Every now and then I get questions in my dms about how I take my makeup photos, and while I'm nowhere near a pro, there's definitely a thing or two I could share with you that might help you out find your best ways of taking makeup pictures. If this sounds like something you're interested in, or if you just want to peek behind the scenes of my posts, keep on reading. Note! These tips apply only to my Instagram pics, for my blog pics there's whole another road.

Taking pictures

I know there are a lot of Instagram pros who actually take all their pics with DSLR cameras but personally I think the cell phones nowadays take just as good ones for the gram. So, I pretty much only use my phone and moreover, the dreaded front camera. The phone I have is the Samsung Galaxy s10, and I use the phone's own camera app to take all my photos.

Lighting 

I prefer shooting in natural light whenever possible, but switch to ringlight if I have to, because getting sharp pictures is the goal for my aesthetic. I know there are many alternative accounts whose aesthetic is to have a somewhat defocused photos but that's not for me in any way. Especially with makeup pics because I really want you to see my art as it is.

Angles

Now this is a big thing in my opinion. I feel like I have a better side (above), and not so good side (below), as my face is quite a bit uneven as you can see in the pic below the "bad side" photo - my left eye is "lazier" than my right one and doesn't photograph as flattering especially with makeup. Generally, human mind finds as symmetrical face as possible the "most pretty", so I'm guessing this is why I find bit more on the side pics of myself better looking. Also, I do tend to pose so that the chin is not the first thing to face the camera (if that makes sense) but rather take the pictures maybe even from a bit upper angle if possible to get the best possible proportions for the face. 

For the closeups I do borderline possessed by demon moves because I have a very specific angle I capture the eye closeups from, I have to have my head tilted almost sideways and then need to have the camera in the right spot and it's really a whole process in itself.  

Trial and error

You may sometimes have to take quite many pics to get a good one, try to check for focus etc. while still taking pics so that you don't end with a surprise stray hair, lint, defocus or anything like that with your photos once you're editing them. You can try different settings (I pretty much use automatic settings for everything and just edit the settings in after), lightings, poses and all that. Sometimes, especially with closeups, if your camera/phone has trouble focusing on the right spots, try manually giving the exact spot to focus on. This helps also if the lighting is off, after you find the focus spot, you can manually tweak the lighting, for example for highlighters and such to show, you may have to turn down the lightness in your device to get the prettiest result.

Editing

I use two apps to edit my makeup pics, the first one (AirBrush) is to filter the pics just a touch to make them as uniform as possible, but also for smoothing/removing blemishes. Sometimes a bit of skin smoothing if it feels like the texture takes away from the look in the pic, mainly just covering the biggest blemishes that show up in pics. In closeups cleaning up the pics a little more but trying to keep everything still looking human. Basically I just try to eliminate anything that takes away from the topic/look, but let me be clear, I still have blemishes, acne, discoloration, tiny wrinkles (since I'm 30 lol) and skin texture. I try to not over edit my pics but probably still go overboard at times. 

The second app (Pixlr) I use for tweaking the color of the eyeshadows in case the picture shows them wrong (not as bright as they are or bit of a wrong shade especially due lighting), but depending a lot on the look and the colors I use, I may or may not do that. So if you ever feel like your makeup doesn't show as good in pictures, you may have to put a minute or two to enhance to photos just a touch.

Note! When editing pics, try to avoid using anything with maximum settings, that creates pics that look so obviously fake and they take away from all the makeup talent you have. Rather try filters and tools with like 10-20% settings and have enhancing rather than changing it completely as the goal. I'm not sharing my exact tools and values here as I want to encourage you to play with them and therefore learning rather than "copying my homework". If you're very tech savvy you can probably guess my tools just by reading these little notes and having the app in front of you, but trying things out and finding your own editing style is, in my opinion, part of the art which is why I don't want to force feed you any of my super specific edits. You can do this, and most likely even way better than me.

Posting

While posting, I usually do the last tweaks on Insta, often adding a touch of light, deepening the shadows and adding sharpness, as well as cropping the pics exactly to my liking. 

And that's pretty much it. It sounds probably like a tedious process - which it kind of is - but creating to Instagram is a dear hobby for me which is why I'm okay putting quite a bit effort without getting that much back from it. Currently, I don't get paid for any of my posts but who knows, maybe one day a brand will want to work with me. 

Do you have any makeup photo tips you'd like to share? Tell them in the comments!

That's all I have for you today, but there's another post coming your way on Saturday, in which we'll talk about some DIY gifts I made last winter for some of my favorite people. And on Sunday I'll share with you some of my favorite fashionistas from Instagram, so stay tuned for that as well. I can't tell you how happy I am to be blogging more again, and it's been amazingly easy to stay a little ahead on my schedule so far. Although, it'll be a busy autumn so we'll see how long I last, but even if I miss days here on the blog, I am active on most days on my Instagram @jolagerroos with style, makeup and more. I'll see you lovelies on my next post!

Have an amazing day ♥