Top Photography Tips for your Social Media

Unprecedented times doesn’t have to mean uncertainty in your business, in fact, this is a key time to be posting regularly as the majority of people will be online.

In this blog post, we’ll be giving you the top photography tips for taking that perfect picture for social and the best part is you don’t need an expensive camera. Thanks to the high tech phones available, we utilise their cameras to the best of their ability and we even find phone shots perform better on social.

What’s the secret to taking great pictures with your smartphone, then? As it turns out, there are a few of them as Chloe’s spaniel, Freddy, helpfully demonstrates:

1. Portrait Mode

Portrait mode is one of our favourite features on a phone camera (Android and iPhone) and if you follow us on Social then you will frequently see our Portrait Mode pictures on our feed.

This mode is great to use if you want to capture one particular thing in the shot, It creates a focus on one object, blurring out the background. We particularly like to use this mode on food, people and dogs of course. With the examples below, you can straight away see the difference in how the photo is portrayed to the viewer.

With Portrait Mode

Without Portrait Mode.

2. Angle

Angles might seem like the obvious one but in fact, a good photo can come out when you experiment with different perspectives.

With a phone, it’s easy to stick with the conventional angle of straight on. You’ll be surprised by what effect you can get from having a play around. Just ensure you’re consistent on your feed with the type of angle. For example, if you’re a recipe account, a birds-eye view shot works best as this draws the audience into the details of the food you’ve made.

Examples of Angles

(Very majestic, Freddy)

Birds Eye View 

3. Lighting

Daylight is probably the best lighting you can get – we find it sharpens everything on camera and creates a professional-looking photo more so than unnatural light.

We appreciate that sometimes it may not be possible to get a photo at the right time of the day or if your location has little natural light, therefore ideally you will need a photo light which you can adjust the brightness on too. We use one like this.

Using a light. 

Without a light

4. Landscape

We use Landscape a lot at Kitch, simply because it works on all platforms and you can get more of what you’re photographing in the picture. Here’s an example below:

Landscape

Compared to portrait

5. Stabilisers

Depending on what your photographing, sometimes you need two hands to adjust what is it you are taking a photo of. A Tripod is an easy way to ensure the shot stays level and balanced when you shoot.

We use one like this as it is easy to transport and versatile so we can wrap it around something if needs be.

6. Background

Being mindful of what is in your background and embracing ‘negative’ space which is the space around the object you’re photographing. A plain wall, expanse of land etc counts as negative space as it’s empty and enhances focus and the stand out factor on your object. Less is always more.

Good Examples

This picture shows Zeus (A Young’s pub Dog) in front of a minimalistic background which means attention is automatically drawn to him.

The same applies to this picture one of our clients took – the attention is drawn to the gin (Counting down the days until we can enjoy one with friends!)

Bad Examples

As you can see circled, we left our belongings in the photo.

With this picture, we left a bag on the seat and there are quite a few glasses and dishes on the table with no particular focus on one or two objects which makes the overall photo look cluttered and messy.

Composition

Probably the most important rule. If you follow the composition rule, the perfect picture will follow. Composition refers to the way the various elements in a scene are arranged within the frame.

Some examples below show pictures starting with a leading line which means this draws the viewer’s eye into the scene rather than away from it.

The rule of thirds means positioning is one of the important things to consider in your image. By grouping the items in a certain way, we guide viewers to the object we want to be the focus of the photo.

And finally, did you find this useful? Tag us in your pictures showcasing your newly refined photography skills and we may just feature it on our feed!

Love,

The Kitch Team x