The new insta photography: lockdown style

Lockdown has had its fair shares of ups and obviously downs, it’s ironically in the name. But if you’re a social media fanatic like myself, I enjoy taking photos and sharing the love virtually. Pre lockdown, I took the majority of my photos actually at home. I tend to do home styling of my outfits and fashion inspo, so finding styles to put together for my Instagram wasn’t too tricky for myself. If you’re a city blogger or lifestyle, I can 100% understand how tricky it would be to keep content up and running normally.

But, for me I wanted to switch it up a bit. During this time, I’ve definitely found it hard to keep motivated. I’ve completed all of my Fashion student work at university, so I’m waiting for results ahhh! But apart from that, I’ve been left sitting in my room thinking how to make myself a bit different at home, whether that’s my hair, clothes, food, lifestyle whatnot, just something needed a change.

So I decided to take some photos outside, now lemme tell you, this weather has been BEAUTIFUL, so it wasn’t hard for me to want to take some outfit pics outside , BUT. My problem was I don’t have a tripod and I take photos on my phone for social media, so the balance I had to make my phone do took longer than the photo taking haha! Placed against two arm chairs came these following photos.

If you’ve followed me for a while, you know my photo style tends to be me standing in front of my mirror, which has been relatively successful for myself. However, i didn’t want to be ‘samey’ – I wanted a switch of photographic style & ive found this time to really be effective in that aspect. Using a self timer is a whole new world to me, not only easy to just press it, but the other side is to keep thinking of poses. Mirror ones are fiineeee, this is another level haha!

You can get huge photo inspiration from Pinterest, I have lots of boards on there filled with ideas, styles and just a wide range of inspo for different occasions. It’s a great way to get comfortable in front of a camera.

My styling for those photos was actually thrown together, I was planning on getting some photos of my hair down, but I then started to just take some and then these came out! I never really plan to take my photos, i just get dressed for the day and if I feel to take some for social media then I definitely do. But during this time motivation has been difficult as I’ve mentioned, so for other days I scroll through my camera roll and post some past holiday beach photos onto my Instagram as those make me happy to just look at.

Since these photos, people started engaging with my content more, which was new to me! My likes or whatnot have always been pretty inconsistent haha, Instagram algorithms and all that jazz. But since these were posted, I’ve had new followers which has been positive and interesting! So I decided to take more.

As one lockdown restriction has been slightly lifted, only slightly, my boyfriend took these photos of me. I haven’t hugged him since beginning of March, so it’s upsetting to not be able to touch him for so long, hugs are everything to me as well so it’s very sad for us. He’s at uni studying to be a doctor, so currently he’s working in hospitals as an MA so we are extra careful. I’m incredibly proud of him & everything the NHS is doing to help, save and protect lives. Forever thankful. These photos shown were in his garden & I was having a socially distanced picnic with him.

I never wear dresses, I have maybe three that I love but tend to wear on holidays so they don’t get out much, but during this lovely weather we’ve had this dress came out & the lovely messages I received were heart warming. The dress is from Missguided! Yellow will be my colour this year I think, pops of yellow will be shown in my outfits for the near future.

The dress is a milkmaid style, which I NEED more tops in. The milkmaid style is such a nice trend for this summer & autumn. It’s a style I’ve always liked but especially this year I’m seeing many more people wearing them. This shade of yellow is also very warming, I will wear this dress next time with some Dr Martens, the Sinclair ones!

The point of this post today is to inspire you to change up your photographic style if needed. I never thought my ‘style’ of pics would change much. But using a self timer is actually really interesting and allows yourself to be more free moving and use your clothes as a story when styling them. My mirror selfies will always be with me hahah, but I think using this time to switch up some styles has been beneficial for my social media, ie Instagram & content creation.

Lockdown photography has been different for so many bloggers. Ive mostly seen people take their mirrors out to their garden & the white bed sheet inspo ones. Personally I enjoy more natural photos / candid ones, so I love to see those! Lockdown photography is taking its toll on bloggers, influencers and the whole social media community. But it’s great to switch up your style and invite new people to join your content.

Also, side note, I’ve just purchased a beautiful sewing machine aaaaahhhh! I’ve been hand sewing pieces for a while now during lockdown, which has kept me busy, but I really wanted a sewing machine, so meet Maggie the machine. (Yes my sewing machine had to have a name).

Let’s see what I can make with this soon!

IG: soph.h

YouTube: youtube.com/sophiehenderson

Stay safe my loves & hope you’re all well and happy. Happy reading!

Love, Soph x