How To Bookstagram Part 2

I recently surpassed 30,000 followers on Instagram so to celebrate, I decided that it was time to post “How To Bookstagram Part 2” 🙂 Starting on April 2, 2016, I will try my best to post a bookstagram themed post on my blog every Saturday so if you have any questions about bookstagram or have any ideas/requests on what I should talk about for this new “blog series” please let me know! 😀

Please keep in mind that this is just how I take photos, edit them, and whatnot!  I will be dividing this “How to Bookstagram” guide into three parts.  Part two is all about how I take photos and edit them.

Once I have all three parts up, I will link them here:

Part 1 – Intro/Basic Tips

Part 3 – Followers/Likes/Conclusion

overview:

What is bookstagram? Bookstagram is Instagram’s platform for book lovers.  The community is filled with people who want to share their love for books through photographs. 

my personal experience:

I have been a part of the bookstagram community since January 2, 2015.  My username is @celinereads. I was not sure how I felt about joining the community because at the time, I only owned around ten books and I thought that there was no way that I was going to be able to post regularly.  After I joined bookstagram, I started to buy more books to build my collection.  Keep in mind that you do not have to have a large collection of books to join the bookstagram community.  You can take photos of your own books, library books, e-books.  Basically anything that will allow you to discuss books with other book lovers.

how I take my photos

I have been asked countless amount of times what camera I use to take my photos and what filter/app I use to edit my photos so I am going to discuss it all here.

1. Camera:  I use a Sony Nex-5N to take the majority of my photos.  Sometimes, I use the camera that comes with the iPhone 6s+, and no one really notices a difference so it is not necessary to use a DSLR camera.  All you really need is any kind of camera.  If you are just starting out with bookstagram, I would suggest using your phone camera or any camera that you already have and then investing in a better camera later on, but it is not necessary to use a big, fancy camera!
2. Lighting:  I talked about lighting in part one so I will briefly discuss it here.  I highly recommend using natural lighting when taking photos.  The colors look more realistic and vibrant, in my opinion, but you can always edit a photo to make the lighting exactly how you want it.
3. Editing:  To me, editing is the most important step. Yes, even more important than the camera you use. When I first started posting photos, I used the Leila filter on the Afterlight app for all my photos.  When I used the ripped out pages of a book as my background for a few weeks, I used the Russ filter on the Afterlight app for those photos.  Now, I don’t filter my photos.  All I do is use the Instagram app to adjust the brightness, contrast, structure, warmth, saturation, and sharpness.  Here is an example of why I think that editing is the most important step.  On the left is the photo without any editing and the right is edited.
    
   

   Not Edited

   

   Edited

    

   

   Not Edited

   

   Edited
4. Theme: By theme, I mean editing your photos all the same way or using the same background consistently.  Having a theme isn’t necessary in my opinion, but I think that it makes an Instagram feed look more neat. For me, I don’t use the same backgrounds.  I like to switch it around, but I always edit my photos the same way, which is super bright and colorful.
5. Have Fun:  Don’t think of bookstagramming as a chore!  Bookstagram, like reading, should be a hobby not a requirement.  I said this in part one, but if you don’t feel like posting or taking photos, don’t!  I find that taking photos of books helps me channel my inner creativeness and it makes me happy so if you’re getting bored of taking photos, switch up the background or find a new, creative way to show off those beautiful books!

conclusion

I hope this post helpful for anyone who is new to bookstagram or for anyone in general!  As always, if you have a bookstagram account and you want me to check it out, feel free to put your username in the comments and I will definitely check it out!

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xoxo,

Celine