Hey Beauties!

I never seem to have enough time to do some longer posts for my blog. Life is just busy lately. I finally decided that I need to write this post, which I'm not even sure, if it will help anyone. My "technique" for taking makeup photos for my blog is so basic and so simple that I don't even know if it's worth mentioning it. But I did get some questions as to how I take makeup photos, so here it goes.

Warning: I took some photos with my old digital camera, so some may be worse quality than others.

Firstly, I own a very basic compact camera and my photos are not even close to being perfect. I will say that I prefer the rough look of the makeup, rather then Photoshoping my photos to death. I think it just looks more real. Usually, I don't even use brightness on my makeup photos, because I don't want to change the color of the skin. That being said, my camera sometimes makes my photos a bit too blue, or a bit too orange. I will try to correct these mistakes in the future. I will also admit that I sometimes patch up a pimple or something like that, because I am not perfect and never will be. I also crop the photos to frame just what I want to have on the photo.

I take my photos in front of a huge balcony window in my room. My room is sadly, on the east side, that means I don't get a lot of natural light in the afternoon. Taking photos in the morning, makes them too orange, as for taking them in the afternoon makes them to blue. So just experiment and you'll see in which light you look best. I am all for natural light, when it comes to makeup.

I have a small table, which I put in front of the window. That's where I usually do my makeup and put on anything I need for taking photos.

On my camera I use macro settings for makeup. It works best for me, because I want the focus on the face, not the rest of the body and hair. I also think it looks the most flattering on my face shape. So, for taking makeup photos my camera is always set on macro. Then I can also choose the lightning - like sunny, cloudy and so on. Sometimes I also change the ISO, but not often and never higher then 400. 

The necessary tool is mirror. I have a small self-standing mirror, which I use to see what I'm taking photos of. I hold my camera in front of me with the left hand and in the right hand I hold the mirror. I hold the mirror in an angle, which allows me to see what is in the focus of the camera. That's all the magic to it. I find that to be the easiest way of taking makeup photos of yourself. Especially, if you don't know you're angles, like models. I need the mirror to position myself so that I can look my best. After doing this a lot, it becomes quicker and easier. You know which angles suits you and how every part of the face looks best. 

I like the shot of my lips being sideways, because it makes them look full and plump. I also like them to be diagonal and not straight, because it just gives the photo more dimension. 

As for the eyes I turn my head on the side and a little diagonal, so that my eyes look wide awake. I always pull my brows up high, because that's the only way I get the whole eye makeup on the photo. I have somewhat hooded eyes and a lot of my makeup will not be seen, if not pulling up the brow. 

Now if you want to make things easier, you can use any sort of tripod. Holding the camera and mirror can get really heavy and physically hard. Tripod frees your hands and makes photos a lot more still. You can put the camera on a tripod, turn it so your face looks good in shot (with the help of mirror) and then just have one finger on the camera to take photos. It gets really easy this way and you get those photos that look very similar or in the same position, so you can put them together in row, when you're trying to make a makeup tutorial.