As a new photographer or photography enthusiast, you must feel overwhelmed while scrolling through your social media account. Whether it is on Instagram or Facebook, you see all the successful photographers having thousands of likes/reactions to their photos within hours. First of all, I do not think nobody gets overnight success when it comes to photography. Time is a crucial element of being a successful photographer. Because it takes time to develop certain skills & your unique style of photography. Hell, it takes time to even understand what type of photography suits you. There are so many lanes to pick from event photography, wildlife photography, travel photography, macro and so on. But still, even as a beginner, it feels nice to have your photography recognised by like-minded people. In this article, I am going to share 3 simple ways to uplift your photography on social media. I have spent hundreds of hours watching popular social media photographs and found these three things very common among almost 80% of them.
Find A Reflecting Surface:
You must have seen those popular photos on Instagram where a beautiful mountain is being reflected at the bottom part of the photo on a lake, or a beautiful building or a structure being reflected on a water puddle on the street. From seasoned photographers to newbies, all of them are doing it. Because this is a proven way to make your photos stand out. It also adds symmetry that pleases human eyes. But it is not easy to find a reflecting surface everywhere. More often than not, you will have put in some extra effort to make the reflection work for you. You might have to change your spot to bring the reflecting surface to your photo. May be you do what some photography hack shorts show and pour some water from your bottle on the ground at the right place. Sometimes a reflecting glass wall can do the trick. My point is, that you need to find a reflecting surface wherever or however you can. Then there is one final trick to this. That is, use post-processing to your benefit. Does not matter what software you are using to process/edit your photos you can exaggerate the reflection. Yes, the photo you capture will probably have a sub-optimal level of reflection. You need to make that pop using post-processing methods. Then if needed, you can go even further and add a mirror image of the photo in the water or glass where there was not enough reflection at the time of capture. Do not worry about authenticity. Everyone does this.
Add Some Movement:
Yes, I am talking about still photography. But why have I mentioned movement in photography then? Because even images can capture the feeling of motion if you know how to. Have you seen a photo of a person just walking or jumping or getting up or down from a sidewalk? Doesn’t that make you feel the person is actually moving? Even if you have not actively thought about it, that’s what it does. Not just people, when you see a photo of a bird flapping its wings, a dog running or just someone trying to change the direction of his/her gaze adds a sense of motion to a photograph. That is why these photos feel different than a photo with a stationary subject. That is why you see fewer photos where someone is just idly standing in front of the camera. Get some movement in your photo to get some social media impressions people!
Get the Sky With the Right Color:
The most popular sky for photography is the golden hour sky. Generally, golden hour is the hour after sunrise or before sunset, but whenever the sunlight turns to the red side of the spectrum, you can consider it golden hour. With the sky providing a vibrant background, you can make your travel photography more noticeable in the crowd. But when you have a lot of green in the foreground then a clear blue sky is the way to go. It is hard to leave the sky out of your frame while you are doing travel photography. So try to include it as much as you can.
These three things are my suggestions for now to help you get noticed on social media. Start using these techniques and along the way you will find your own styles. Good luck out there!
