My Simple Strategy: How I Organically Grew My Instagram Account (Part 2)

 

 
I’ve always loved chick flicks, the cute movies with a romance woven through the storyline that usually result in happy endings. Although not in my top ten favorites, “The Princess Diaries” still holds a special spot in my heart—partially because it was filmed in San Francisco, less than an hour away from where I grew up!

Partway through the film, the main character’s grandmother, who just happens to be the queen of a European country, chastises Mia (the main character!) for photos of her and a boy appearing on the front page of the newspaper, underneath the headline “The Princess is a Party Girl!”

“A picture’s worth a thousand words,” the queen says. “And you have two pictures.”

While that scene isn’t the least bit romantic, that line always stood out to me.

A picture is worth a thousand words…

And you probably have an Instagram account full of pictures…

But what kinds of words are they?

Are your picture’s one thousand words the equivalent of Shakespeare… Or a second grader learning about paragraphs for the first time? A doctor’s messy scrawl… Or beautiful calligraphy?

When I stopped to think about my own Instagram account while ago, I realized I had a mix of both. Many gorgeous photos from my blog… Interspersed with random low-quality snapshots from my phone with poor lighting, hazy filters, and subjects not always fully in focus.

As soon as I stopped posting the low-quality photos and focused solely on sharing beautiful photos of my blog’s recipes, I saw a huge change. Everything increased: followers, likes, comments… You name it!

So I’m giving you tips on how to improve your Instagram photos as Part 2 of this Instagram Growth Series!

If you missed the Part 1 from last week, you can find that here! And if you want to learn even more, I’m hosting a FREE webinar! You can sign up here. Seating is limited, so I don’t want you to miss out!
 

 
Tip 1: Use The Best Camera You Have
For the first few months of blogging, way back in 2010, I used a regular ol’ digital camera. As an early Christmas present at Thanksgiving, my dad surprised me with a DSLR, a Canon EOS 60D (this camera!). I absolutely loved and used that camera for the next five years of food blogging, until I upgraded to a Canon EOS 70D (this camera!), and that’s the camera I’m still using today.

You might not have a DSLR, and that’s okay! Maybe you use your iPhone. There’s nothing wrong with that! Their picture quality has vastly increased since I first started blogging (and I still had a flip phone way back then!), so it’s totally possible to take beautiful photos with your phone.

Recap: Use the best camera you have access to, whether that’s your phone or a regular digital camera or DSLR, and that leads us into…
 

 
Tip 2: Use Quality Lighting
The majority of food bloggers will immediately say, “Use natural lighting!” When I switched to full-time blogging, that’s exactly what I did; I exclusively used natural lighting. I had a south-facing window that let in tons of direct natural light, so I bought an inexpensive diffuser (this kind!), propped that in front of the window, and set up a large sheet of white scrapbook paper on the other side to act as a “bounce” so the shadows weren’t too harsh on the left side of my photos.

However… My next home had zero good natural light. As a first floor apartment, every window was hidden behind a tree or a large balcony from the apartments above. I realized that it’d be impossible to shoot quality photographs in any room, so I researched artificial lights and bought a Lowel EGO light (this one!).

From November 2014 through April 2018, I shot 95% of my blog’s photographs with that Lowel EGO light… And judging from the number of compliments I received on my photos, almost nobody could tell it was artificial lighting! (See that photo of my Healthy Homemade Thin Mints above? I took that with my Lowel EGO light!)

Then in May 2018, after moving to a new house the previous summer, I eventually realized I could rearrange my downstairs furniture to take advantage of a window with lovely soft, indirect light, so I switched back to shooting with natural light once again.

The moral of the story? As long as it’s a quality source, it doesn’t really matter whether your light is natural or artificial.
 

 
So what exactly defines a “quality” light source?

Let’s cover quality artificial light sources first! Like I previously mentioned, I did lots of research and discovered that Lowel EGO lights (these!) are one of the best artificial lights, especially for food photography. They use special fluorescent bulbs that simulate natural light, whereas regular incandescent bulbs look more yellow or orange.

I’ve also used these 500-watt lights for shooting videos (you can see my videos here!). Those lights are much stronger, have a yellower color, and emit a lot more heat. I found they were overkill for food photography, but when I needed to light up my entire kitchen to shoot videos, they were phenomenal!

When using artificial lights, I often used this white balance tool. To set a custom white balance on my Canon DSLR, I first turned my lens to manual focus. (That’s on the lens itself, not within the camera!) Next, I navigated to the camera’s white balance menu, and I set that to auto white balance. I aimed the camera lens directly at my artificial light, placed the white balance tool directly against the front of the lens, and snapped a picture. I immediately switched the lens back to auto focus (so I wouldn’t forget and end up with blurry photos!), navigated back to the camera’s white balance menu, and selected custom white balance. I used that photo I just took as the reference to set the custom white balance.

Since artificial lights emit the same light throughout your shoot, setting a custom white balance makes editing go much faster later on!

I absolutely, positively, wholeheartedly beg you not to use your regular everyday incandescent light bulbs as your light source, like the ones in your kitchen or living room. As I previously mentioned when talking about the Lowel EGO lights, those look really yellow or orange, which gives your photos a strange hue… And it looks especially awful if you’re photographing food, when people eat with their eyes first!
 

 
So now let’s switch to quality natural light! There are two main types of natural light: bright direct light and softer indirect light. The former comes from a sunshiny day without a cloud in the sky where the sunlight is directly streaming onto your photograph’s subject. The latter usually comes from a cloudy day where the clouds act as a filter—hence the softer and indirect quality!

There are other ways to get that softer indirect light as well: (a) photographing in the shade outside {but since I focus on food photography, which is indoors, that isn’t usually the case for me!} and (b) photographing indoors by using a window where rays of sunlight aren’t directly streaming in.

When I first started full-time food blogging, I thought I needed to use direct sunlight paired with a diffuser (this one!) to shoot the best well-lit photographs. That certainly helped while I was shooting in full automatic mode!

But after I learned to shoot in manual mode—how to set the shutter speed, aperture (f-stop), and ISO, plus how those three things work together!—I realized my previous direct sunlight set-up wasn’t the only way to shoot great photographs… And it might not even be the best!

Now, I much prefer shooting on cloudy days with indirect sunlight. That naturally soft gray light is absolutely amazing! However…

I live in sunny San Diego, where we don’t see very many gray cloudy days, so I typically use a window that gets indirect sunlight and the rays aren’t directly streaming through that window.

Recap: Natural light is my favorite! Especially the soft, gray, indirect kind from cloudy days. If you can’t photography with that type of light, then try indirect on a sunny day or a high-quality artificial light.
 

 
Tip 3: Make Sure Your Photo Is In Focus
This is key. I’m always blown away by how many blurry, fuzzy, out-of-focus photos I see on Instagram. (And yes—I’m guilty of posting a few of those as well!)

If you’re using your phone, then briefly tap on the part of the screen that you want to be in focus. This is such a quick and easy thing to do! I often tap the screen once, double check I tapped the right object, and tap it once more, just to make sure it’s in focus. Your phone should then track that object and keep it in focus until you take the picture.

This “one tap focus” trick is great to use when your subject isn’t fully stationary, like with your pet or your kid, or if your hand might wiggle a teeny bit in between when you tap to focus and click the shutter button to take the photo.

If you tap and hold your finger down on the object you want to be in focus (at least, on an iPhone… I don’t own an Android and can’t vouch for those!), then a message should appear that says “AE/AF LOCK.” (See my photo of my iPhone screen above!) That turns on the auto-exposure and auto-focus locks. A box with a sun icon on one side should appear. You can slide the sun icon upwards to increase the exposure (aka let in more light and make the picture brighter) or downwards to decrease the exposure (aka let in less light and make the picture darker). Even after you release your finger from the screen, that focus and exposure that you set will remain exactly the same.

This “tap and lock” trick is great to use when both your phone and your subject are fully stationary. As a food blogger, my food is almost always stationary! However, my hand is prone to wiggling, so I’m always very careful when using this trick. The slightest movement can mean my intended subject is no longer in focus… So just double check your photo once you’ve take it!
 

 
While my DSLR offers an auto-focus option, I actually set the focus point manually. On the top right of my Canon, there’s an icon of a plus sign enclosed in a rectangle directly above a round button. When I press that and look through the viewfinder, a series of red squares appear. By turning the control wheels on the top and back of the camera, I can switch which of those red squares is selected. The selected square will turn into a much larger red rectangle. That selected square becomes my focus point, and when I hit that button again, the selected square stays on the viewfinder screen as a black rectangle. I aim that black rectangle at the part of the picture I want to be in focus, press the shutter button halfway down, and the camera focuses on whatever is behind the black rectangle. (It usually beeps softly to let me know it’s set and focused!) Then I press the shutter button the rest of the way down to take the picture.

Of course… Every once in a while, my hand shakes and causes the photo to turn out blurry! I established the habit of taking two photos, one right after another, and immediately reviewing both on my camera screen. When reviewing, I zoom in really close on the part of the image I wanted to be in focus. If that’s not in focus, I instantly delete the photo from my memory card, even if the rest of the photo looks beautiful. I want to share only the best photos on my blog and Instagram account!

Recap: On a phone, use the “one tap focus” trick to pick the focus point before taking your picture. If neither your subject nor your hand will move, use the “tap and lock” trick to set the focus point and exposure before taking your picture. With a DSLR, you can manually set the focus point. Always review your photo immediately after taking it to make sure the focus point stayed in focus!
 

 
Tip 4: Try Different Angles
There are three main angles that I use in my food photography.

The first is an overhead angle, also called a bird’s eye view. With overhead shots, I’m directly above my subject and looking down at it when I take the picture. Since I’m short, I usually stand on a chair or barstool to get high enough above the scene.

Certain foods look really good in overhead shots, like cookies, cinnamon rolls, scones, an even entire tablescapes. Basically… Anything that has an interesting top!

The second is a straight on angle, also called an eyelevel view. With these shots, I get right down at the same height as my subject so my eye (and camera lens!) is looking straight on from the side.

I love shooting certain foods with straight on shots: brownies (showing off those ooey gooey fudgy sides!), muffins and cupcakes (to see their height and the pretty frosting swirls on cupcakes!), cinnamon rolls with a bite missing (that sweet cinnamon filling!), and even stacks of cookies (they look whimsical and fun!).

The third is a ¾ angle, which basically means anything in between an overhead and straight on angle. It doesn’t have to be exactly 45°! With this angle, you see a bit of the top and a bit of the side, so it almost acts as a hybrid of the two previous angles.

Just about every food looks great in ¾ view shots!

With every recipe photo shoot I do, I always take at least one photo from each of the three angles. Sometimes I shoot more than one, especially with the ¾ angle view! I’ll take a photo from a ¾ view that’s closer to overhead, then one that’s a little closer to straight on, and one that’s almost a perfect 45°. (So around a 75° angle and a 25° angle, for you math nerds!)

Recap: The three main angles are overhead, straight on, and ¾ view. By shooting the same subject from multiple angles, you have the ability to pick the best possible (or in my case, most mouthwatering!) Instagram photo.

Next week in Part 3, I’ll share the third method I use to grow my Instagram account! But until then… If you want to learn even more, I’m hosting a FREE webinar! You can sign up here. Seating is limited, so I don’t want you to miss out!