like – show some of the ingredients for a dish, or include your cooking equipment in the shot. You can also create the ideal background, using a sweep of material or cardboard.
Taking the shot
Take you photos in the largest setting possible. For a DSLR camera, this will probably be a Raw image. You can adjust the size later, but this will give you the best quality image to start with.
When you take your photos, also remember to move around and try different angles. This will give you a selection shots to work with later on, and will showcase your subject in different ways, with different lighting.
While you’re snapping away, take horizontal and vertical shots. Vertical shots will probably work best for your blog and social media like Twitter and Facebook. But horizontal shots work well on Pinterest as there is less of a size limit on the length of the image as opposed to the width.
Editing
The best blog photography tip you can remember is to edit your images. There are plenty of online photo editors available where you can fix, tweak and generally improve your images.
When you edit your photos, you can adjust your lighting, coloring and sharpen your focus, as you need. Straighten or crop, remembering to use the rule of thirds. And then you can play around with effects, layers, filters and other creative options.
Once you’ve got the best image possible, use it in your blog. The best way to display your images is with a lightbox like FooBox.