If you want to curate Instagram worthy pictures of your epic adventures or unique lifestyle, it is important to be thoughtful and take time to pre-plan. Let’s face it, if you are ogling over polished social media content that garnishes thousands of impressions, then there is definitely way more to the photos than a quick snap of the shutter. So, how do you level up your IG game and capture eye-catching pictures? Read on for my top 5 tips to create quality Instagram content!
- Layer Up – I’ll let you in on a little secret of mine! I take advantage of getting versatile pictures and enough content on a photo opp to post multiple times by layering my clothes. Layering your outfit allows you to take various looking photos in multiple locations without wearing the same exact outfit. This not only makes your social media content more interesting; it allows you to maximize your photo day!
- Find Some Serious Inspo – I cannot recommend enough for you take the time to seek social media photos that inspire you. While scrolling through Instagram take screen shots of pictures you love. Every time I come across a pose I like or a unique location I would love to go to, I screen shot the pictures and save them to an album on my phone called “Inspo Pics.” When I am out creating content, I pull up some inspo pictures and put my own spin on re-creating something similar or try a pose that I otherwise would not have thought of. This pre-planning gets creative juices flowing and will not only save you time when you are ready to shoot, it will also set you up to capture well thought out interesting photos.
- Go Early – Chances are if you found a great photo opp location then lots of other people know about it too! If you want a clean shot, sans background people, it is important to arrive early. Sometimes this requires waking up before the sunrises but hey these are the things we do to get an epic Instagram worthy photo, right! Plus watching the sunrise is not such a bad thing and if you didn’t know, is the perfect lighting for pictures. Bottom line is polished pictures generate more likes!
- Choose Your Aesthetic– Put some thought into the feel you want to portray on your Instagram page. For me, I like bright vibrant photos and I keep all the pictures on my feed within the same perimeters. There are times I capture an amazing photo however, it just doesn’t match the aesthetic of my page, so I may use it in my stories instead of posting it to my feed. It is important to post consistently filtered or edited photos, so your Instagram page looks cohesive. It is not only easier on the eye, it also captures your follower’s attention!
- Upload an Arsenal of Apps– Lightroom is a great photo editing app. The Adobe Photoshop suite that comes with Lightroom is $9.99 a month and you can upload the app to your phone. I have tried pre-set filters on other apps and just didn’t find anything I like. To me it is worth the monthly fee to utilize Lightroom! If you are not well versed in Photoshop like me, Facetune is a solid alternative to utilize the capabilities to smooth out surfaces or cover up messy spots in photos. Additionally, Instagram stories are becoming more important to users. Apps come in handy to create interesting and clean Instagram stories. Yes, it takes more effort to use a template however, your followers can tell the difference in the quality of the IG brand you are creating. I love the app Story Art and Unfold for IG stories. Last on my list of favorite apps is Planoly. The app allows you to not only upload pics to make sure your grid looks cohesive; it also enables you to pre-plan your posts. Set your allotted day of the week to plan out your content and then when it is time to post you are ready to go!
To get high quality Instagram photos work smarter and strategize to make the best use of your time!
In these set of work out / hiking photos I layered up with a light jacket to get more versatility. I also referred to an inspo picture of the stair lunge to perfect my angle.
For this photo in Las Vegas I woke up early to get some pictures on the strip without people in the background.
In these hiking pictures I looked at the location prior to my trip to pre-plan some great spots to get unique Instagram pictures.
All photos were taken on my iPhone!
