Do This When Shooting Indoor Photography

Shooting indoors can be tricky!

Let me share tips on how to execute it properly, shooting with a DSLR or iPhone/android.

1. Turn off overhead lighting. This helps your photos white balance be more neutral. If the lights were on, your photo would turn out yellow.

2. Move near a window or open door and have your subject face the light. This helps to illuminate your subject nicely.

This seems like an obvious thought, but you’d be surprised to know this is the biggest mistake people make when it comes to properly lighting your scene.

3. Purchase white foamboard at any grocery store. The foamboard can be used as a reflector or fill light. Simply place the board near your subject, with the light bouncing on the board, then onto your subject. The foamboard will also help neutralize your white balance.

There you go! Try it out for yourself and don’t be afraid to move around and try different angles, use different lenses or change your ISO.

Have questions? Comment below and I’d love to talk more with you.

Story Time with Cristy Cross

How did you get started in your business?

It’s always a fun story to tell, and in July, I had the opportunity to share my story.

I started my business with not know exactly how I was going to do it, but I was determined to make it happen.

One thing I forgot to mention is, a several years back, I almost gave up my photography business. It was a scary moment when we realized my business needed to make more money to pay bills and it wasn’t.

I think that scare lit a fire under me and rebooted my business and thankfully here we are 15 yrs and going strong.

Are you starting a business, interested in starting a business or have questions about what I do?

Listen to the end of the video for the Q and A part, but also feel free to leave any questions in the comments here and I’ll get back with you.

How To Fake A Pool-Beach Look For A Product Shoot

Planning ideas for a product shoot can be extremely fun and hard at the same time.

The goal is to make sure my clients are 100% satisfied in the end. The professional photographs I provide for them are meant to connect their clientele-present and future, with the products they sell in hopes they become long time customers.

Sometimes the ideas might seem impossible. For example, I don’t live near the beach, or own a pool.

For one of my styled shoots, I wanted the setting to be at the beach or pool. So instead of it stopping my creative process, I made a beach/pool scene and I chose to shoot this outside to give it the high contrast light.

The tools used:

• Playsand

• Clear acrylic container

• blue poster board

• water hose

• beach props

• clients products

• white foamboard to reflect light on your subject and cancel out the warm tones from the brick.

• tripod

• Spray bottle with water to make the sand wet and condensation on products

Tips:

• As you are shooting, be aware of your own shadow

• Try several angles

• Move props around to try different looks

• Under-expose (darken) your photo when shooting outside. It’s hard to see the exposure correctly when shooting outside in the bright light.

• Shoot with a variety of lenses so you can get different looks

You can shoot these with your DSLR or iPhone. I hope you have fun creating.

If you have questions, leave a comment and I’ll be happy to answer them.

Featured product: Pure and Coco

I want to know what you think...

I want to know what you think! Do you imagine my days as a product photographer are all fabulous with creative ideas and perfect execution every time?
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Honestly, that’s kind of what I hope for every time I shoot, but sometimes you are dealing with food that melts, loses form in seconds, products that don’t stay out, or the shoot gets rained out.
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And I’m okay with it. All though frustrating sometimes, it challenges me to find a new route.
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How are your expectations stacking up to reality lately?

It’s been a fun summer so far photographing ice cream for a local donut shop. Yes, ice cream and donuts, what more could you ask for?

I’ve been exploring more studio light options, backdrops and thinking through all of the elements (start, middle, finish) a little more clearly and let me just say-magic is happening.

Loading Your Photos On Instagram...Don't Do This

When you load photos on Instagram, make sure you do the photo justice. Don't cut off limbs and make the photo incomplete.

In my college photography classes, the composition rule my professor taught us when photographing portraits was this: do not cut off limbs in your photo. More specifically, don’t crop where the joints meet.

For example, wrist to forearm, elbow to upper arm, ankle to leg, and knee to upper leg. If you crop parts of the body, do it in the middle of the arm, or middle of the thigh for example.

Cropping at the joints leaves the body incomplete. It makes the brain wonder where the hand or foot are. However, if you crop in the middle of the torso instead of at the hips, or middle of the forearm and not the wrist, it helps the brain see the body complete, knowing there is more outside of the frame.

This one tip can either make or break your picture (in my professional opinion) when posting on Instagram.

Did you know you can use a rectangle crop instead of a square crop when posting on Instagram?

How to make a rectangle crop on Instagram:

• Select the plus sign at the bottom in the middle.

• Select the picture that you want to showcase. As you select the picture and Instagram pulls it up, it shows it in a square form.

• For this picture I’m showing you in the video, the picture is a full body, head to toe photo, so we need a rectangle crop.

• Select the right angle icon at the bottom left. This will give the photo a fuller crop.

• The new composition still crops off the feet.

• This can be corrected by gently sliding the image up with your finger. Did you know you can do that you?

That’s it!!

Next time you post, try this out. Even if you use Planoly or other third party planners for social media, you can still apply this technique.

If you have any follow up questions, feel free give me a call or email me.

What Color Will You Wear For Your Next Photoshoot?

Planning your outfit for your next photoshoot?

I remember in my college photography classes learning about how certain colors look better on a person depending on your hair, eye and skin color.

This guide will help you think through the colors you will wear at your next photoshoot. All of these tips are of course a suggestion, but try it out and see if you agree :)

Behind the Scenes Product Shoot: Pure and Coco

Behind the scenes product shoot

Today I’m highlighting a product shoot I did with Pure and Coco.

They are a product subscription client, and send me their products from Washington.

For 2021, I will have the honor of doing a shoot for them each month.

I’m excited for each shoot, because they will challenge me to be more creative than the shoot before, which will result in inventive photos for my clients.

Are you a product based business and interested to hear more about how a subscription shoot works?

Bloggers! Use these tips for your next photo shoot with your iPhone

When you are doing your own photoshoot at home, take note of these four tools to create product photos.

1. Clamps

2. Masking tape

3. Wooden blocks

4. Dumbbells

Don’t just stand there! Revive Your Boring Poses

How do you revive your boring pose ideas when photographing portraits?

Add angles with your arms and legs.

When you do this, it creates movement to your photo and brings interest from your viewers.

Look at all of those triangles!

Try these poses out on yourself for a self-portrait or grab a friend and do a photoshoot.

Remember, practice makes perfect. So, don’t be discouraged if it doesn’t work right away.

Tell me, do you think you’ll try it?

Three tools to use for better iPhone videos under $70

Videos are a must when sharing tips and tricks with your business. They are a great way to connect and get your information out to your viewers.

Here are three tools I recommend that are under $70.

Head to my Amazon store here to see more details.

1. Mounted tripod ring light

2. Selfie stick tripod with Bluetooth remote

3. Portable clip-on ring light

What is white balance and why is it important?

Photography talk: What is white balance and why is it important?

White balance is how warm or cool the overall colors in your photograph look.

Sometimes your photos may look a little bit more blue when photographing in the shade.

Photographing early in the morning at sunrise or late in the evening at sunset, your photos can tend to be warmer (red) than you might like.

This is called a color cast and it happens because the color source of the light varies.

When shooting with your iPhone or Android, you can easily correct this with the white balance tool in the free Lightroom mobile app just like I’m doing in this video.

Follow along and let me know if you have questions.

Also, check out my stories today for more white balance tips.

Fancy Cowgirl

Who says you can’t have a tea party in the middle of your dairy with cows? Crystal, Liz and Ruby think it’s totally appropriate.

Crystal and her family are clients of mine who have turned to dear friends, and I am always inspired with their ideas for a photoshoot.

This idea was inspired from a recent request for Half and Half Magazine, featuring the families businesses-their dairy as well as their boutique shop, The Milkhouse Market.

Crystal and her mom, Liz wanted to put a spin on wife/mom/daughter dairy owners, creating the fancy cowgirl-look.

The theme: Feminine flair with pink dresses, pink velvet chairs and a milk-tea party surrounded by cows.

The cows were very interested and wanted in on the action. So cute, right?

Above: cows licking the milk container and eating flowers.

How to Style a Product Shoot

Styling for my clients product shoot is one of my favorite components I do for them.

Some things you have to think about before the shoot:

What is the clients objective? E-commerce (white photo background) or lifestyle photos?

What are the ingredients in the product? Knowing this will help you with prop ideas. Especially for this product, which was essential oils for Plant Juice Oils.

Know that the client will not always love the shots you love. They will love other photos, ones that you almost didn’t include in the gallery. And then you are thanking yourself for including them.

Brainstorm your set, colors, and material.

Use a variety of textures-smooth, rough, cotton, stones, plexiglass, silk, wood, balloons, etc.

Do your products include food related items? If so, use those for props. For example, sugar cookie essential oil mask spray for kids, use sugar real sugar cookies.

Also, have an actual list ready to go so it makes shooting a little easier, but also welcome spontaneous ideas.

Have any questions about how a product shoot works? I’d love to chat with you. Leave a comment below.

What is a preset, and what does it do?

What is a preset, and what does it do?
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To some, they are magical and life changing.
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I for one am one of those people.😂
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Every single day I edit photos on my computer or phone, I use presets to enhance my photographs.
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A preset is a recipe of ingredients used to make a good photo look great. It’s ingredients consist of adjustments on exposure, contrast, cool or warm temperatures, green or pink tints, deep shadows, or bright backgrounds, luminance and hues, etc. My favorite presets to use are CC Mobile Presets.
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Each preset works differently. Some are made to brighten a dark photo. While others focus on enhancing colors, increasing contrast and lowering the exposure.
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Depending on how your photo was taken, will depend on which preset will look best for your final edit.
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Adding a preset to a dark photo that was meant to bring back highlights (making highlights darker) would end up making the entire photo darker.
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Or, using a bright preset (raising exposure) to an already bright photo, would make your photograph overexposed (too bright).
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These are just a couple tips on using presets. Stick around and I’ll share more in the future or feel free to check out after/before photos at CC Mobile Presets on Instagram.
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Do you have any questions about presets? Leave your questions in the comments section and I’ll dive deeper into them.

After editing the photo below, I went one step further to change up my creative game by flipping the photo.

Top photo: After, Bottom photo: before

Left: After, Right: Before

Are you more the ‘life of the party’ or ‘table for one?

Are you more the ‘life of the party’ or ‘table for one?
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I think I’m at my most productive when my favorite Spotify station is playing and I'm working by myself. It helps me stay on task, but I also love to work in a group and surround by the buzz of busy people.

This week a brand new co-working space is opening up downtown and I am so excited. A co-working space is great for people who usually work from home, but would like to have a change of scenery for their workspace. It can also be the place to work when you don’t have a home office at all.

The Firehouse Workspace has many things to offer, including a podcast studio, conference room, and photography studio among private offices to rent and open seating desks.

What are benefits of a co-working space?

-Meeting new people

-Possible collaborations to grow your business

-Office parties, which is so fun when normally you are a solo entrepreneur

-Water cooler talk :)

-Office comradery

Have you ever been interested in working in a place like this?

Hey Mom! What Do You Wear for Your Next Family Session?

A friend recently asked me to share “what to wear” for family sessions and these are my top recommendations that I give to my clients.

Take note and save this so you can come back to it for your next family session.

What outfit do you love most?
For me, it’s the oversized sweater and pleated shirt. It just screams beautiful-cozy.

Do You Want To Look Good On Social Media?

Planning for social media is a battle when you don’t have a picture to post. Am I right?
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Let me help you out! Grab your five free organic and nature inspired stock photos to plan out your social media content. Click the photo below and enjoy!

How can I use stock photos?

• Instagram and Facebook posts

• Newsletters

• Slideshow presentation

• Ebook

• iPhone Wallpaper

• Instastories background with quote

• Load in Canva and add text box

Food Photography | Cherry Pie

PRODUCT PHOTO SHOOT: Cherry Pie

By using my iPhone, good window lighting, filler light (poster board), and simple editing, I can create a professional photograph in under 5 minutes.
Follow these steps on the video and try it out yourself!

All edits were done using CC Mobile Presets. Simple and easy to use for product or service based businesses.

Brand Photography

CURRENTLY BOOKING BRAND SESSIONS
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Please hear this with magnificent passion.
⭐️I LOVE MY JOB⭐️
I can’t stress it enough.
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Every time I photograph entrepreneurs we talk about their dreams, my dreams, and then we encourage each other to keep going and taking steps towards those dreams.
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Let me help you get started on your dream. First step is writing them out.
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Write one of your dreams in the comments below. Once you put it out there, you are one step closer to reaching that dream.

How Can You Be Your Own Brand Photographer?

Do you need bio or profile photos quickly, but don’t have time to hire a professional photographer?

I know as a business owner sometimes you need a great headshot, but you are in a time crunch and can’t hire a professional photographer. So for you, I created a simple selfie tutorial.

You will learn how to look for good natural lighting and which lighting to stay away from. I’ll also give you tips on the best camera angle and help you find your favorite side/angle of your face. (You know you have a favorite. We all do.)

Do me a favor. Right after you watch it, go and take 5 minutes to practice. Don’t feel vain. Feel beautiful/handsome, amazing, and confident.

Learning how to take a better selfie will not only get you a great profile shot for social media or a sweet photo to send to your special someone, but it will also help you love yourself more.