I love being creative with blog photography.
I love making a photo look curious, that you will want to look at again and again, as you might discover something slightly different each time.
Creative photography just takes time and imagination, not a fancy camera.
Think about texture, props and layer your image both in terms of height and depth. Cake stands make great props for anything and everything to add height and interest. I am also a fan of perfectly positioned crumbs!
My favourite recent posts where I use this style were my pretty doughnuts and my petal ice lollies. Ok, so they might be too styled for your liking, but you get the idea.
These are a selection of my favourite DIY backdrops that I use for my blog photography.
From top to bottom, left to right:
A chopping board, a book of patterns, straw, wallpaper sample, kitchen tray, hessian, a paper fan, the garden table, a fence panel, scrapbook paper, gravel, fabric pinboard, flowers, wall art - shells, craft cutting board, vintage bell fast sink drainer, wooden palettes, fat quarters and tea towels, upturned tin bath, my office rug.
If you are a regular reader you will have probably spotted all of them at one time or another!
I love adding depth to my photographs with interesting backdrops and you will never find a white background here! I also stay away from shiny wrapping paper and wipe clean tablecloth material, as they can create a sheen when using a flash, if you are photographing your post in the evening. I also like using chalkboards - great for handwritten annotations!
Lifestyle blogs can be greatly enhanced with lifestyle photography. So if you have made some fabulous and want to blog it, show the ingredients you used. Leave some flour around your magnificent cake, or drizzle some icing on the worktop next to your perfect cup cakes.
And my tip would be to get out of the habit of taking photos just from above. Yes include an overhead shot but get low to your subject, create a depth of field, bringing your item to the foreground of your picture and letting the camera focus on it, leaving the rest of the shot to blur.
One of my favourite posts for the photography was actually not that impressive when it comes to skill. No bake biscuits! But I love the way my eye is drawn to the biscuit in the shot where I am at it's level, from the side angle. You can have a look here. Let me know what you think? How would you have set up the shot?
And that is my final tip. Take time. If you have gone to great efforts to create something beautiful, that you want to show off on your blog, then it deserves some loving photography. Take photos as you go, as a step by step guide and arrange the photos in a collage so they whole process can be seen.
Do you have any backdrops you use that you could share? I can't leave a DIY store without an armful of wallpaper samples these days!
And if you haven't voted yet for the Loved By Parents Blogger of the Year, what are you waiting for ;)
