Personal Journey and Adventures of Nina

Great photography is vital to lifestyle bloggers who want to stand out and get results. Impactful images get increased engagement on your posts, as well as attracting new followers. Here are my top five tips for great photos. Location Pick a location that compliments the theme of your blog and at the same time provides you with a variety of scenes within a short distance from each other. That way you can capture various different looks, quickly, building a library of stock images to use for future posts. My aim is 2 hours shooting, 5 different locations and looks with approximately 100 images (Stay tuned for my upcoming post on my favourite locations.) These were all taken in the same block for fashion blogger, Kirsty, With Love .. Lighting Always the key to any good photography is lighting. Whether you manipulate the natural elements or use lighting equipment to achieve your look, it should match your style. For a more fashion look, use flash equipment and for a...

For a bit of fun, I ordered myself the Olixar lenses for my Smartphone for Christmas. This afternoon I had a few minutes spare so I picked a small branch off our Boungainvillea and set it in front of the camera. 1. Macro Lens I have the Olixar lens set. $22 from MobileZap. Clips on to any smart phone. 2. Tripod . It's really challenging to hold the phone still whilst focusing with the Macro lens attached  so I set it up on a mini tripod. This one is a  Fotolux Mini Tripod - $25 from Photo-Shop Studio . Its not great but does the job. If you can afford more get a better tripod. 3. Steady the subject. The small breeze coming through the kitchen window was enough to move the flowers so that I wasn't able to get a shot so I had to stabilise it on a glass vase. You can use anything. Maybe some tape too. 4. Add Light. I added a little LED ring light onto the flowers so they popped a little and it was also a little easier to focus. You could use a torch or ...

If you think you've worked for the most demanding Art Director on the planet, think again...Little Miss Emily produced, directed and styled this 20 minute shoot. I love it..so much fun with Emily.

This week I had the pleasure of photographing newly born, Cecilia. Though just over one week of age Ceci, (named so by her family) has all the being of a much older baby. She is alert, attentive and full of energy, which is unusual in a newbie. I am certain that she was even having a conversation with us at one time! I had the sets, lighting and exposures all ready for a smooth shoot. For this I used my American Girl Doll as a stand-in. I started with this white, cloud-like setting for which the tutu was perfect. I used a two light set-up with a large Octabox for softness. Ceci looks as though she is an angel floating down from above. Then I moved on to the more dramatic black background for dad to hold his daughter for size comparison though as you can see, Ceci is not a small baby! I have dozens more ideas so look for more images in the future.