148 THE POWER OF VISUAL STORYTELLING Like a Pro: 15 Tips for Social Media Photography While you don’t need a professional pho- for your social media imagery. When tographer on standby, you do need a steady snapping photos, always take more than hand and an understanding that practice you think you need, and take them in a makes perfect. Simply learn a few tips from range of angles, setups, and so on. If it the pros and companies that are generating helps, map out a storyboard or shot list best-in-class social imagery, and you’ll be of images you’ll need to keep your team producing engaging images in no time. going during a photo shoot. 4. Frame your shot. Look for opportunities 1. Up your resolution. Make sure to start to create a natural frame around your with the highest resolution possible, images, whether it’s with nature or with whether you’re using a smartphone tangible items. If shooting from a wider camera or a professional one. iPhones, angle, closely inspect everything that’s for example, have a high dynamic range happening in the background. In general, (HDR) setting, which results in a good the less cluttered the background is, the quality image. When making collages, better. This will make the image more make sure the images are of a similar exciting. resolution. You can always diminish the 5. Use closed-cropped images. Close- resolution later as needed. cropped, uncluttered images allow the 2. Apply the rule of thirds. Professional viewers to quickly and easily see what photographers recommend the rule of you’re trying to showcase, whether it’s thirds, which means dividing up your mouthwatering food or the intricate image into thirds either horizontally or details on a necklace. vertically and aligning your image slightly 6. Work the angles. Whether you’re point- off center to make it more engaging. ing up, down, straight on, to the left, 3. Variety matters. They say variety is the or to the right, experiment with angling spice of life, a mantra that rings true your images. A photo may become more