4 Tips For Photographing Beauty Products

I don't know abut all you other beautiful bloggers, but when I'm doing a post if my photographs are god awful, or good but not as good as I want them to be, then it puts a downer on my whole post, I don't feel like I'm making my point or showing my products full potential.

Think about the photographs you see on other people's blogs? The one that really draw you in and make you read their posts, even if your never gonna replicate their ideas. Those photo's are bright, beautifully staged and creative. This posts is going to give you a few simple tips to help you take better photographs wether it be for your blog, instagram or just because you love photography!

Ok, I want you to take a minute to look at the photographs dotted down the side of this post and decide what you like about them, what do you notice? What stands out? Is it the background? The brightness? The rich colours? Before you can take a 'good' photograph, you have to understand what a 'good' photograph is to you! Look at your favourite beauty blogs, what is about their photographs that you love? Don't get me wrong I'm no professional, all though I do study cinematography, and art direction (setting the scene before you take a photograph, video, film a movie) at university so, I have been taught by professionals from the media industry!

Tip one | Lighting: 

I love lighting, when ever I have to light the perfect shot for the film I'm making, I get excited BUT I found it mega hard when I first got started, luckily, I'm not suggesting you guys use a fancy professional lighting kit, this tip in so simple, but will make all the difference to your pictures!
The main place amateur photographers go wrong when they're first starting out, is they thing the object their photographing has to be in direct sunlight, this was a mistake I made, time and time again. This however couldn't really be farther from the truth, ok you wanna think bright, but not too bright. You want to take your photographs near a bright light source like a large open window or a door, but not in the midday sun, outside, on your sidewalk in front of your house. Playing around with lighting is a lot of fun, there isn't a correct way to light your set/stage. Sometimes it's more flattering to have light coming from one side or the other, other times it's more flattering to have your products facing the light, nut natura light is always best! try desperately to avoid taking photographs at night, or with the flash on.The artificial light distorts the color in your photos, while the natural light brings out the beauty of the products you’re showcasing. That’s the overall goal afterall, isn’t it?

Tip two | Props:

Staging your photographs and including props can really make them look more alluring and can create a story within your picture. As you can see for the photographs of the hair products, the hair clips and the ribbon have been used to subtly style the photograph! They help add a little something extra to the photograph that really draws you in!

Tip three | Backgrounds:

Ok, I think we're all agreed no-one  wants to see your messy living room or Kitchen in the background of your pretty blog pictures! It's just not appealing and it draws your focus from what you're actually looking trying to showcase, it's so easy to rectify though! Just grab a plain white poster board, or a chalk board and set it up as the background for your photographs! Remember if your shooting from above, whats under your product is even more important than you're back drop. You could find some interesting tiling or decking around your house and try that out, just make sure you do what works best for your photograph and most importantly the product your showing off.

Tip four | Angles:

Don't just choose an angle and take a picture, take a thousand pictures take one from every possible angle and play around with it! Each angle will capture different shadows and light the product in different ways. Get on the floor and take a photograph from there, climb on a chair and get way aboove the photograph, take one from there, I assure you when you look through them, you will be pleasantly surprised and you won't be using the first photograph you took!

Follow these tips and you'll be taking beautiful photographs in no time not just for your beauty blog, but for everything, lighting is the key aspect in my opinion, it just takes practice.


If you use any of these tips to take a photograph your really proud of, link me int he comments section and I'll check you out!!