Tips for taking photos for a business Instagram account

I have a friend that bakes cakes. They are absolutely fantastic, I must say. Recently, having ordered from her one, I spent 20 minutes to put it nicely and take a picture before cutting it up and eating. And then it turned out that my photos, which were made in a hurry are much better than those made by the baker for her Instagram account for business. Then I promised her to write this article.

I am not a photography guru, and I don’t know how to photograph professionally, unfortunately. I just don’t have the time to learn. And this means that even a rookie can use my advice to .

How do you take a good photo for your business on Instagram?

Here are a few tips that you can implement right now.

If you run a small-scale production at home baking cakes, making handmade toys, or sewing unique lingerie and using Instagram as a business promotion too, then you probably know the problem of many Instagram online business owners. At night, after finishing the product, you hastily snap a photo with the stove in the background and post it, but it gets only a few likes, and you end up liking your product much more than the resulting picture. Familiar?

Instagram is a social network for visuals. It's not enough to do something interesting and beautiful, you need to be able to properly take pictures of your work to run a company Instagram account.

The basics of taking food photos to put on Instagram

Shoot in natural light, preferably in the morning by the window (if you’re indoors).

Think about the background. If the object you’re taking a picture of is on the table, the table should be clean and the colors should compliment each other. If they don’t, use a large sheet of white paper, scrapbooking or wrapping paper or a special photography background. If you need to snap pics of a few products, go to a local restaurant, coffee shop, or photo studio with large windows and suitable textures of furniture, floor, and walls (make sure that you ask the manager if it’s okay to take pics there for your business account Instagram).

When taking pictures of people outside or indoors, do not forget about the background. A photo with old furniture or a dirty kitchen in the background is not in something people like to see in a business profile.

Process every photo carefully when you set up Instagram for business

If you use a smartphone to take pictures, use a VSCO Cam app or the built-in Instagram photo editor. I don’t recommend using the built-in filters for business profile photos as is: they change too much and often spoil the photo. Play with the manual settings.

I use both editors for each of my photos: for example, I adjust the exposure in VSCO Cam, and the brightness in the Instagram editor.

Don’t be afraid of recreating the photos of others who are using Instagram for business

Browse Instagram for business pages similar to yours, find pictures you really like, take screenshots and, when it's time to take pictures of your work, try to set everything up as in the screenshot. You can also search for good photos on the desired topic in Pinterest.

Don’t, it’s not plagiarism and no one will know: no matter how hard you try, you will still have a different cup, napkin, and cake, so the photo won’t not look like the original.

And a few more tips:

• Crop the objects. Half of a cup or a piece of cake in the frame strangely look better than the whole thing.
• Use your hands: a hand holding a cup or pen will revive the photo. Use your hands or ask a friend for help.
• Take many shots. I get about one good picture in 15-20 tries.
• Try taking a photo with a blurry background: macro mode works best, but try to blur the background after taking the picture in the worst case scenario.