I’ve been recently focusing on various shades of blue in my photography.
If you find that you want your Instagram gallery to look cohesive, try choosing a color or tone, then making sure that you have a pop of it in each photo. I usually choose a second color as a balancing neutral like tan or white. If I am feeling very risky I’ll pop in a third color like dusty rose. Balancing three colors is hard, so I recommend starting with two.

Then I try to get creative- how many blue things can I photograph?

Sometimes I just make my own blue.

You can do a lot with paint. I’ve tried with glitter but haven’t been successful with it yet!

Tea cups are some of my favorite things to photograph, but it is tricky to get the right angle. Many images look better if you hold the camera directly over subject rather than at an angle, but angles can work sometimes!

Want to know a secret? I saved some dead flowers that I use over and over.

Another trick is getting a good self portrait. Lighting is absolutely crucial. Unless the photo was taken outside, almost every single self portrait of myself is taken on our front porch. Why? It has a lot of windows which offer diffused light. Also, it is the one few inches of wall that is white and not covered with art.

I like faceless photography quite a lot, but doing the same exact angle can get boring, so feel free to experiment.

Do you ever wonder how I get photos of myself? I used to bribe kids with candy then get cross that they all came out crooked. So I did the best thing ever. I got a tripod with a cellphone attachment and a remote shutter. They are very inexpensive and super helpful if you enjoy photography.

I often put it in my mouth to click! Haha! Sometimes I put it under my foot and gently tap it- or I put my arm behind my back to hide it. You can find me trying to hide it in most photos of me in my Instagram gallery.

See- just crop the clicker out. I also snap hundreds of photos. I would say my average is about 40-60 per pose and I only end up with about three good ones. I move forward and backwards, left to right, trying to get the right composition. So never feel badly if you don’t get it on the first try!

When I buy flowers, I want them to look pretty, cheer me up and also serve as a photo prop. But I want my money’s worth! I like to make a set then switch out props to have a few extra images saved in my queue.

You can get all creative and try lots of different things. Just try to remember to make all of your lines are straight so the photo looks balanced.

I faffed around a lot getting all of the lines to be straight in this photo! It was not only the wood, but the flowers and cups. The cups aren’t really perfect in this. I was getting cold!

Recognize the same cup and flower? I took this at the same time. I really wish that I took a photo of the contraption I made to take this. It was hilarious! First of all, it was out on our back deck because our house was too dark at that time of day for good photography. I turned a garbage can upside down next to the porch rail so that I could balance a broom on them. I put the books in the middle, then taped my phone to the broom. Honestly, I wasn’t even wearing the lace dress in the photo- I had my normal “I’m recovering from a traumatic brain injury uniform on, probably consisting of leggings or the like”- I just put the sleeves on my arms. I laid on the deck with the remote shutter in my mouth and took about fifty photos to ensure at least one would come out. Ha! I really want to start a series of “how-to” for photography, so since then, I’ve been taking behind the scenes photos.

What?! The same flowers?!

And again?

And again?

And what?! Wait?! How many times did I photograph these flowers? I don’t even know. The key is to not post them all in your feed at once but to put other photos in-between.

As you can see from this screenshot of my Instagram gallery, I took photos from a few shoots and dispersed them throughout my feed. I used to post an image that I took each day- more like a diary- but I decided to just shift my feed to focus on photography and offer my “diary entries” in the captions. I would usually dilute them more than this but I haven’t been feeling well enough for any photoshoots over the past two weeks. That is saying a lot, because photography has been one of my favorite pastimes during this brain injury.
I think that is enough for now! Let me know if you’d like more photography tips.