Taking A Great Photo For Your Facebook Page (Behind The Scenes)

Laying out the shot.

One of the greatest things about the Internet today is how visual it is – a far cry from its text-based beginnings. At Agency Entourage, we encourage our clients to take advantage of that fact and use photos and illustrations to engage their audience on social media, blogs and more. Today, we did a mini photo shoot for one of our clients, Chalkboard China, and used various methods to help us create high quality, professional looking photos.

Below, I’d like to share some tips to help you produce polished pictures that look like they were snapped by a pro:

• Use a simple, clean backdrop. Find an area where the wall is smooth and uncluttered. You don’t want to see the edges of the office bulletin board or a smattering of post-it notes. Your background should enhance whatever is in your foreground. We chose a piece of art that usually lives in our entryway to give us a festive feel. Don’t be afraid to get creative, either. As long as your subject stays within the confines of the background, it will turn out great.
  

  We used a piece of artwork for our backdrop.

• Choose the right lighting. We shot this photo in our conference room, which is illuminated by several overhead fluorescent lights and a window. That type of lighting is perfect for meetings, but not so accommodating for capturing pictures. We turned off the overhead lights, and used only the natural light coming from the window as well as candles.
• Levels, levels, levels! One thing that many stellar photographs have in common is that they use levels to give the viewer a nice variety. For this shoot, we used books, trays and candles to visually break up our composition. We also staggered the objects to give more depth. It may look weird when you’re setting up, but trust us – using different heights and depths will really make your photos pop!

Voilá – the finished photo!