Better Blogging Series: Better Pictures
Thinking about starting a blog or have a blog and want to do more with it? During this series we will talk about ways you can enhance your blog!
Not going to lie I absolutely love blogging! I wish I could do it full time (maybe one day….). But in the mean time I like to find ways to improve my blog as much as possible. Although I am no professional blogger I have learned quite a few tricks since starting a little over a year ago and have went from maybe 1,000 views a month to over 30,000 in that year.
By no means am I a photographer, but I have learned a few tricks…
There are a few key things that make a good picture without a lot of money and investing in expensive equipment.
People often think that you have to have some fancy camera to get nice pictures… Kind of wrong. Of course you will get better pictures with a fancy camera, but you can still get pretty good pictures without it. Even though I dream of the day I can get one, recently I have been using my iPhone. Yep an iPhone! It takes better pictures than my actual camera which is pretty sad. On a digital camera you may have a food setting that works well for crafts and food projects.
Remove the clutter around the area you are going to take a pictures. Nothings worse than a picture with a bunch of other junk in the way.
Good lighting! I find that natural light is the best, especially in the morning.
Look at the difference in these photos. One was taken at night and one in the morning.
Work with angles! Look at photos from blogs or food photos you really like and look at how they angle the camera then try to recreate that look.
Photo editing is your best friend and you don’t need photoshop! There are some great free photo editing sites out there like picmonkey or photobucket. I prefer pic monkey, but now a lot of their features cost money. I’ve heard from other blogs that its totally worth it. Maybe eventually I will invest in that… Just not quite yet.
The corrections I almost always make is make the photo a bit sharper (not too much though), change the color and the exposure by clicking the auto adjust button, and sometimes I add a film. This way they look more professional.
One thing that I have been doing lately (that I feel helps a lot) is adding the name of the post or the thing that I am making directly to the picture. This is especially helpful for pinterest users. They know exactly what they are going to get when they click on the picture. Like the one pictured below. I have lots of fun picking labels and different fonts. Also, I always add my website into the pictures that way if someone wants to use a photo of mine they can and the watermark will point the readers to the original source. Plus, its like free advertising on Pinterest.
Just in case you missed it….
Part 1: Starting a Blog
Part 2: Content
Homestead Barn Hop, the Morris Tribe, Sew Chatty, Sew Can Do, Craft-O- Maniac, Homemaker on a Dime, Frugally Sustainable, Tips and Tricks, Liz Marie, Weekend Wonders
I always love reading this type of informative writing. It’s best for the budding bloggers our there who just started and still learning the few tricks on how to blog properly. Another good topic is a direct approach on monetization and SEO implementation. Will surely love reading that one on other blogs too as well. Keep it up!
Thanks Sean! I’m still learning all about SEO and monetizing but that will surely be a future post!