Photography Tips, Tricks, and Essentials

Just thought I'd take a moment to talk about some helpful tips, tricks, and my 2 basic photography essentials.

**Your pics should be clear, in natural lighting, and on a solid background.

With flat items, I used to lay all of my finished items on a blanket of ours and lay the blanket in front of our sliding glass doors for natural lighting. For 3d items like amigurumi, I would drape the blanket over the couch. Pics like this were ok, but never really had great lighting as demonstrated on my giraffe hat.

I finally had a tada moment and bought a big piece of poaster board! It has made the world of a difference! Now I lay the board on the floor (in front of the sliding doors) and lay my items on it. Time of day also plays a huge factor.

White poster board but wrong time of day 

White poster board better time of day

So what do you do when you're photographing a model? Well I used to pull our curtains closed to get a solid background and have our little ones stand in front of it. This would create less lighting though, so the true colors wouldn't stand out as well.

My solution? Tape the poaster board to the window again! I'm telling you this has made my pics look so much more professional! :)

Also, don't be afraid to use a filter. Even when following all of the above steps, I love using my Instagram filter to make the colors really pop out and minimize shadows.

So a recap...
1. Natural lighting (time of day matters too to minimize shadows)
2. Solid background in white or complementary color.
3. Don't be afraid to use a filter.

Using a phone tripod is also great when taking pics and a must when making video tutorials. I ordered this one from Amazon and love that you can put your phone in straight or sideways, that you can raise it to different heights, and it has a remote button!