How to Shoot Fashion Content for Instagram

Living in a city such as Manchester, I'm no stranger to shooting with fashion influencers. Shooting with fashion bloggers, influencers and content creators can be a great source of income as a photographer, and, generally speaking, it's a brilliant way of creating a regular and consistent source of income as a freelance photographer.

Top Tips

Whether you're a photographer looking for tips on shooting fashion content for Instagram, or you're an influencer yourself looking for tips, let's discuss my top tips on shooting fashion content (specifically for Instagram) and how you can even use your phone to shoot similar content.

Tip One: Location

I've discussed location scouting a lot, but one of the key things when shooting fashion is ensuring that the location matches the styling and works coherently.

Here are some simple steps to help you to achieve that:

Think about the vibe and the genre. For example, if it's sportswear that you're shooting then the chances are you won't be shooting in an expensive bar or restaurant but rather a running track or a basketball court - something that's more appropriate for the outfit.

Try to match your colours. For example, if there's a yellow accent on an outfit, trying to find a yellow accent in your location can help to tie everything together well. It's a good idea to acquaint yourself with the concept of colour theory.

If all else fails, go minimal. Minimal locations work well for outfit photos because there's not a lot to distract from the outfit or the clash and interfere with it.

Tip Two: Plan Out Your Shoot

Planning out your time and the locations that you want to shoot in before the shoot, however roughly, can be really instrumental in ensuring that your shoot runs smoothly. It will mean that you're able to work more efficiently and save time on travelling between locations.

For example, I like to map out an appropriate order for my locations and advise the model in which order to where the outfits match the locations. It's also a good idea to choose a location that encompasses a lot of different locations or backdrops so that you're not travelling a considerable length between outfits and wasting time.

Tip Three: Bulk Shoot

Bulk shooting refers to shooting a large amount of content per shoot, day or session. This generally saves you time in the long run and means that you have content saved up for a considerable amount of time. If you're out shooting already, why not shoot as much of your content that you can in one day?

When you are bulk shooting, remember to also change up the location with each outfit. This makes it less obvious that you've shot all of the content in the same day (and makes your work rate look a lot more impressive to those Instagram followers).

Tip Four: Consider Your Composition

When it comes to shooting content for fashion bloggers, you want to ensure that you're capturing a wide array of different shots: from full body shots to show off the full outfits, to closer crops to hone in on the details of an outfit.

There are also some things you want to consider, when it comes to creating these compositions. Namely, you want to think about the angle in which you're taking a photograph. For example, shooting at a lower angle can be more flattering when trying to elongate the legs but you want to make sure that you don't distort the body too much.

Remember that you're also shooting for Instagram and that the Instagram crop is likely to be different to the aspect ratio in which you're shooting. Because of this, you want to ensure that you're leaving some headroom and footroom (the space between the edge of the frame and your subject) in your full body shots.

Tip Four: Optimise for Instagram

Just as you are optimising your image crop for Instagram, you also want to consider which content is going to perform best on Instagram. For example, shooting in portrait orientation will take up more space on people's feed and so they'll be more likely to see and interact with the post.

Similarly, consider utilising carousels, which is an Instagram feature that is likely to increase your engagement. You can make use of this feature by including shots from the same outfit that are similar, or maybe different variations of the shot. For example, you could have a full body image and a detail image of the same outfit within one post/carousel.

Shooting With Your Phone

Whether you're shooting with the newest DSLR or the oldest camera phone, all of the above points remain valid, but there are a few things that you want to consider if you're shooting with your phone:

I like to try and shoot the flattest version of an image. There are options to use filters within a phone, but it's easier to add a filter in a post than it is to remove one you've added as you've taken the photo.

Shooting in burst mode, or utilising continuous shooting modes, can be a great way to capture more candid and natural movement, which will help you communicate a more authentic vibe on Instagram.

We can edit our photos using free apps, such as VSCO, so don't stress if you don't have access to industry-standard software such as Lightroom and Photoshop. Apps such as VSCO will allow us to do everything from simply brightening up an image to applying a full preset or colour adjustment.

I hope you've enjoyed this guide and found some useful tips within it! If you're looking for more photography-based tips, head over to my YouTube or my Vocal profile to read more!