How to Take a Great Book Photo for Social Media

Do you wonder how people take amazing photos with a book? Do you get a tension-type headache by thinking why your photos don't look like them? Remember- if everyone’s skills were generally equal, we would be in a very boring place. Still nothing to worry about, when there are so many tips for book photography. 

The most important thing about photography is to make a plan before taking a photo.

LET’S MAKE A PLAN

•Background:

The background plays a very effective role in photography. It can highlight the subject to be shown more prominently in the photo. A photo background can be anything. Such as: floor/ basic bed sheet/ blankets/ table or you can use backdrop:  poster/wall/wood boards and nature.

(I’ve used a white basic bed sheet as the photo background)

•Lighting:

You need the right lighting to get a high-quality picture. Do try to use natural light. Natural light works greatly in the picture.

High noon light: You can use the light we see at high noon if you’re looking for something warmer.

Artificial light: If you’re unable to use natural light, you can use artificial light (lamp light/ ceiling light/ flashlight etc). It gives the photo a tinged color.

Morning light: You can use the morning light to get soft bright pictures.

•Props:

You don’t need to buy expensive things to use as props. You can find cute props around the house and even in the house. For example: old dusty pages, newspaper, magazines,envelope, planner, journal, notebook, mug, cup, tea, coffee, glass, bottles, pencil, pen, paperclip, clothes, bag, hat, toys, candles, plants, fairy lights, flowers, plants, fake flowers, jewelry, chocolates, cookies or yourself. Also you can buy some props on the budget. Like, bookmarks/ book sleeves/ bookish merch etc.

•Layout:

Creating the layout can help you to make your book the focus in the photo. But what is the layout? It’s the arrangement of something laid out. Here are three layouts that are mostly used by most:

1. Flat Lay/ Bird’s eye view: A flat lay is a great way to showcase everything in the photo. It’s simply a photo of objects arranged on a flat surface, taken from directly above.

2. At an angle: It’s not straight, a photo taken from leaning at one side.

3. Front view: This is a photo where you’re looking straight on at your photo setup.

LET’S TAKE THE PHOTO

•Camera:

It’s not like that you have to own a luxurious camera for taking photos. You can take beautiful photos by using a smartphone. 

1. Phone Camera: 

•Clean: Clean your camera lens and phone screen.

•Mega Pixel: If your phone has the option to change, do increase the size of your photo to the highest megapixel.

•Grid: Turn on the grid so you can line up photos to get the angle you prefer.

•Ratio: Fix the photo size ratio.

•Brightness: Increase the brightness.

2. Digital Camera: 

•Adjust: To get the sharp and clear photo, you have to adjust the camera manually or automatically.

•Focus: Focus on the subject to the sharpest point.

•Aperture: It controls the amount of light. When you increase the aperture, it closes the lens which makes the camera focused on the object you’ve chosen. On the other hand, a lower aperture gives it more to focus on and less blurred background.

•Shutter Speed: It controls the shutter. You can use lower speed for book photography but it will work better if you use a tripod. If you want to take action shots, you can use higher speed. 

•White balance: This function is for capturing the white light which appears in the photo naturally. 

(Umm...Want to edit your photo?)

LET’S EDIT THE PHOTO

There are tons of editing apps that you can use to create aesthetic vibes in your book-photo. 7 best editing apps you can use:

•Snapseed (iOS/Android)

•VSCO (iOS/Android)

•Adobe Photoshop (Desktop)

•PicsArt (iOS/Android/Desktop)

•A color story (iOS/Android)

•Lightroom (iOS/ Android/ Desktop)

•RetroCam vintage photo effects (iOS/Android)

That’s all I can give you for your book-photography. Practice makes perfect. So, keep practicing and develop it in your own style. Learn new tricks for book-photography from BookTube, Pinterest and #bookstagram. You may get new inspiration. Do recreate it but don’t forget to mention where you’ve gotten the idea from.