This week’s video is all about how to take better food photos, at home. After my Easter Cook Off collab with Brittanie last week, I’m going through some basics for taking and editing better food photos. I might not have had much success with my cheesecake, but I can take a food photo or two.
The good new is that it’s simple enough you can do it at home using basic equipment, items around your house and natural light. Sure, I favour a camera with a prime lens, but if all you have is your phone, that will work too.
K.I.S.S.
Keeping it simple your food photos can be next level sooner rather than later. This video includes some Lightroom Classic CC “edit with me” footage. Walk through the simple steps I take to edit food photos in Lightroom using the basic panel, sharpen mask and more.
I’ve included some links below to Brittanie’s Cook Off video (such a lol), another editing video where I share my tips for editing my outfit photos, and my Unsplash profile link where you can download some of these shots for free. Which, some of you have already done and tag me in them over Easter weekend. So fun!
Planning a creative business photo shoot? Great! This is probably one of my favourite topics to talk about in business and easily my favourite thing to do. Making sure I have a collection of images I can tap into that are personal and filled with brand personality. That resource of creative business images is essential to managing my social media presence day in and day out.
Planning a creative business photo shoot will ensure your brand, blog or business has everything it needs to make waves on social media. All tied in a neatly branded bow. But planning it, executing it and getting to the stage where you have the images to use can be problematic. That’s where this video comes in.
In this video, I’m sharing my tips for planning your next photo shoot including;
Choosing the colours, brand story, location
Hiring a choosing a photographer, developing a relationship, doing the deal and knowing the terms
How to get comfortable in front of the camera
How to make image selections at the end
Why a business photo shoot?
I’ve used creative business photo shoots for a number of years now (see above). I love the evergreen content it creates for my businesses. I have at my disposal an archive of great images I can pull out when I need to inject a little more personality into the blog or social media. Despite numerous hair colour changes along the way (whoops), I have been able to use them year after year.
Having an archive of images improves your brand, blog or business’s overall branding. Go back to the images above and you can see the ‘brand story’ run through the photos. The black, white, blue, grey theme is there. Sometimes subtly and sometimes through obvious clothing and location choices. Consider that as you plan your clothing, prop and location choices.
Consider how much easier it would be to make your website look awesome or roll out content on your social media with these images in your pocket? That part of what you want to plan before your business photo shoot, what EXACTLY are you looking for? Are they all action shots, or are there some posed? Will you use flat lays and product shoots? Use that Pinterest board and plan out the types of images you want beforehand.
What others say.
Nikki from Styling You says in her post 13 tips for professional business photos (another good one, if you’re looking for tips). This post was the reason I started booking this kind of business photo shoot. For a long time, Kel and I had taken all my photos and they were never quite what I was looking for. With Nikki’s tips in hand, I decided to plan my own shoot. I’ve never looked back.
“Having a set of current photos available at the ready to distribute to media, event organisers and for use on your own social media networks helps you to present an image of your business that is true to you and what you represent. Basically, having headshots and creative photos of you ‘doing business’ makes you look more professional.”
Deb from Debbish used a recent milestone birthday as an excuse to have a personal photo shoot. The images from this shoot could easily be used as part of her professional portfolio as a book writer and reviewer, should she need them. She used a local photographer looking to develop her portfolio and the results are amazing.
“I’d previously contacted a local photographer, Jessica Gunn Photographer as I’d initially planned to get some new headshots done for the blog (and Linked In etc) before the Romance Writers’ Conference in August… but it just didn’t happen. Jess was recommended by a friend and I’d looked at her work and thought we’d be a good fit.”
If you have questions, make sure you leave them in the comments here or on YouTube. It loves that kind of thing. Now, on to the good stuff. Below is the PDF download of the important things to plan/book when putting together your creative business photo shoot. No sign up required, go nuts.
Answering the question, what’s in my camera bag? It’s a YouTube thing to do. Haha. But mostly I’m doing it to share what I’ve collected along the way to the do the job I’m doing now. I’m a blogger, content creator, photographer and digital marketer. All the things. Phew. It can mean one day I need to photograph a product, the next a model and the day after that my food. And what’s in my camera bag reflects that.
This video covers off on what I have and what I need. What I like, what I use and what I don’t. I talk about why I went back to a full frame DSLR after loving the mirrorless and why for the first time I’ve kept a camera when upgrading.
I’ve loved taking photos since forever. Camera gear has always been something I’ve invested in, tried new things and switched up. If you’ve been around the blog for a while, you might remember some of the changes. Haha. But right now, I’m super happy with the setup I have. It felt like a great time to share what’s in my camera bag with you. Ready?
No luck with the others. I’ll update when/if I find them. Contains affiliate links.
And there you go, team. That’s what’s in my camera bag. The links above will take you through to eBay AU. I’ve selected, where possible, stores that have great feedback and high scores. But, feel free to do your own research, I get that. But for me, eBay is THE best when it comes to camera gear, I always manage to pay less than other places you can buy online. Plus, the secondhand market on some of these items is great!
If you have any questions or want to see more photo comparisons between the Fujifilm E-X1 and the Nikon D750, let me know. I find it really interesting to compare them side by side, but maybe that is just me.
