It’s no secret that I am obsessed with curating an aesthetic instagram feed. I LOVE setting up cute pictures, putting together outfits, and organizing the most aesthetic pinterest boards I can for every occasion. In this post I want to talk about what I consider when I’m setting up nice looking instagram photos – specifically non-outfit photos, such as flatlays, product photography, etc.
For this example I’m using my recent photo of a little hot chocolate picnic I set up for some photos and an instagram reel (as well as to eat, drink and enjoy of course!) This post is what I think about when choosing elements of the photo, and what goes into the planning!
Things I think about beforehand.
When planning the photo, the first thing to think about is the aesthetic you want. For me, this was a neutral winter set up. I wanted it to be cute, cozy and festive, but not overly colourful. I wanted the colours in the photo to be natural – so I included some oranges and cranberries, but I didn’t include any decoration pieces that were colourful like ornaments, tinsel, a scarf or mittens, etc. If you want colourful, consider adding some of those things in, and less natural elements like fruits and plain candles. I wanted my photo to give a traditional Christmas/ winter feel. For inspiration, I look to instagram and pinterest. Be sure not to copy though, make it your own! A way that I ensure I’m not just copying another creators photo to a T is by creating collections of saved inspo that all has a similar vibe but different elements. Then I look at the collection as a whole as opposed to looking at individual photos. From there, I choose elements that stand out to me, or that I really like that all the photos have in common.
Planning your content.
Once you have your inspo down, it’s time to plan what content you want to make with that set up. For my video reel, I knew I wanted to take a video of me making the hot chocolate. Because of that, I needed to film the reel first, so I could make one of the hot chocolates, and then I could take the photos after with the finished product. This probably sounds obvious, but honestly if I didn’t plan this out before hand I probably would have taken the photos first, then realized that the hot chocolates were already put together and so the reel idea I had would have gone out the window. Video content for instagram and tiktok is not something that comes natural to me – I am a photo girl, so I have to really plan out how and when to take video content. Video content performs better, because most apps are transitioning to an algorithm that favours short form video content (we have tiktok to thank for that!)
Setting up the Shot
This is the fun part. I LOVE setting up aesthetic little areas. It really feels like i’m creating a romanticized world pulled right from my imagination. I know thats extra, but trust me that’s how it feels! For setting up the shot, the main thing I think about is 1) location, 2) layers, and 3) textures & colours.
Location depends mostly on the type of photo and the look you want. Location makes a HUGE difference, but you don’t have to live in a super aesthetically pleasing area to achieve a nice backdrop. For my photos, the hardest part was waiting for snow because I knew I NEEDED snow. It would NOT have looked the same without the snow. Fortunately for me, we were expecting a snow storm this week so there was plenty of fresh snow for me to shoot in. For the area, I had planned to go to a little path in the woods down the street from my apartment because I knew I wanted a nature background with trees. I find it helps to release the idea of a perfectly aesthetic location, because that can be hard to come by, but beauty can be found anywhere. I keep my expectations and needs low when it comes to location, so that it’s easy to work with what’s around me. For this shoot my only requirements were: SNOW, and TREES. That made it easy to find a perfect spot, and I was so much happier with the area we shot at because it exceeded my expectations. Sometimes what I want requires a longer drive, so we plan for those shoots a bit more, where as most photos I can take basically anywhere.
Next is layers – and by this I mean adding dimension and layers to the photos. Having some things overlapped, or taller and shorter items creates a much more visually appealing photo. If you just have everything laid out side by side, the photo will look alright but pretty basic and not as aesthetic. I try to include a mix of taller and shorter items to every photo. For this shoot in my examples, the hot chocolates were the focus, and they were the tallest items in the photo, then I laid out some picnic items to add texture and layers.
For layers and textures/ colour I had a tray to create a clean “base”, then I added croissants which were stacked a bit to create layers as well. I placed a few tangerines because to me those are very christmas-y, and in the inspo photos I noticed a lot had tangerines laid out and that was an element I loved in all the photos. It also adds a pop of natural colour. The last things I added were candles around the outside to create some width in the scene – I didn’t want the photo to be JUST the tray of food, so adding the candles to the background helps to just add more elements. It was too windy to light the candles but I still kept them in because it still fit the vibe. Lastly I scattered around some cranberries to again add texture, colour, and a more festive vibe.
Take the picture!
Last is the easiest part of all – taking the photos and videos. Like I said before, I started with the video because it just made sense for what I wanted. I also like to get videos out of the way first because if not ill forget, and I also find photos so easy, where as sometimes it takes me a few tries to be happy with how a video looks. In this case, we only had one try because i was adding whip cream to a hot chocolate outdoors, which you can’t really undo, but most times it does take me a few tries to get a good video. Taking the pictures, the main thing is angles. I try to take a few angles so that I get one I really like. I also check on the background to see how that looks because there is nothing worse than getting an awesome photo but then noticing something really ugly or messy looking in the back. Sometimes it can be edited out, but my editing skills aren’t amazing, and it always looks better to not have to try to remove background stuff.
And thats it! That’s the process in detail! Could my photos have been better? Or neater? Yes, absolutely. But I’m learning to let go of things needing to be absolutely perfect. It’s a lot easier to enjoy things when you’re okay with them not being completely perfect in every way. I Hope you enjoyed this post, and maybe took something away from it that’s helpful!
x Kyla
