#SelfieSchool and InstaGold (The Final Blog Post)

#SelfieSchool and InstaGold (The Finale)

My last flat-lay photo got recognized with 550 likes! I still have a lot to learn about flat-lay's and i'll always be looking to improve my skills.

It's finally the last blog post and I'm really proud of the effort and dedication I've placed into these blog posts. It was an enjoyable experience to learn and imitate things I learned from my book, Capture Your Style by Aimee Song, and take photos that I feel complimented me as a unique individual. In this last blog post I'll be covering the process behind advertising your social media platform for income and the language that doesn't require words, selfies (A good one)!

Making money off of something like Instagram seems absurd but in this day and age, it's more accessible than most people would argue it to be. Aimee says that "No matter how big or small your work goals (or your number of followers), Insta is an amazing place for marketing and launching products, connecting with customers, showing off a visual portfolio, and even directly making money off of outfit posts" (Song Aimee, 186). If you have work ethic, a lot of motivation, and you're willing to put yourself out there for companies to see it isn't so far out. According to a report from firm and think tank, Instagram boasts the most engagement and highest conversion from browser to shopper out of any social media platforms (Aimee, 184) and is still a viable way to show off while making cash.

The first step for InstaGold is to devise a strategy! What are you trying to do with your account, are you selling products? Are you going to increase brand awareness (That's what I do)? Are you going to drive traffic to a different blog or website? Have a solid plan that you'll follow and stick to it. The next important thing is to maintain an authentic and aesthetic feed. Stay true to your business and post things that your followers can connect with! If you're trying to sell products, hosting contests and giveaways are a great way to drive a lot of attention to your account and gives people an incentive to follow and pay attention to your brand.

The next step is to join an affiliates program! Aimee defines it as "A marketing strategy that allows a company to sell its products by signing individuals or companies who market the company's products for commission" (Aimee, 192). This can come in the form of branded posts and or a percentage of the pay when you sell a product successfully.  An important thing to note is that you want to find a program that offers a commission rate that best fits your needs while offering rates that are competitive (8 - 20% is the usual for a sale). Putting myself out there I was able to land myself a program with a company called AIWO and now I earn 8% of every sale I make and get sent free products to take photos and promote with!

The final step is to simply put yourself out there! Reach out to like-minded individuals who share the same style and goal as you to collaborate. You can also talk to brand owners themselves and work out different deals; keep in mind most brands look for people with 5k followers or more but I got lucky. Even recently I dmed a small store called @shop.inusagi and was able to land myself another promoter spot by telling them how much I appreciate their brand! Be kind, be respectful, and grow your account so you are more visible in the community (Look back on my last blog post to learn about growing your audience).

Practically everyone in the world takes selfies and it's not hard to do. But it's taking good selfies that I'll be covering in this blog post. I'm personally not the biggest fan of them because I feel that other kinds of photos better tell a story but the occasional one when I'm feeling attractive can always be nice to post. Just like any other topic I've covered, there's always technicalities behind the simple concepts I cover and selfies aren't an exception. The vibe I'm trying to produce with this selfie is a cool, bad-boy look and here's how I did it!

Really good lighting is the most important part for a selfie! As a rule of thumb, Aimee's most important tip is that "Natural light makes for the best photo of your face, so try to get yourself outside or by a window where sunbeams flood in" (Aimee, 107). Don't worry if it's too dark, editing can make it brighter but always remember that if it's too bright it's probably best to delete as it's difficult to darken a bright photo. The next important step is the background. Take those extra sen seconds to consider what is inhabiting the part of the photo that isn't your face! Generally clean, open spaces tend to perform better for selfies and if you're taking mirror selfies, avoid having smudges and remove any eyesore lurking in the photo (Aimee 109). I chose to use the outer exterior of my house because it isn't complicated, it's clean, and the lighting outside enhanced my features.

Already Edited

The next step ranks second next to lighting, angles! Angles are all experimental so you really have to find out what your good side is. I've found that showing a majority of only the left or right side of my face looks the best to me but it's all in preference. Just keep in mind that you never want to take photos too far underneath your face or the photo will turn out with a few extra chins. One tip to really bring out your jawline is to clench down with your teeth (Aimee, 112). This makes it sharper and more defined, a look that I specifically wanted to achieve in my selfie. The final step in taking a good selfie is the distance away from your face that your phone is.  I didn't hold the phone in my hand but the best advice Aimee gives is "Hold your phone far enough away from you face so that it frames your face, hair, and part of your torso" (Aimee, 113). When I take selfies, I personally like to use the 3-10 second timer so I don't have to hold the photo myself but if you're familiar with an app called Snapchat, dog filter is a savior (Although it may be cliched).

I'm satisfied with the end product and hope to be able to improve my selfies in the future. I'm especially a fan of the white, smooth, aesthetic selfies that many people take on Instagram and will try and look into incorporating that trend into my own feed.

I've grown a lot since the first post I created about OOTD's and you can see a significant improvement in quality and style in my recent posts. Whether it's just a hobby or you take it seriously like I do, make your Instagram your own. It's about being unique and showing your creative acquisitions while interacting with amazing people around the world. Stay true to quality and share how you see the world through your lenses. Now let me ask you, how have you used Instagram to capture your style?

Works Cited

Song, Aimee, and Erin Weinger. Capture Your Style: Transform Your Instagram Images, Showcase Your Life, and Build the Ultimate Platform. New York: Abrams Image, 2016. Print.

Growing Your Audience and Flat Lay Shots for Instagram!

Growing Your Audience & Flat Lay Shots

Starting off with post recap, the previous food photo I posted was quite successful! I was pleased with the results and it commemorated my accomplishment of two-thousand followers.

Growing your audience and gaining Instagram fame certainly isn't easy. It takes time, dedication, and knowing the inner workings of socializing in and out of the web to grow. Even I've only reached a tip of the iceberg recently hitting two-thousand followers since I started last year! In this blog post, I'll take the things I've personally learned from my book, Capture Your Style by Aimee Song and share the tips and tricks I've used to gain a decent following. Disclaimer, growing your audience requires time, effort, and dedication. If you're not passionate enough about a hobby, you won't see improvement, that same rule applies to Instagram!

Before I begin discussing hashtags, this is something Aimee said that everybody must keep in mind: "It's not all about growing numbers; it's about engagement, as well. It means nothing if you have millions of followers, yet only a hundred people are liking your images" (Song Aimee, 168). This means that even if a person has thousands of followers, if only a small fraction of those people are paying attention to their posts, the following counts importance decreases; we call those people ghost followers. As I said in the first blog post, be engaged with the people who like and comment on the things you decide to put on your page! Try and reply to every comment, spam your followers with likes, follow people back, and be nice! I wouldn't want to follow someone who's consistently rude to the people that support them. With that said, hashtags are a perfect way to get yourself out there and begin engaging with others who have similar interest.

A hashtag ("#") is a discoverable piece of text that allows you to see other images on Instagram that are also hashtagged with the same text (Aimee, 170). They are important because it exposes the photo you posted to a whole library of other photos that people can view! For example, if I posted a group photo with my friends and used the hashtag #groupselfie and clicked on it, any other images with the hashtag #groupselfie on it would also appear. Although, it can now be seen by others with the same hashtag, Aimee explains that using specific phrases that already have a lot of reposts would make it difficult to be seen; so be specific! A cliche you'd want to avoid would be using too many hashtags in a post. Your followers are more likely to be annoyed and it ruins a clean caption so it's important to keep it at the maximum number of five hashtags. Another variation of this would be geotagging; essentially the same concept but for places! Posting a photo with the geotag Starbucks at that specific location would show any other images at the same place. Hashtags and geotags have become the universal search engine for Instagram so using them in conjunction would drive more traffic to your page. Besides hashtagging and geotagging, there's a ton of other ways to get noticed.

If you're into fashion and post an outfit of the day, tag the brands! This will get you noticed by the companies and can be a way to market yourself, more on this in the next post. Another would be to shout-out and tag the people who appear in your photos because now you also appear in their tagged photos. Also, don't forget to comment on other people's posts! Aimee says that "When you comment on other people's posts, you're not only spreading goodwill among the community, you're getting your own username out there and making yourself discoverable to the masses" (Aimee, 170). So comment on posts whenever you can! The last piece of advice from Aimee is consistency and timing. Post at least once a day and if you can't, on the days you do take photos, take extra shots so you're never running out of quality content. Know your audience's habits and the time-zones so you can figure out when your posts receive the most attention. I tend to post around twelve to four pm because people are the most active around those times. Lastly, stay true to quality! Only ever post if you feel that what you are putting out is the best you can. Quality is king!

The definition of a flat lay shot is "a bird's-eye photo of a grouping of strategically arranged item that typically share a color scheme or theme" (Aimee 152). The purpose of this kind of image is usually for retailers to show off new or in-store products but can also be a visually dynamic piece of art that showcases what you love in a neat way. Applying the rules for photographing food, (Lighting, angles, etc) it becomes the same concept but taking organization and neatness to another level. Here's some examples of layout images other people have done.

                           

As you can see, each photo has a separate purpose but uses the same techniques. I'll be demonstrating the tips Aimee gives to post something that I feel represents the goal of a flat-lay. The anchor piece, or the central point of the image is important to a flat lay because it holds all the images together (Aimee, 156). An important question to ask yourself before taking the photo is do the items make sense in a larger, overall lifestyle scheme of the things? After deciding the items that I wanted to attempt to style, I neatly arranged them in a way I thought would look aesthetically pleasing and took several shots in different layouts until I ended up with an image that I liked. I tried to keep the background simple so each piece in the image has space to breathe and shine individually. This is the image I ended up with!

I tried to go for a urbanized, modern look with the glasses and the sweater while giving it a breathe of life by adding plants. I've also tilted some of the items so they didn't look so uniformed and boring and this is the image I ended up with!

Head to my Instagram page @cameralenzz to see the edited version!

What hashtags are trending currently and what have you been using in your own posts?

Works Cited

Song, Aimee, and Erin Weinger. Capture Your Style: Transform Your Instagram Images, Showcase Your Life, and Build the Ultimate Platform. New York: Abrams Image, 2016. Prin

Behind the Scenes: Editing Photos for the Gram and how to Correctly Take Food Photos!

Editing and Food Photos!

In the last blog post, photographing landscapes and creating exceptional captions was the topic at hand. As always, the photo recap! One week since the photo was posted and it received 460 likes. This definitely did not get as much attention as I would have liked it to get but it was to be expected because it was mainly to fit my feed and take a nostalgia trip to old my style of editing.

Editing is everything that happens after you take a photo so I like to call it the behind the scenes. The goal for editing, as stated by Aimee, is that "You don't need to transform yourself or your photos into an unrecognizable state... rather, use them to enhance the sharpness, color saturation, brightness, and other technical elements that make an amateur shot look super professional" (Song Aimee, 52). The apps that she recommends would be Snapseed, VSCO Cam, and Facetune (Aimee, 52). The functionality of each application varies and has different purposes for the photo that needs to be edited; which can all be found in your app-store. Her regime includes: "Snapseed for brightness and contrast, then Facetune for any unwanted clothing wrinkles or acne abolishment, and then VSCO cam for a very, very light filter so that the images in my grid all look uniform" (Aimee, 53). For the reason that Facetune is not free, I'll be switching it out for an app called PicsArt which essentially has the same capabilities. I've already gotten the feel of how to use each app so I'll give my take on how I personally use them to my Instagram advantage.

Snapseed has a selection tool that most editing software doesn't have which allows me to choose different parts of a photo and increase its brightness, contrast, or saturation. For example, if my face was too dark in a photo or I wanted my outfit to pop out, this is what I'd utilize. PicsArt is helpful because it acts in the same way as Photoshop and many helpful features but I mainly focus on its selection and blemish removal tool. Self explanatory and allows me to remove impurities that would taint a photo. Keep in mind with PicsArt and Facetune that you want to make your Instagram photos authentic, don't make them look too edited and fake. Lastly, VSCO Cam is an application I've used since I first started Instagram. It has it's own grid function so planning out feeds can be extremely useful on this app. There's a multitude of editing options to change the look of an image and it has copy and paste edits functionality. It is a must for anyone who wishes to get serious with editing photos and the best part of it is that it's free. Smart, and proper use of each app (and consideration of my feed theme) has allowed me to take my photos to the next level to strive for uniqueness.

Applying what I learned from editing, I will be demonstrating it on a food photo! My sister started Instagram first and I always got annoyed at her for taking photos of the food because I just wanted to eat, oh how the roles shifted. I visited a Hawaiian-Asian fusion restaurant in Seattle called Sam Choy's Poke to The Max and ordered a chicken katsu with pulled pork dish. The aroma of the small area had been welcoming and was decorated nicely with an open well-lit modern style room.This was a perfect time to show the things I have learned from my book!

Five of the essential things that Aimee explains are important when capturing a food shot are: timing, arrangement, lighting, angle, and most importantly; styling the shot. Here's the photo that I took.

NOT EDITED!

First, Aimee points out to always take your food photos before people start to eat as it can be quite annoying to have someone pull out their phone right in the middle of dining, unless you're eating by yourself of course; just remember to make sure your food doesn't turn cold! Next, I neatly arranged the dishes on the table to give it the look I'd like to have when I take the photo. Lighting comes next and the most important tip about lighting for food photos would be to "Snag a booth by a window whenever you can" (Aimee, 125). Remembering to always aim for natural light we sat near a window spot. The best kind of angles for photos such as these are the bird's-eye view from overheard or straight on (Aimee, 126). This gives the full depth of all the food you're trying to portray and gives it a clean, professional look. Lastly, styling your shot! The last piece of advice to remember would be: "Don't add anything too distracting or busy that takes away from the real star of your shot - your edible subject" (Aimee, 126). In other words, keep complex objects away from the main focal point to highlight the dish you're trying to portray. All of this was taken into consideration when I took this image!

Now comes the less fun part, the editing. I always turn to VSCO Cam first to put a preset filter (HB2 if you want specifics) to set the mood I wanted for the image and then put a bit of fade to match my theme. I turned the temperature lower by a little to offset the brown and to give it a slight tint of blue. Moving onto Snapseed, I saved the image from VSCO Cam and imported it into the application to make the dishes pop out more. I selected both dishes and increased their contrast. Facetune didn't need to be applied here and this is the finished product!

EDITED!

Maintaining an Instagram looks easy but to me there is a certain science to it that I'm truly passionate about. I hope you've learned something while reading this blog post and the photo will be uploaded shortly after this has been posted as usual. The next topics I'll be covering are flat lay photos and growing your audience!

 What are the photo editing apps you've discovered besides the one's I've stated previously? What are their advantages?

Works Cited

Song, Aimee, and Erin Weinger. Capture Your Style: Transform Your Instagram Images, Showcase Your Life, and Build the Ultimate Platform. New York: Abrams Image, 2016. Prin

Photographing Landscapes (Cities) and Instagram Captions!

 Landscape Photography and Instagram Captions!

In the previous blog post, I covered the topic of full body shots and as promised I would recap on the amount of attention it got. My post received an insane amount of interaction with 534 likes in a span of four weeks since the last blog post. I've started to notice a trend on my feed that full body shots would generally get more attention than any other kind of photos so if I'm starting to lose retention with my followers, I'll generally post an #OOTD shot. As stated by Aimee "A smart strategy for outfit shots is to imagine that you're costume-designing a scene in a movie or styling an editorial photo shoot for your favorite magazine, minus the assistant and wardrobe trailer (though these things help, I assume). That is the essence of a cool story, and your caption should follow suit" (Song Aimee, 76). Being able to tell a complex story without the having professionally taken shots in every photo shows a level of mastery that I have yet to achieve but at the least, I'm able to create relatable captions.

Creating a caption that's witty while maintaining a sense of character can be really difficult. It's more than just putting random words into a sentence; it has to be relatable. The main goal for almost every post is to be able to have my followers relate with me. The caption doesn't always have to correspond with image, it could be completely random but Aimee reminds her readers this: "Don't be afraid to infuse some self deprecation and wit into your post... As long as you can laugh at yourself, your followers will, too" (Aimee, 159). Being on Instagram long enough, I'm able to pick out the captions that I feel are too overused. Whenever I feel inspired I'll write my caption down in my notes and edit later when I post. More often than not, many of my captions come from texting my friends and realizing I said something really edgy. At times I may even ask a simple question such as 'when's your birthday?' because it drives user interaction. Here are some examples of captions that I've used for some posts.

Not Edited

"make every good thing you do a lifestyle" 

Edited

"obsessed with things we can't have and have the things we don't need" 
"it's positively positive to have some negatives"

Each one has a unique statement that samples who I am as a person. Much of my emotions and thoughts are embedded in each post I make, and although they may be slightly cheesy, the caption is like the icing on a cupcake; it completes it.

Instagram isn't mainly for selfies and food photos, when I don't have the energy to post a photo of myself or think that none of my recent shots are appealing to me, I'll turn towards photographing the world around me, specifically, cities. I've been in love with cities ever since I've been given the chance to explore downtown Seattle as a child for field trips and was entranced by the bustling people, the tall buildings, and the busy atmosphere that feels like something is always going on. In this post I'll be exampling some of the tactics I've learned to take a photo that truly captures Seattle's sense of place. Aimee says "You're technically traveling any time you leave the house. So learn to embrace all your adventures and share them with your followers in a beautiful way" (Aimee, 132). Recently having the chance to travel downtown, I took a picture of Seattle from the Space Needle.

The methods and techniques I've used to make this image my own is through the capturing and the editing process. Three things I kept in mind were to "Lose the zoom... take the photo as close as you can get to your subject and crop later so you don't lose quality and get stuck with grain" (Aimee, 135). By not using zoom, I'm able to capture a wider depth of the city and because of the Iphone 7's capabilities, using zoom reduces the overall quality of the photo. The second advice I kept to mind was "Don't forget to look down...press your phone up to the glass to minimize glare" (Aimee, 138). Because the natural light of the sun created unwanted radiance in the photo, it turned out to be really helpful holding it right up against the glass. The last piece of advice was to not forget the details; minimal things should be shown to better example the culture. Because my goal was to capture Seattle's sense of place, I tried to include everything, even the Puget Sea water can be seen in the right corner to create a shot that I think justified Seattle.

A touch of my own style was added to the photo with the editing I used to better match my feed. As previous, I'll be posting this iteration and uploading it with a progress report in the next blog post. Look forward to learning about taking pictures of food and editing! Since the people who view these blog posts are all from Seattle, what's places that you personally like to take pictures of when visiting downtown?

Works Cited

Song, Aimee, and Erin Weinger. Capture Your Style: Transform Your Instagram Images, Showcase Your Life, and Build the Ultimate Platform. New York: Abrams Image, 2016. Print.

Instagram, Fashion, Capturing My Style

Capturing My Style Through Instagram

Connecting with people through the use of social media has been a creative outlet for me to express myself and interact with others. Through Instagram, I've had the pleasure of meeting people all the over the world who comment and like my posts. I've only been a serious user of this app around last year but have already amassed a decent following with around 1600 followers and 400 likes on average but I felt as if it was time to take my hobby to the next level. In my blog posts these three skills will be expanded upon:

• How to take Instagram worthy photos
• The essentials and technicalities to different styles of images
• Defining the Instagram experience

Through my book Capture Your Style by entrepreneur, fashionista, and Instagram expert; Aimee Song. First and foremost, I'd like to introduce my Instagram so I'd like you to go on your phone, tablet, or computer and type in my Instagram username (@cameralenzz) to get a feel of what my general style is. Now that you've done that, the first thought that came into mind probably was't my username. Most people tend to disregard something as simple as the name to your page but there's quite a lot of thought put into a good name and after reading the book I decided it was time to make a change. Aimee states that "Your Instagram handle is your calling card - the public moniker that will appear at the top of your profile and shout your brand, personal, or otherwise, to the world" (Song Aimee, 26). This already highlights the importance of a handle that'll be memorable and if you haven't already guessed by now it's a play on the word camera and my name Alenz (Camer-Alenzz). Instagram is about taking pictures and you're seeing the world through my lenses. Obviously there are do's and don'ts , one of the biggest of them would be to avoid numbers when creating a handle. People forget numbers, and they, much like double_underscores_, complicate things (Aimee, 28). After hearing about this I quickly changed my name from "that_asian_boy21 to something people would more relate with. Another important lesson that I've learned from her would be that "You want to snag something simple and memorable-especially if you're planning on using your Insta feed to promote a store, business, blog, or anything else that leans toward the professional" (Aimee, 28). For this purpose, changing my name allows me to promote my Instagram more effectively and capture the attention of other like minded individuals. Taking a picture that you want to be satisfied with after what has felt like endless tries is something that most people tend to struggle with, especially with outfit shots. The art of #OOTD's (Outfits of the Day) is an essential skill for any Instagrammer and in this post I'll be choosing an #OOTD for this blog post and putting it on my Instagram! One of the pieces of advice that has really brought my outfits and photos to life was to "Imagine your outfit as the main character and display its role in your daily life" (Aimee, 72). These winter days tend to be colder but at the same time bring out the beauty of monochromatic colors and outfits. Because the sun is less likely to give bright lighting, I decided to opt for a warm, black toned sweater with white stripes and to contrast the dark background. The theme for this photo was to melt into the background using the colors I have and some smart editing tactics. Which I think I succeeded in. The outfit, the pose, and the way the shot was taken was done to show a darker, brooder tone. The white on my clothes were really highlighted in the image as they pop out and become the focal point of the photo. My hands and face were kept visible to let the viewer know that I'm still there and looking away from the camera made the scene more dramatic. All of this added to the full impact of the photo and I was able to capture a simple narrative with one image. User interaction is a huge part of Instagram success and Aimee says to "Get into the habit of interacting with other users so you build a relationship with not only your followers, but the people and businesses you follow too"(Aimee, 178). So get active with your followers gives them an incentive to look forward to your posts and replies!
From then on, I'll post the photo pertaining to the blog post and have a section dedicated to the likes and attention the image received. To spark some inspiration for everybody involved, what are some tactics that would benefit me when posing for a full body shot like this?

Works Cited

Song, Aimee, and Erin Weinger. Capture Your Style: Transform Your Instagram Images, Showcase Your Life, and Build the Ultimate Platform. New York: Abrams Image, 2016. Print.