Social Media Photography Tips - Essential Reading!
The Scene & Herd team have worked with Paul Watt Photography on a wide variety of projects for well over 15 years. He never fails to deliver a fantastic portfolio of images, whatever the client. Food photography, landscapes, corporate images, you name it, he does it brilliantly. So we asked Paul to put together some of his top tips to help you get the best possible photos for social media on the occasions that you might not justify using a professional photographer. Here is what Paul says:People love good quality pictures on social media and will engage far more with your message if your imagery is consistent and of a high standard. It's worth making the effort.
Lighting, try to use bright natural light where possible. Phone cameras are much better indoors than they used to be but still produce more pleasing results outdoors. Try a few different angles to see what lighting works best in each situation.
Think about composition, split the scene into thirds and if photographing a person it can look more pleasing to have them placed off centre.
Instagram likes square pictures and images look larger on screen when shot upright and cropped to 5x4 (this can be done on your phone afterwards). I've found I get more likes the larger the picture appears on screen. Too small and the detail gets lost on a tiny phone screen no matter how good the picture.
#nofilter is trendy at the moment but think about apps that can add subtle enhancements or drama to a scene. There are apps like Snapseed (Google Play and App Store) that can add a bit of fizz to a picture and generate more audience reaction. The editing tools in your phone should be used on almost every picture to enhance the image. Skin smoothing apps such as Faceapp will make you extremely popular with anyone over 40 but remember, less is more!
Hashtag your pictures with appropriate hashtags. Googling popular hashtags relevant to your sector or business and using them, means you will get your photographs seen by a larger audience. If you want to be seen as well as heard (!) hashtags are important. Think about reels and adding pictures to your story to generate interest. It's called social media for a reason, comment on other people’s pictures and like them, put love hearts or smiley faces (or other emojis – we use the cheese emoji for clients Connage Highland Dairy often!) next to them - the algorithm on Insta will sit up and start paying attention if you do.
Do some research online to see what other people are doing with photography on social media. This can be a great way to generate ideas and gain inspiration. Look for people who are doing something similar to yourself, follow them and see what they are doing right.
Upload the pictures at the correct size, too small looks awful and too large can generate problems when they are automatically resized by the social media platform.
If you're getting serious, a tripod is a good investment, as is a gimbal for a phone (yes, we had to google that one too, it’s a device that enables the phone to pivot!). Try some video lights (available from Amazon at a fairly modest cost) and you can make people look more like Brad Pitt than Worzel Gummidge! If you're even more serious, a drone can be used to capture some great angles and it will bring out the 9-year-old child in you!
If you're photographing a person, sometimes bright sunlight can be too harsh, the shadow of a building can give a far more soft, complimentary light. If the tones are a bit bluish, you can warm up skin tones afterwards and make them look like they are just back from a week in Lanzarote! (Oh, how nice that would be!)
Still photographs are great, but a short video can add an extra dimension to telling a story. Reels on Facebook and Instagram are liked by the algorithm and will help you get your message across.
