What exactly is it that makes these virtual galleries stand out from all the others? Aside from the large businesses who employ a creative advertising-type to do just that, there has to be a way that we can all achieve an aesthetically pleasing experience with our own profiles. After a peruse on the internet I happened upon this cool little website called ‘Makelight’, which is owned and run by Emily Quinton.
Being a professional photographer, it’s no surprise that both her personal and business Instagram accounts are absolutely delightful (slightly envious). Her photographs are beautifully put together in a cohesive manner, with lots of floral details and pastel prettiness. You can’t help but feel chipper as you scroll through the plethora of thoughtful images. |
The Makelight website is bursting with information including blog posts and helpful Youtube videos, like this one below.
Lesson 1: Reflecting on your Instagram gallery
Lesson 2: A photograph a day
Lesson 3: Gather your inspiration
Lesson 4: Colour and consistency
Lesson 5: Putting a plan together
If you follow our Instagram you’ll notice that we’ve started to organise our profile already.
Artists, florists, or coffee shop owners are lucky in the way that their photographs will be a collection of their work; meaning that almost immediately they'll have elements that will make their profiles look more cohesive, either by the style of their artwork, the colours of seasonal flowers in their bouquets or by the type of food they serve. But as an art shop we have so many different styles, we've got a full rainbow of colours to choose from and an array of products, that we weren’t sure how to go about making our gallery cohesive like that.
Suddenly *PING* a lightbulb came on and we decided that we could colour block our profile in groups of 9- just incase some of you thought we had an obsession with sea-foam green the other week, there was method to our madness.
After some further investigations, I came across Kat Von D’s beauty Instagram page. It turns out that they colour block their page, so if it’s gotten them 1.8 million followers, we’ll give it a shot too.
On a side note, each month Emily makes a hashtag theme on Instagram. If you want to join it, all you have to do is include the hashtag on your image and it will appear along alongside other participant’s photos. Even though it’s not a competition, seeing other people’s efforts will make you want to produce beautiful imagery too. And I’m pretty sure I read that if she’s likes your image enough, she sends you a random prize in the post- how good it that!
That’s all for now, and happy snapping. x
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