How to Take Your Own Stock Photography Flat Lays

One thing that you’ll see on some of the most successful bloggers’ social media accounts and blog posts is stock photography. People love looking at high quality, perfectly lit, and beautiful pictures. This means you need stock photography.

When I first started blogging I was spending hours looking for the perfect image that I needed for a blog post or on social media and it was exhausting.  All that time and effort to find a picture that was “good enough” not even exactly what I was looking for. So, I started researching how to take my own stock photos. And, you know what? It is so much easier than I thought!

All those bright white beautiful Instagram pictures are probably taken in someone’s living room. I already have an awesome camera for my photography but you definitely don’t need one (unless you want to sell your stock pictures). But, if you are wanting to take pictures for your Instagram or blog posts then a smartphone will do just fine.

Have you been thinking about starting a blog but worried about how to do it? Check out my post with a step-by-step guide on how to set one up!

What will you need?

Lights

I don’t have any fancy lighting besides the sun. All my stock pictures are taken near a window that lets in a decent amount of diffused light. You will have to experiment a bit as to find the in your house that gets the best light. You want to find a brightly lit window that doesn’t allow direct sunlight onto what you want to photograph.

Diffused light just means the light isn’t hitting what you are photographing directly.  So, if you were standing in the shade of a building on a bright sunny day the shade is still brightly lit that is diffused light. You don’t want direct light in photography because it causes harsh shadows. Not having a ton of shadows is very important for stock photography. I use a reflector like the one below to brighten up my pictures and love it! It has a gold side if you want to reflect warm light and it has a silver side which is perfect to reflect cool light (I almost always use the silver side when I am shooting stock photography because my backgrounds are almost always white).

Camera

Not to state the obvious but you will need a camera. If you are looking to upgrade your gear to a great camera then I recommend the Nikon D750 it is the perfect all-use full frame camera. My favorite lens is the Nikon 50mm f/1.4 (but unless you are doing up close newborn photography or want to focus on an extremely narrow depth of field like on a specific petal of a flower you don’t need the f/1.4 and the f/1.8 will do perfectly fine plus it’s a couple hundred cheaper). This isn’t a camera body/lens post so I am not going to go in-depth about full-frame cameras and prime lenses.

But, basically a full-frame doesn’t crop images like a DX does and a prime lens doesn’t zoom. Which I know not having a zoom sounds like a bad thing but I promise it’s not! It takes clearer pics, gives you more control over the depth of field and allows you to control the light coming into the lens easier. It is my go-to lens for everyday photography, portraits, and stock pics.

Action

Finally, you will need props and poster boards. You want a matte finish poster board (which is great because you can get them super cheap) because the gloss finish will catch the light and it will look shiny and you will have to spend a lot of time editing. Stage your pictures to have the least amount of editing as possible. You don’t want to spend hours at your computer editing something that could have been fixed in camera in about 30 seconds. I always use white poster boards but if you don’t have a light theme for your social media feed or blog then you can use a different color poster board.

When setting up I will lay the posterboard down on my dining room table with the props I will use on the edges outside of the frame so I can easily switch them as I transition through pictures. I usually stand on my dining room chair to get a better angle of my flat lays but if you have a place on the floor that is well lit that would be perfect. I hold the reflector in one hand and my camera in the other. You want to eliminate as many shadows as possible to reduce the need for extensive editing. To edit my photos I use Adobe Lightroom but if you are using your smartphone I recommend using the apps Snapseed and Aviary.

Styling

Styling stock photography can be a bit tricky but it is so fun! You will want the picture to look natural and not overly posed. Which can be tricky because it takes very particular posing and props to make a picture look natural. I like to add my large items first then fill in some of the spaces with smaller props. So if I am taking letter board pictures I will place the letter board where I want it on the poster board and fill in around it will various size props. Letterboard pictures are really fun to style because you get to mix text in with the props.

If I am styling regular stock photos I like to mix up the amount of white space in each shot. You can have a small number of props in the corner, cover the entire poster board with props or anything in between. How you style your pictures will depend on what you want to use the image for. I like to have photos that have a lot of white space for my Instagram posts. While for my Pinterest image backgrounds I like to have a poster board that is covered fairly well with props. See examples below.

  

I love taking my own stock photography and it is so simple. I hope this helps you take your social media or website to the next level!