Review | Capture Your Style
On my holiday to Mexico I read the book Capture Your Style, written by Aimee Song.
For people who don't know Aimee, she is the blogger behind Song Of Style where she writes about fashion and lifestyle. She is been featured on the Forbes 30 Under 30 list and has collaborated with several top luxury brands.
Her book Capture Your Style is an how-to Instagram guide with insider tips, either if you are new to Instagram or want to become better at it.
In this blogpost I will talk about what I have kept in mind after reading the book and also what I use now to post photos on my Instagram. I will go chapter by chapter and then do an overall conclusion.
Hope you enjoy! And I do spoil a bit so don't read my blog if you still want to read it yourself, or do read it and then you will see you have taken the right choice of buying this book.
1. The Ins & Outs of Instagram
In the first chapter Aimee tells a lot about her own life, how she got to be a blogger, her experiences and how she sees Instagram.
For beginners who know nothing about Instagram, it's the perfect manual to learn about specific terms etc. For others, the book is perfect to become even better at this photo game.
The first thing I learned in this chapter is to ad grid lines on your camera as this will help you to shoot straight pictures. You can ad this by going to settings > photos and camera > put grid on. If this doesn't help you to straighten your pictures, you can always adjust them later on in a specific app.
Aimee talks a lot about "the grid", this means you should always think in 9's or 12's if you look at your Instagram. You need to have a cohesive story by subject, filter, color scheme or even crop size but you do need to try to change your type of pictures often so it doesn't become boring to look at.
2. Capture Your Style
In this chapter, Aimee teaches us how to take photos, edit them and how to post them on your Instagram. She talks mostly about how to take outfit pictures, more detailed pictures and the most important photo of them all; a selfie.
Aimee uses four editing apps, namely Snapseed (to adjust areas), Facetune (similar to photoshop), VSCO and Instagram (both for filters).
The "ootd" has to be a harmony between your outfit and the landscape behind it. It doesn't always need to be a head-to-toe look. And an ootd is best when shot angled up.
With a "selfie", you need to find your own perfect angle. Aimee finds it best to shoot her selfies outdoor, or when you can't go outside, to take a selfie with a lot of light. The best moment is just after sunrise or before sunset.
3. Become a Storyteller
In this chapter, you learn about making a story for your Instagram with a begin, mid and ending about a trip or even a day activity.
She tells you also about everything you need to know on how to take food, travel and decor pictures. She also tells about clichés but she says that doesn't mean you can't use them. If it fits, it sits, or stays but she does say you need to differentiate enough with your pictures and always be creative.
You can also use Instagram to research things and places, and that you don't need to be shy to ask people things. This means Aimee approves you to act like an FBI-agent sometimes.
4. Find & Grow your Audience
First, it's all about hashtags like which ones to use and what is too much... She says you can only use 5 hashtags and have to put all your others in a reaction beneath the pictures.
Like ooopsss, I have about 20 hashtags everytime but if I like it that way, it's okay right? Sorry if it does bother you guys :(
You can also make you own custom hashtag like I did when I was on my Erasmus in Paris. I used the hashtag JulesàParis. This is a cool thing because all the pictures taken with that hashtag, will be put together under that hashtag.
You can also geotag, tag brands and do mentions to get more noticed by people which will help you to gain more followers.
You just need to become part of the bigger conversation Instagram has. You can't ignore people, you have to react, ask questions, don't creep but do share the love Instagram has.
5. Instagold
In the final chapter of her book, Aimee enlightens you with how you should use Instagram for your businesses. Especially how to and which strategy to.
My conclusion
As you can see I remembered a lot from Aimee's book because I really liked to read it as she gives so much examples of herself and that makes it so much easier for us to get what she explaining exactly. I do pay more attention to what I post and if I'm not sure about a certain picture, I will just wait for another because I like my feed to be perfect.
So you can see I pay more attention to my overall grid and always try to work with three, six, nine or twelve pictures when I post something. I started with doing this when I was on holiday to Mexico. My trip had two grids of nine pictures, one is more with green colors and the other is with blue colors.
I also made sure I had a begin, during and ending to my Mexico trip, a picture when I left for Mexico, a looot of pictures from during my trip and a picture when I flew back.
I make my grid work by always using the same filter because I think this is the easiest way to do it (I might make a short separate blog about which app I use, which filter and how to by using an picture example).
I hope you enjoyed reading this blog. If you haven't read the book yet but you do love Instagram and posting pictures, I would really recommend this book because it's really nice to hear from a famous blogger how she works with Instagram and how she experiences everything. There's so much you can learn from her.
For people who don't know Aimee, she is the blogger behind Song Of Style where she writes about fashion and lifestyle. She is been featured on the Forbes 30 Under 30 list and has collaborated with several top luxury brands.
Her book Capture Your Style is an how-to Instagram guide with insider tips, either if you are new to Instagram or want to become better at it.
In this blogpost I will talk about what I have kept in mind after reading the book and also what I use now to post photos on my Instagram. I will go chapter by chapter and then do an overall conclusion.
Hope you enjoy! And I do spoil a bit so don't read my blog if you still want to read it yourself, or do read it and then you will see you have taken the right choice of buying this book.
1. The Ins & Outs of Instagram
In the first chapter Aimee tells a lot about her own life, how she got to be a blogger, her experiences and how she sees Instagram.
For beginners who know nothing about Instagram, it's the perfect manual to learn about specific terms etc. For others, the book is perfect to become even better at this photo game.
The first thing I learned in this chapter is to ad grid lines on your camera as this will help you to shoot straight pictures. You can ad this by going to settings > photos and camera > put grid on. If this doesn't help you to straighten your pictures, you can always adjust them later on in a specific app.
Aimee talks a lot about "the grid", this means you should always think in 9's or 12's if you look at your Instagram. You need to have a cohesive story by subject, filter, color scheme or even crop size but you do need to try to change your type of pictures often so it doesn't become boring to look at.
2. Capture Your Style
In this chapter, Aimee teaches us how to take photos, edit them and how to post them on your Instagram. She talks mostly about how to take outfit pictures, more detailed pictures and the most important photo of them all; a selfie.
Aimee uses four editing apps, namely Snapseed (to adjust areas), Facetune (similar to photoshop), VSCO and Instagram (both for filters).
The "ootd" has to be a harmony between your outfit and the landscape behind it. It doesn't always need to be a head-to-toe look. And an ootd is best when shot angled up.
With a "selfie", you need to find your own perfect angle. Aimee finds it best to shoot her selfies outdoor, or when you can't go outside, to take a selfie with a lot of light. The best moment is just after sunrise or before sunset.
3. Become a Storyteller
In this chapter, you learn about making a story for your Instagram with a begin, mid and ending about a trip or even a day activity.
She tells you also about everything you need to know on how to take food, travel and decor pictures. She also tells about clichés but she says that doesn't mean you can't use them. If it fits, it sits, or stays but she does say you need to differentiate enough with your pictures and always be creative.
You can also use Instagram to research things and places, and that you don't need to be shy to ask people things. This means Aimee approves you to act like an FBI-agent sometimes.
4. Find & Grow your Audience
First, it's all about hashtags like which ones to use and what is too much... She says you can only use 5 hashtags and have to put all your others in a reaction beneath the pictures.
Like ooopsss, I have about 20 hashtags everytime but if I like it that way, it's okay right? Sorry if it does bother you guys :(
You can also make you own custom hashtag like I did when I was on my Erasmus in Paris. I used the hashtag JulesàParis. This is a cool thing because all the pictures taken with that hashtag, will be put together under that hashtag.
You can also geotag, tag brands and do mentions to get more noticed by people which will help you to gain more followers.
You just need to become part of the bigger conversation Instagram has. You can't ignore people, you have to react, ask questions, don't creep but do share the love Instagram has.
5. Instagold
In the final chapter of her book, Aimee enlightens you with how you should use Instagram for your businesses. Especially how to and which strategy to.
My conclusion
As you can see I remembered a lot from Aimee's book because I really liked to read it as she gives so much examples of herself and that makes it so much easier for us to get what she explaining exactly. I do pay more attention to what I post and if I'm not sure about a certain picture, I will just wait for another because I like my feed to be perfect.
So you can see I pay more attention to my overall grid and always try to work with three, six, nine or twelve pictures when I post something. I started with doing this when I was on holiday to Mexico. My trip had two grids of nine pictures, one is more with green colors and the other is with blue colors.
 |
| Blue grid |
 |
| Green grid |
I also made sure I had a begin, during and ending to my Mexico trip, a picture when I left for Mexico, a looot of pictures from during my trip and a picture when I flew back.
I make my grid work by always using the same filter because I think this is the easiest way to do it (I might make a short separate blog about which app I use, which filter and how to by using an picture example).
I hope you enjoyed reading this blog. If you haven't read the book yet but you do love Instagram and posting pictures, I would really recommend this book because it's really nice to hear from a famous blogger how she works with Instagram and how she experiences everything. There's so much you can learn from her.
Comments