🎶 "Willow" — Simon Jefferis 🎶
Hello!
Today, I thought it would be fun to give a tour of my Bookstagram.
And what that means is, essentially:
Giving you a behind-the-scenes kind of look of all the places that I visit to take photos for my Instagram.
If you don't follow me on Instagram, you don't have to.
I'll just put it on the side here for a reference.
I don't even need to make a tutorial video on this.
Because it is 𝘴𝘰 𝘴𝘪𝘮𝘱𝘭𝘦.
That literally all I do is:
Find a pretty background.
Hold up a book.
Take a picture.
And then boost up the saturation 𝘴𝘰 𝘩𝘪𝘨𝘩 it compensates for my lack of originality.
That's pretty much it.
And I figured that if I did an actual tutorial video, it would only be, like, two minutes long.
And so that's why I'm doing a Bookstagram tour instead.
This will be a behind-the-scenes look on almost all of my pictures.
I'm gonna divide this by the most common locations that I visit to take the pictures that I have.
And out of all of these, the most versatile and colorful location that I use is the NEON District.
🎶 "Willow" — Simon Jefferis 🎶
NEON stands for New Energy Of Norfolk and it is my city's first official arts district.
There's lots of cultural places like museums, opera houses, glass studios, tattoo shops.
But the most notable feature is all of the murals.
There is 𝘢 𝘭𝘰𝘵 of public art everywhere you go.
Usually what I do when I use these backgrounds is:
I try to connect it to the book cover either by aesthetic or by subject matter.
So for aesthetic, usually it's trying to make the colors of the book cover pop out.
Like if I read a book that has a pink cover—
I'm gonna find a mural that has the same or similar hues and prop it next to that.
🎶 "Willow" — Simon Jefferis 🎶
The murals range from subject matter.
But what I've noticed is that there are a lot that have a sci-fi theme.
There's one with a green, suited woman with horns.
And some weird, mythical blue creatures.
And a giant, green eyeball.
And it's very trippy-looking.
So I like using that backdrop to show off more eccentric-looking covers in the books that I'm reading.
🎶 "Willow" — Simon Jefferis 🎶
Another mural I like is one that is very, very sci-fi.
It's a painting of this futuristic woman looking out into outer space.
So naturally, I use that as a backdrop for my sci-fi books.
🎶 "Willow" — Simon Jefferis 🎶
One street I like to hit up is called Magazine Lane.
Which is literally just an empty alleyway where the entire wall is decked out with a bunch of murals from different artists.
When I was reading books for Blackathon, I visited this alleyway to take pictures there.
Because a lot of the artists that did these murals are Black.
There's this one mural based on the Harlem Renaissance.
So I used that as the backdrop for 𝘉𝘪𝘯𝘨𝘰 𝘓𝘰𝘷𝘦.
🎶 "Fat Bao" — Vhsceral 🎶
There's this one spot with some awesome graffiti.
Which reminded me of the Brooklyn neighborhood that the characters in 𝘗𝘳𝘪𝘥𝘦 live in.
🎶 "Fat Bao" — Vhsceral 🎶
And there's this really long mural of a sky with different square blocks.
That I used to match with the colors of some other book covers like 𝘛𝘩𝘦 𝘍𝘳𝘪𝘦𝘯𝘥 and 𝘏𝘦𝘭𝘪𝘶𝘮.
🎶 "Fat Bao" — Vhsceral 🎶
I also want to note that this artsy-fartsy shit isn't limited to just the walls either.
There's also artwork on the benches.
A couple years ago, the city had art students paint benches around the district.
So it's a really nice way to add color, literally, to public seating.
🎶 "Fat Bao" — Vhsceral 🎶
There's even a bit of color on the ground.
'Cause there was an artist and a team of volunteers who painted these accents on the sidewalk.
So you can see them wherever you walk.
🎶 "Fat Bao" — Vhsceral 🎶
And then the last mural that I want to show you is one called "Transparent Seas".
Which is actually a project that my workplace did for the community.
This is a 40-feet mural that uses light and color to transform the artwork.
So that when you pass by it, the lights will change and the artwork will turn into something different.
There's a lot of detail in this mural.
But so far, I have used it as the backdrop for 𝘊𝘢𝘵𝘣𝘰𝘺.
Because if you look closely, both of them have pink hues and a very subtle floral pattern in the background.
🎶 "Fat Bao" — Vhsceral 🎶
The mural that my workplace did is actually a good transition for the next location that I like to use for my Instagram.
Which is our office.
🎶 "Amsterdam in the Spring" — Simon Jefferis 🎶
I work at a digital ad agency, which means that our office is very modern-looking.
We have unique wallpaper.
🎶 "Amsterdam in the Spring" — Simon Jefferis 🎶
We have exposed brick walls.
🎶 "Amsterdam in the Spring" — Simon Jefferis 🎶
We have a café area with plants for me to rearrange and make some nice book layouts.
🎶 "Amsterdam in the Spring" — Simon Jefferis 🎶
And we have some artwork hung up on the wall too.
🎶 "Amsterdam in the Spring" — Simon Jefferis 🎶
But the one area that I take the most advantage of is our chalkboard canvas series.
This is a series of chalkboard drawings in our hallway that rotate regularly.
We get local artists to come into our office and draw something.
And it lives on for a temporary amount of time before it gets erased to make room for the next artist.
🎶 "Amsterdam in the Spring" — Simon Jefferis 🎶
Sometimes the drawing style might match the same drawing style as the book cover.
🎶 "Amsterdam in the Spring" — Simon Jefferis 🎶
Or sometimes the drawing will take place in the same location that a book takes place in.
🎶 "Amsterdam in the Spring" — Simon Jefferis 🎶
We also have our own library of design books.
And I will be doing a separate video for that.
So if you are interested in that, keep an eye out.
The next location that I want to share with you is my neighborhood.
🎶 "Insomnia" — Broke Boi 🎶
I live in a historical district with a lot of late Victorian houses and cobblestone roads.
It's obviously not as artistic as the other locations I've shown you.
But we gotta work with what we got.
So usually, I'll use more nature shots by taking pictures of the flowers.
🎶 "Insomnia" — Broke Boi 🎶
The foliage.
🎶 "Insomnia" — Broke Boi 🎶
The ground.
🎶 "Insomnia" — Broke Boi 🎶
Some rocks.
🎶 "Insomnia" — Broke Boi 🎶
It's really more about using your environment as textures for the backdrop.
🎶 "Insomnia" — Broke Boi 🎶
If the textures match the cover of the book, that's even better.
For example, there's a really old church near where I live.
And I used the walls to match the grungy-looking cover for 𝘊𝘳𝘰𝘰𝘬𝘦𝘥 𝘒𝘪𝘯𝘨𝘥𝘰𝘮.
🎶 "Insomnia" — Broke Boi 🎶
There's also my apartment, which I don't really use that often because it's not aesthetically pleasing.
And that is because my roommate is a giant hoarder.
Literally everything you see in the apartment is junk that she's collected.
None of this is mine because I am a minimalist.
This couch isn't mine.
These pillows are not mine.
This cat isn't even mine. 💔
All of this is hers.
But throughout all of the chaos of her stuff—
I've tried to make it a little aesthetically pleasing by taking advantage of her posters.
🎶 "Insomnia" — Broke Boi 🎶
I got a nice shot of her bookshelf, back when she used to have it clean.
🎶 "Insomnia" — Broke Boi 🎶
And I've rearranged some of the little plants and flowers she has to do some overhead photos.
🎶 "Insomnia" — Broke Boi 🎶
It's not much, but it'll do.
I mean, it's better than what I currently have.
No, seriously.
The only thing I have is a bed.
As you can tell, I am an extreme minimalist.
Which means that I don't have a lot of fancy props to rearrange for a book flat lay.
What I've really ended up using for my Instagram is basically all of my surroundings.
Which brings me to the last thing that I use for my Bookstagram photos, which are my travels.
🎶 "The Last Cherry Blossom" — RudeManners 🎶
Whenever I travel, I always bring books with me.
Not just for reading, but also so that I can take photos of it too.
Even when you're staying in a different house, it opens up so many new opportunities for photos.
That's what I do whenever I stay at a friend's house or even at an Airbnb.
Unfortunately, I don't have any good videos from my trips.
Because I didn't start this YouTube thing until very recently.
But I do plan on going to Portugal in May.
And I'll definitely be vlogging my experience there.
With that in mind, I know that not everybody gets to have the advantage of living in a cool location.
Or can afford to travel regularly.
So I really encourage you to take advantage of what you 𝘥𝘰 have in your surroundings.
Even if it's not much.
Even if it's just a plain building, maybe it has an interesting texture that you can take a photo of.
Sometimes, if you frame things in a certain way with your camera—
You are able to connect your book cover better to your environment.
So just keep an eye out for these things.
And try to find the beauty in the very small, mundane everyday things.
Because that's really the way you can be creative.
Or at the very least, finding a cheap and easy way to take "pretty" pictures on Instagram.
So that pretty much wraps up my Bookstagram tour.
Before I end this video, I am contractually obligated to tell you that:
Once again, I have been sponsored by Skillshare.
And once again, I am a sellout.
Here's how you can tell when a video of mine is sponsored:
When I put a 𝘭𝘪𝘵𝘵𝘭𝘦 𝘣𝘪𝘵 of effort into actually editing it.
Skillshare is an online learning community with thousands of classes in design, business, technology, and more.
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The first 500 people who click on it get a free trial for two months.
There are actually lots and lots of classes specifically about photography.
And even if you only have a phone, there's tons that are about iPhone photography as well.
All of the pictures that you see on my Instagram were taken on my iPhone until I recently got a Pixel.
So yes, all of it is phone photography.
It is definitely possible to pull off.
And if you want to know the basic principles of it:
You can check out some of the classes that I am putting up on the screen here.
Check it out if you want to.
You don't have to.
I don't give a shit either way.
I'm just saying that if you 𝘢𝘳𝘦 interested in this kind of stuff:
I think that you would benefit from learning directly from those classes, 𝘧𝘳𝘰𝘮 𝘢𝘤𝘵𝘶𝘢𝘭 𝘱𝘳𝘰𝘧𝘦𝘴𝘴𝘪𝘰𝘯𝘢𝘭𝘴.
Instead of this random schmuck here.
But that's only if you want to.
Otherwise, don't forget to unsubscribe.
And. . .
Bye!
🎶 Music Outro 🎶