Behind the ‘Gram: What You Don’t See in the Instagram Photo

What appears to be the most effortless Instagram photo isn’t always easy to capture. The number of times I have to repeatedly adjust my body position to avoid looking tragically awkward since I can’t see myself, switch up the angle to get everything in the shot, or completely change directions or locations because of lighting, etc. is actually comical sometimes. So much thought and far more than a quick camera click and pressing upload on Instagram goes into getting those pretty shots you see on everyone’s feeds. Keep reading for the stories and unseen details behind some of my recent Instagram photos!

I must admit that this one came together far easier than I anticipated, and the main reason for that was GOOD LIGHTING — it’s truly the holy grail of photography. You can make any picture work with a little creativity and some natural light. I was having a really good day when we took this too. I was working from home, the sun was shining (which we don’t always get to enjoy in Indiana winters), my hair was clean (lol) and I was migraine-free (which is a rarity sometimes). We tried two different angles and this second one ended up being the winner. Sometimes I’m lucky to get one good photo out of 100 when we’re shooting, but these all turned out pretty good and I had a handful to choose from. This actually ended up being one of the in-between shots, but it was my favorite! I edited the photo with my usual Jaci Marie presets (read my blog post on how exactly I edit my Instagram photos and stories here) and I photoshopped the “peachy keen” text in to give the photo a little more pizazz. LOVE this shot!

Would you believe I photoshopped two street signs (among other things) out of this image? I loved this angle because it shows a little bit of our neighborhood and the sidewalk twisting and fading out into the distance, but the signs made it look far less clean. I’m honestly so thankful that I learned photoshop back in high school because those skills have been unbelievably useful ever since! The graphic designer in me always wants to add a little something to every pic, so I pulled the XO and stars from online and added them in opposite corners to balance out the image. Again, this shot was pretty easy for me to choose among the others we took because it was in focus and is a different pose than I typically do. I think it turned out so cute!

I chose our bedroom for this photo location because it’s one of the very few rooms in our house that I’ve yet to showcase on my Instagram feed since we’ve moved in, mostly due to the fact the the decor and general layout is very similar to our previous bedroom in our apartment (expect much larger). I knew I wanted to take a shot of the backpack that didn’t require someone to have to take a picture of it on me, nor did I want to do a flat-lay this time. I chose to sit it next to our mirror with a couple pillows to add color and texture, and use the mirror reflection as a creative way to display our room in the background. Again, these photos turned out great because the two large windows right next to the mirror let in a ton of light. Last but not least, I added the Sweetness Everywhere and rose doodle from Pinterest to fill the white space and draw the viewer’s eye.

This is a funny one. We decided to go to the Fashion Mall at Keystone on Saturday night and walk around, and like usual, the parking lot was PACKED. We circled through the lot a few times before finally grabbing a spot, and since it was almost sunset and it would be dark by the time we left the mall, we jumped out to snap a quick pic. A car pulled up behind us thinking we’d be leaving afterward, so they sat behind our car THE ENTIRE TIME as we took 50+ pictures. I was chuckling to myself thinking about how many spots they missed out on while waiting for ours. I thought the lighting in this image was going to make it a total fail, but it actually added a really cool split effect! I love the peach and teal blue tones the editing enhanced in it as well. I photoshopped the text and stars in to make it feel a little more collage-y/editorial. Very happy with this one!

Last but not least, this photo was taken inside simply because I didn’t want to go outside because it was cold out (lol) — and I think Justin was still in his boot at the time, so I didn’t want him to have to go outside either. This was taken in the open space by our front door in our living room area, and again, the lighting made it work with little effort (truly a blessing). To my surprise, a bunch of these photos ended up being winners. I previously posted a collage with four of the images, then this photo later on by itself. The goal of this photo was to showcase winter outfit inspiration and the new backpack. I added the pink color straight from my blog as a back layer and dashed outline to give it more of a 2D/3D effect, and the tape stripe is a theme I use throughout my designs all the time, so it works.

That’s all for today! Do you like these kind of posts? If you do, I can start doing them on a regular basis once a month or so — let me know! Thanks so much for stopping by and enjoy the rest of your day!