Do you remember the moment of looking at all of the instagram bloggers and their aesthetic photos, wishing you could as well get famous because of your eye-pleasing content? We have to admit that at some point, we have all tried to create or even copy a certain aesthetic. However, most of the time, we lack either knowledge, skills or both when it comes to taking aesthetic pictures. So taking that in mind, I did a tiny little research on my own, in order to come up with a simple and easy to follow step-by-step guide. I present to you „7 tips for taking aesthetic photos".
Tip #1 : Use Natural Light
This is probably one of the most crucial things when it comes to photos. As an amateur photographer, I know for a fact that the lighting can either make one picture a masterpiece or a complete failure. In a lot of cases flash can lower the saturation of colours. If you are trying to follow a more colourful aesthetic, then flash is your biggest enemy.
When it comes to natural light, I am convinced that the best pictures taken are either at around 9 o‘clock in the morning or around the golden hour when the sun sets. Both of these times, even though in a different way, bring the most out the colours, you can go for a warm picture with honey and sunny colours in the evening, or for colourful and „fresh“ pictures in the morning. Or shortly said, morning- colourful pictures, evening- sunny pictures, flash- darker and „blender“.
Tip #2 : Have A Theme
Most of the successful content creators on platforms such as Instagram and Pinterest stick to having one theme for the way they take pictures, e.g. being colourful, dark, champagne pink, etc. What does that have to do with photography?
Personally, I think it has become one of the unwritten rules on „how to take aesthetic photos and create aesthetic content". Chaos is attractive only in some cases, in most though, what attracts the eye is constants. The concept of the same theme, for some reason, shows proffessionality, every artist has their own and unique style. So you should find your own as well. It can be the 80‘s or futuristic style.
Tip #3 : Little Editing „never hurt nobody"
Editing is probably one of my favourite thing when it comes to aesthetic photos. As already mentioned, theme has to do a lot with your photos. In other words, editing them in the same way is a must. Here is a good example of the power of editing:
Touching a little bit the colours, the exposure and lighting will give you the exact wanted result. You can make from a simple dark photo in bland colours, a warm coloured aesthetic photo. Saturation is my favourite tool, as it can either make colours pop or go bland. Sharpening your pictures gives the illusion that you are using a professional camera, when in reality you might have used a simple smart phone without many featues.
Tip #4 : Angles
Just like the lighting, angles are a key-factor in taking aesthetic pictures. An angle can give you a different point of view. The angle I mostly use for my photos is a lower one. Especially when I am on the beach, the best pictures come with a lower angle. Here is the difference:
Tip #5 : Grain
If you are going for a little bit of old-school photography, style 90‘s kind of camera, then you will just love grain. Don‘t be afraid to play with it. I, personally, do not use it that much, however, some great photos come out with it. You can either go for the combination saturation and grain or darker lighting and grain.
Tip #6 : Details
Details directly affect the aesthetic you are trying to reach, from the way you are dressed to the place you are taking the picture at. If you are trying to make an aesthetic portrait, you should consider the behaviour, the style, the surroundings and pretty much every small detail that you can think of, you should thoroughly consider what kind of message you want to get across, the feelings you want to give off.
The aesthetic that was to be reached in these photos is a 80s-90's style. When taking such aesthetic photos, you should consider finding something emblematic about the style or era and have it in your photo, that way, it is guaranteed you will succeed into portraying it.
Tip #7 : Explore Your Camera‘s Features
It doesn‘t matter whether you are using a professional camera or a smartphone. You should become acquainted with your camera‘s features as you never know when they may come in handy. Just by exploring some of my phone's settings, I was able to create this, without the need of extra editing:
An advice:
Most people forget that copying someone else‘s style when it comes to photography is almost impossible. The reason of trying to copy the aesthetic is because of the lack of confidence in oneself. You are not competing in a race, you must remember that photography after all, is something we do for pleasure, even when it is for a job, you must be passionate and you must be confident in your skills, the product that you are offering and aesthetic you are following.
If you are not, then you will end up deleting your photos again and again and try more and more new things, in the end, you will feel as a failure for being unable to reach a certain standard or goal set by someone else. You should find your own passion, your own style and create your own original content.
In conclusion, in order to reach the aesthetic feeling of your photographs, you must try playing with angles, editing, stick to a theme , play with the colours and be confident in your work of art.
I hope these tips were helpful, however do not hesitate to share more with us or show us some of your own masterpieces!
