Shooting

• MOVE THINGS AROUND - I remember when I first started taking photos and was photographing subjects like food, cocktails, products or people and I’d get easily frustrated when the lighting was average or the table top was boring or the whole scenario just really wasn’t working. Those moments were so important and have taught me to think outside the box when I’m working in tricky situations with limited resources. I encourage you to look for direct sunlight or areas where more light is flooding in and utilise those spaces, set up your products or subjects in them . Always look down - so many beautiful floors have become backdrops for so many of my food and Bev shots. Tiles, marble and polished concrete photograph amazing! I’ve attached some reference shots below. Get creative with furniture - velvet is all the rage and is stunning to shoot on and use as a backdrop. Move things and people around, sometimes it takes me setting things up once or twice and trialling it until I get to where I need to be with a setup to start shooting.

• TALK TO PEOPLE - When photographing people talk to your subjects and make small conversation, ask them about, well.. them! Get them talking which helps them to open up, it makes them feel more comfortable around you and enables them to relax. Also have fun and give them guidance and compliments when you start to take snaps, I promise that this will help with getting some beautiful shots. Oh, and don’t forget to laugh! Photo shoots should be enjoyable!

• PORTRAIT MODE - We are pretty lucky with all the advances that technology brings today - ‘portrait mode’ being one of them on iPhones! It helps create a shallow depth of field (where the background is soft and blurry and your subject is in focus) that I would normally create through particular lenses and settings on my camera, I am biased but nothing compares to a DSLR haha! That being said you can get creative with your phones when you’re wanting particular aspects of your photo in focus and others blurred.

• CLEAN YOUR LENS - If I had a dollar for every iPhone photo I’ve seen or every iPhone I’ve had to take photos on and it’s like looking through fog and is super distorted I’d be rich haha. Number one tip before you take any photos, wipe your lens. Always. You’ll thank me for that reminder later when everything looks clear, in focus and fresh!

Editing

• VSCO - This app is my go-to for editing anything I capture on my iPhone. It gives me similar mobile features that I would normally use in Lightroom for tweaking anything from exposure, contrast to individual colours in an image and is easy and quick to use. You can apply the same edits to any videos too so your aesthetic remains consistent across the board. They also have a range of pre-done edits ready to go which can help speed things up. I find the A1-A10 range can always be a good minimalist base to work off and then you can tweak things from there.

Layouts

• UNFOLD - When posting regular content on Instagram stories, I like to change them up visually and ‘Unfold’ is amazing for this. With a wide range of super cool layouts and templates ready to go - you can jazz up your freshly edited images and post them super quickly. Unfold is really versatile, easy to use and you can also lay out videos into the templates too.

Have fun shooting everyone!!

G x