3 Professional Tips to Make Your Facebook and Instagram Photos Shine
In my previous life, before Expansive Media, I was a photography professor for 5 years. So, I thought I would pass along some of the skills I taught my students to help you take better photos for your Facebook and Instagram posts.
1. Here Comes The Sun...
Have you ever taken a photo in a well-lit situation, but the people’s faces turned out too dark? Read on to find out why that probably happened.
Photography is ALL about light! Without light, there is no photograph. I could teach a semester-long class just on light, but here I’ll give you 1 very simple tip that will make the colors in your photos more vibrant, faces more visible and details stand out - Put your back to the light source.
How it Works
Often when we see beautiful light our instinct is to photograph it. We appreciate the light for the way it makes things look not for the way the light source itself looks.
Most of the time, for social media we want to photograph a subject that is lit by that gorgeous light. So if you put your back to the light, and face your subject, the subject is illuminated from the front making details and colors stand out.
2. Get up, Get Down, Get Funky, Get Loose
There are sooooo many photographs in our world now. How do you make yours stand out from the rest? Change your Point of View. This is a great trick to have in your bag. What this means is get out to the habit of photographing everything from eye-level. Get down on the floor to photograph your kids or your dog. Stand on a chair and look down to photograph your food. PLAY WITH THIS! Putting your body in unusual positions is inherently playful and will turn your life upsidedown, literally. :-)
How it Works
Point of View communicates a subject-object relationship. When you are on the floor with your kids photographing them your viewer feels a sense of intimacy and closeness. They can relate! That means success in Social Media (and art). If your viewer feels something from your photographs, you win.
3. I Just Can’t Concentrate
Photobombs can be funny, but most of the time people and stuff in the background are just distracting. Notice what is in the background of your photographs!
How It Works
Imagine you take a selfie at a conference. Think about what you are trying to communicate with your photo. Probably your goal is to communicate professionalism and active engagement in your career. Maybe you want to show that your are elevating your career with a photo of you and the keynote speaker. Great! You are wearing neutral colors and there is a table with a bright red tablecloth in the background of your photograph. People are going to look more at the table than you. Position yourself somewhere else or crop the table out. Conversely, you can intentionally place things in the background to tell your story. For example, if there is a sign with the name of the event that could work well in the background. Don’t stand right up against it, but stand at least a few feet in front of it to make sure it is in the background and you are in the foreground. This helps your viewer concentrate on YOU while creating a more dynamic composition, but now we are getting into depth-of-field, which is a story for another day…
Try these tips and let me know if they help!
Do you want more tips like this? Drop me a line or leave a comment below to tell me what you want more of. info@expansivemedia.co
