Blogging Year One: Indoor Photography Tutorial for Bloggers

Hi guys! It’s nearing the end of the month, so I am here today with July’s installment of my Blogging Year One tips. In May I shared my best ideas for how to grow your blog following, in June we took a look at Instagram, and today we’re talking photography!

Photography is near and dear to my heart. I owned a photography business for three years, and spent a lot of time with my camera. I realize that there will be a wide variety of skill sets amongst the readers of this post, so I’ll try not to get too technical for beginners and I’ll try not to be too basic for the more advanced. Wish me luck!

My Gear:

When photographing indoor photos for my blog, I use a handful of trusty items. (Note: these are affiliate links, which means if you click them and make a purchase, I will get a small commission.)

• Camera Body: Nikon D600 (D610 is the updated model)
• Camera Lenes: primary for indoor outfit shots: Nikon 50mm f/1.4G, secondary: Sigma Art 35mm f/1.4, I use a variety of longer lenses for outdoor shots. (I have a love-hate relationship with my 50mm, it hasn’t been my favorite lens, but I need it for the focal length, so it ends up being my work horse. I would recommend the Sigma Art 50mm over the Nikon, based on my experience with the Sigma Art 35mm, which I love, but it’s near double the price.)
• Speedlight: Nikon SB-700
• Tripod: I don’t have a favorite here, I just use an older one that is stable enough to hold my camera in a vertical mount.
• Flash Triggers – These allow me to shoot photos with my external flash in a separate location from my camera. (See video below.)
• Lightstand – I attach my flash to the top of the lightstand using this tool so I can position my flash wherever I want, independent of my camera.
• Umbrella – Goes in front of the flash to diffuse the light.

If you’re not a gearhead like me nor a former photographer, no worries! The best place to start is with an entry-level DSLR and a ‘nifty-fifty’ – which is a 50mm f/1.8 lens for Nikon or Canon. You can usually pick up that lens for under $200.

The next biggest piece of advice I can give is: learn to use your camera in manual mode! You will have so much more control over the final result of your images. A camera does not know how to correctly expose for a person on a white background without help from a human. When shooting on white, your photos will usually turn out muddy-looking if you don’t expose manually. Don’t let the camera do the deciding and creative work for you. I taught myself by trial and error, and you can too! It’s not as hard as you might think. Understanding Exposure is a wonderful place to start.

Lighting:

When it comes to photography, lighting is everything. Light and exposure (the proper settings on your camera to allow enough light in) make or break a photograph. My general line of thinking is that natural light is always best. Everyone and most things just look better in natural light. But, natural light isn’t always available, and that’s the case for me where I shoot in my house. So flash it is. But I don’t ever recommend using a built-in flash, it will leave your pictures looking ‘flashy.’ Instead, a speedlight, or external flash will do exactly the job you want it to. Before I had my off-camera flash setup, I attached my speedlight to the top of my camera and bounced it off something white, to the right or left of me. You can use a wall, or a big reflector; I used white kitchen cabinets! It worked really well and I used it for several months until I upgraded to my OCF setup.

That brings me to my next point on lighting – directional light. Once you’ve established an excellent light source, whether it’s window light or a bounced speedlight, you need to use your light to create dimension on your subject. Remember, flat light = flat subject, directional light = dimensional subject.

For example, if you’re the subject and the light source is coming from directly in front of you, ie. you’re facing a window or a flash head-on, then you will be flatly lit. This style of lighting is often used in ‘glamour’ or ‘beauty’ situations, because it tends to give the skin a more even look, but I think it gives the skin a rather uninteresting look as well. Flat lighting means there are little-to-no shadows or contours that show the shape of your face. A better option is to have your light hitting you from approximately a 45 degree angle. If you were the subject, ideally your main light source would be at 10 or 2 o’clock. A good way to check if your light source is in the right spot is to observe where the catchlights fall in the eyes. Note, in the first photo above, the catchlights are almost directly over my pupils, in the second photo they are at about the 2 o’clock position.

Note: Not all light is the same ‘color.’ Make sure you turn off any overhead lights or lamps. You want to make sure you light temperature is as balanced as possible.

My Setup:

Here, you can see my humble set up. In addition to the gear listed above I use a Savage Port-a-Stand, and a roll of white seamless paper. The stand is heavy duty, and it’s been faithful for several years. You always want to make sure your stand is stable enough not to fall over, mounting them with a paper roll can make them rather top-heavy.

For a more detailed look at my setup, including tripod positioning, and why you should never tilt your camera, see video.

My Process:

1. Select outfits – This is usually done when I’m brainstorming and post-planning. When it’s shoot time I lay them all out on my bed, ensuring everything is clean and mostly wrinkle-free.
2. Set up gear – As seen above! This process is lengthened by the fact that I have to move the dining room table every time I do this. Eek!
3. Test shots – I put my camera in the Interval Timer Mode, where I set it to take a series of 10-15 pictures, one every four seconds. I do a test-round to make sure my exposure looks good.
4. Review – I look at the back of the camera after each series to make sure I have enough satisfactory shots.
5. Import Photos into Lightoom
6. Sort – Star top 5-6 photos
7. Edit (see video!)

I think that covers it! Feel free to let me know if there’s anything I missed or if you have any questions. :)