what's up guys! in today's video i'm going to be sharing with you my absolute
best tips and tricks for flat lay styling... so what the heck is flat lay
styling you might ask?.... and I will show you! let me go ahead and flip the camera around for
you guys because I have some setups here that I'm ready to show you. so flat lay
styling is simply styling things completely flat and shooting from above.
so having an aerial perspective. and this is something that became pretty popular
through Instagram. so I'll show you a few different backgrounds that I use and my
absolute best tips for getting the best possible flat lay images. the first tip
that I have for you guys today is to use a completely clean and minimal
background. Why we do that is just to keep it really classic, elegant, and not
distracting/ so as you can see if I were to use something like maybe a rug a busy
rug on a hotel floor, or even just a tabletop where you can see other things
in the frame, it's distracting and it would take away from the image, right? so
the first thing I do is I start with a background that complements whatever it
is that I am photographing. oftentimes and weddings I'm photographing
stationery, flowers, rings, lots of pretty flat items... so we're gonna start with
just a canvas that I wrapped in some fabric. so I simply got a canvas from an
art supply store and I went ahead and I wrapped it in fabric. so when you shoot
from above you can't really tell. so the first thing
that I'll tell you the first tip that I have for you and sorry I'm a little bit
shaky is to start large to small. so the first thing I would do is gather all the
things that I will be styling and keep them in a pile nearby and then start
large to small. so what I did first, of course, is I put down this tray because I
wanted to utilize the tray so that's the first thing I put down. I decided that I
wanted this to be in the center but kind of have it tilted off to the side a
little bit. then I went ahead and I added a ribbon. you could also add this ribbon
underneath the tray so that's just stylistic decisions. this is kind of like
a peachy warm ribbon so I think it went really nicely with the colors of the
calligraphy so if you see this calligraphy is kind of a coppery tone so
I'm trying to stick to one family of colors which is my next tip. when I
added in my stamps I wanted to make sure it was kind of in that same coppery like
burnt color and that way everything complements beautifully. then I go ahead
and I add my ring so this is nice if you are working on a wedding day or you're
doing an engagement session or maybe just a styled shoot. and you want to make
sure that the backed up images look very very similar to what never you go in and
you get that close up (macro) so it's really nice if you go ahead and you have a shot
like this and then you go ahead and you get your
close-up shot they complement each other really really well the next tip that I
have for you when you're styling when you're laying out and you're deciding
where you want your items to go is to consider your crop so with this image
you could actually shoot this horizontally or vertically I shot this
vertically so I like that the ribbon is kind of coming up the top and coming
down the bottom kind of continuing your eye and keeping that flow going but if
you wanted to make it even more fitting for maybe a horizontal shot you could
add in a few more elements that I got from this same calligrapher and I'll go
ahead and I'll add her information in the information section once Ivery
upload this video but if you add in a few more pieces or even move some of
these stamps to the outside it kind of continues your eye so if you would crop
at the top crop at the bottom and you have a really beautiful horizontal shot
so I hope that helps you guys out the next tip that I have is to use your
styling aid so we've already been using them we have vintage stamps here we have
ribbons I'll show you guys some more that I have here as well and if it's a
wedding day you can use the flowers you can use the Garter or any kind of
jewelry details that they have during the day but I find that vintage stamps
are a really classic addition that really don't distract from what's going
on and of course ribbons are great too I'm
obsessed with ribbons one quick tip when photographing these is to use a
small silver reflector just to get in there and fill in those shadows as you
can see it really makes a difference I get these through Amazon I think this is
like the 10 inch reflector it's really great it has a gold side silver side and
it stores this tiny so it's really great all right so on the same vein as styling
another tip that I'll give you is that less is more you don't want to overwhelm
your viewer with way too many things so if you add slowly you can take a picture
keep adding take a picture and look at the back of your camera if you're
shooting digital look and see what feels off is the composition heavy on the top
if you turn your camera upside down and look at the image upside down that's a
good indicator of your composition if it feels top-heavy or right heavy you'll
kind of know so you'll stop looking at the elements for their detail and start
looking at the elements of their weight and that way you can kind of tell
compositionally how are you doing another tip that I have for you is to
layer pieces so like we did with the tray try to have things touching each
other so that not every single thing is completely compartmentalized it helps
the eye flow for your visuals we talked about the reflector and I'll show you
let me go ahead another one so like we talked about we have a theme of colors
here so let's say that I was going to do another style oh we could do something
with like blues and greens so if we were to do this one this is blue kind of pick
up some of these sea foaming colors maybe I'd like this ribbon I think these
pieces work well together I probably wouldn't use this background let me see
I might use something more like this warmer like oatmeal tone yeah so if I
put this here and again I would probably lean towards a vertical for this and I
would just put like a few stamps at the bottom and then I draped this ribbon I
might open it but I have one hand for the camera right now but I might drape
the ribbon over here I'm just gonna hide that little white guy
and then put that there and I think that's just a really clean design
another thing you could add would be the three wedding rings right here so that
way have all the interest on the right side or you could move things from side
to side layer that kind of thing so anyway guys I hope that this helps you
and gives you some flat light styling tips I'm gonna go ahead and add some
information to the content on the bottom so that you guys know where all this
stuff came from if you have questions feel free to ask I would be happy to
answer them and I hope you guys have a fantastic week I'll see you guys next
Wednesday bye guys