Stick with Me for 5 Tips on Creating Content Resources:
I thought I would share some really great tips with you that came out of one of Smith & Brooks first photo shoots. The goal of this shoot was to create some botanical reference photographs that would be used to work from to create pieces for our Spring collection, Wild Garden.
My setup for this shoot was very simple and consisted of a white roll of photography backdrop paper taped to the wall and hanging over my desk. The area where I worked has a wonderful big window that provides a lovely natural light source so no professional studio lighting was required. I have included photos of the set up with this post so you can see just how easy it is to get some gorgeous shots. You might think – why is she giving away her secrets? Well it is not about secrets – all of this can be found on the internet already – it is about inspiring others to give it a go. And while I do use a professional DSLR to shoot my main photos I also shot a full set on my phone along with video footage and it all looks pretty darn good.
And now you might be wondering why I am double or even triple shooting everything? It is for a very good reason. Before we started this creative collaboration Brooksy very seriously (and I mean very serious – like cautionary-parent-serious) informed me about the level of “content” we would need for social media channels. I kind of thought it was a bit of overkill really when I started all the double/triple shooting and filming but guess what? Brooksy was right. She’s always right.
If you are going to the effort of photographing anything for work then I (in a cautionary-parent-serious voice) suggest you double shoot. Now your double shooting may look different to mine. It might be that you shoot video footage as well as snap your photos but it will still give you much more bang for your social media content buck. See what Brooksy knew was that every few days I would need something visually interesting to post online and having to come up with ideas is often draining (hats off to the content creators and influencers who do this for a living!). So, making the extra effort during this shoot to create photos and footage for potential social media posts came as a massive time saver later.
I just did a quick count while typing this blog post and to date I have used the BTS photos and video from my phone at least 10 times for social media posts. That is all from a one-hour shoot that I had to do anyway! This is leveraging at its finest.
I can now hear you all groaning at the thought but seriously this will make your life easier. And to reduce the stress even more I have a list of the main points to take away from double shooting everything:
- Brooksy was right – you need a lot of visually interesting content and coming up with that is hard work so do not waste an opportunity.
- You already have your phone out most of the time so take a few photos AND take some video. Video content in the form of Reels and Stories is big on Instagram right now and Tik Tok is essentially a video-sharing platform. Don’t forget to shoot vertically!
- Catalogue those resources so they don’t end up lost amongst the hundreds of photos from your kid’s soccer final and the cat doing cute stretches in your lounge room. I actually download my photos straight to my PC (you might prefer the cloud or something similar) once I am done and have the folder named and dated so I know months down the track where to find things.
- If you have a wobbly hand for videos try setting your phone to “slo-mo”. This smoothes out your bumpy, handheld video shots beautifully and will have you looking like a pro online.
- Having lots of spare photos and video footage catalogued is great for a rainy day. I was recently unexpectedly busy and not able to get to my computer for a few days. But with the stock footage on file I was able to post something online without the stress of having to go shoot it first.
I hope you enjoy checking out the behind-the-scenes photos from Smith & Brooks first reference shoot. The simple home set up is there for you to see too along with photos from both my DSLR and my phone. And before I go, thanks again to the very wise Brooksy for flagging the endless need to create content. Something I was completely unprepared for!
Kerrin :)