Behind the Blog: What Goes Into an Outfit Post

There is a very common misconception about what bloggers do, especially with the trend of people just doing the Instagram thing. I know I'm preaching to the choir to all of you fellow bloggers! My focus is and has always been my blog. I own my blog and I am in control of it. It's not going to change the algorithm on me or get sold and shut down. I view social media as complementary and supplementary. That is part of why I wanted to give a little behind the scenes look at what I put into a post.

The Beginning Stages 

If you have been a reader for a while you know that I do different kinds of posts; mainly outfit and lifestyle content but here I'm just talking about outfit posts. An outfit post begins when I run across something that I want to share either online or in person at a store. I'm not one to follow and care about trends, I care more about my personal style than what's "in" and "trendy" so I don't pay attention to that stuff and only share what's "trending" with all of you. It just comes down to what I like. Next, I figure out how I am going to style the item I want to feature.

Once I figure out how I'm going to style something I need to find a location to photograph it. I like my photos to invoke a feeling rather than take them in front of a garage door my front stops, so I'm always looking for interesting locations I can photograph an outfit. I actually have a Google Doc with a list of places, contact information, and notes. I also have a few staple locations I use, mainly parks by where I live if I can't get somewhere further away or if it's a more casual look.

Making My Vision Come to Life

My mom takes all of my outfit pictures for me. We generally take about an hour and anywhere from 400 - 1,000 photos. I'm always self-conscious about my photos and trying to learn, grow, and create more beautiful images. I don't have a wicked expensive camera, I shoot on a little Canon Rebel that is a few years old with this lens. While I would love to invest in a really fantastic camera body and lens, I can't justify the cost at this moment in time. Maybe one day! Since good light is the most important aspect of photography, we try to shoot at golden hour on sunny days. Cloudy days we can shoot anytime so we usually do it earlier. I do a test shot and adjust all the settings on the camera and explain to my mom how I want the photos to look. As we are going along I stop and check the camera to see how everything is photographing and see what's working, what do I like and what do I not like and I make adjustments accordingly. I also always try to do something new, a new pose or a new way of doing something so I'm always learning.

Next, it's time to edit, I edit all of my photos myself. The first thing I do is pull them all off the camera. Once they are loaded onto the computer I go through each and every one and slide all the ones that came out the best into a folder. Once I have the images narrowed down I import them into Lightroom and begin editing. As I'm editing I narrow down the photos again into just that will end up being the final post. A lot of people are doing the overly bright, blown out highlights look that they describe as "bright and airy" but I try to stay away from that and go for more of a vintage look. This can take hours so I'm not going to go into details about how I edit the photos today. If you want to know more about my process, let me know and I can do that in a separate post.

Laying it Out

Next, it's time to lay it all out in a blog post. I play with the arrangement of the images until I get it just the way I want it. Then I link up everything and figure out if I have anything, in particular, I want to say in the text part of the post. If I don't, I kind of just type as I think. I read over everything and check the preview then make any final changes and finally, I publish the post and hope that you guys enjoy it!